Lesson #1
Faith is Important to God.
Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
If we can’t please God without faith, then we need to understand what faith is and how it works according to the Bible. How does God define of faith? What does God look for when He is seeking a faith that pleases Him?
We have all come to a time in our lives when we realized that God is real and that Jesus Christ is the only way to Heaven and the only way to have a relationship with God. Our response to that revelation should be evident, even dramatic. Our belief in this profound truth should turn our world upside down. It should cause us to think, feel, and behave differently. If it doesn’t, then we really don’t understand who God is.
He created us for His good pleasure. If we understand that, we will want to do what He says.
Faith in God is expressed by our love for Him, and our love for Him is demonstrated by our reverence for His word and submission and obedience to His will.
John 14:15 If you love Me, keep My commandments.
John 14:21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
John 14:23-24 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. 24 He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.
Loving, willing obedience is the highest expression of faith in God. If we love God, we will act like it. If we truly believe in Him, we will strive to obey Him. Obedience is the demonstration of our faith. This expression of our faith is what pleases God.
Love is only known by its actions, by its behavior, how it responds, how it thinks. We see what this looks like in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8a Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails.
It is our love for God that empowers us to love others this way. It also empowers our faith to believe in God to receive His promises. Without the foundation of this love in our lives, faith to believe God for His promises will always seem to be just out of reach.
Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.
Our love for God is expressed by a living faith.
There are two kinds of faith mentioned in the Bible: A dead faith and a living faith.
A living faith to receive the promises of God hinges on our love for God. Our faith only works because of that love. Our faith to receive God’s promises will never rise above our expression of love for Him.
What Defines a Living Faith?
James 2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
Declaring that we believe something without corresponding action, or works that confirm our beliefs, would be like God creating Adam’s body from the dust of the ground and never breathing the breath of life into him. Faith must be animated. It is only revealed by some kind of living expression.
Genesis 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Simply believing that God is real is not evidence that we have faith in Him. We can make a bold declaration that we believe in God, but if our actions, words, and behaviors do not align with that declaration, our faith is dead, and dead things produce no fruit. This should be of great concern to many self-professing Christians.
It is only when we demonstrate our faith that our belief becomes a living thing. It is only by our actions that we breathe life into our faith and make it pleasing to God. Even demons believe that God is real, but God is not pleased with that belief because it is not true faith.
James 2:19-20 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! 20 But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?
It is impossible for Satan and all his demons to please God because they lack the accompanying works that demonstrate faith. Their faith is dead, and dead faith is not pleasing God.
So, what are the “works” that must accompany our faith to bring it to life? How do we demonstrate that we truly believe what we say we believe?
2 Corinthians 4:13 And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak,
The first and most important work that gives life to our faith is our words. The words we speak will reflect what we truly believe in our hearts. Our faith will always be revealed by what comes out of our mouths. If we truly believe, our conversation will reveal it. If we are filled with doubt and unbelief, that will also be revealed by what we say.
God created everything by His faith-filled words. The things that we can see with our physical eyes were made from things that we can’t see. Somehow, a living faith can create tangible things out of things we cannot see with the naked eye. Our physical reality was, and is shaped in the same way, by a living faith.
Faith starts as a seed
There is something extraordinary about our souls and how they respond to thoughts and words; every single thought we think is a seed that has the power and potential to grow into something significant and tangible. Thoughts carry ideas and create images in our hearts. When we speak words that express those thoughts, we release creative power that causes those thoughts and images to be created.
Words have creative power and prophetic implications, setting in motion a chain of events in the spirit realm that cause what we believe to gain substance, to become our reality.
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
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JESUS IS COMING!
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