Revelation About Faith vs. Facts and Feelings

 Faith is the evidence of things hoped for. It's not something that we still hope for.

It's something that has arriced.

Faith is the substance of things unseen. It's the recognition and reality of things that we do not see.

How did Moses survive and then thrive?

"By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible." (Hebrews 11:27)

We see by faith! Faith is not a feeling, and it is not based on unstable facts.

Faith is about seeing what is invisible, for what is invisible to the human sense is eternal in the most important sense:

"While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:18)

For a long time, I kept confusing feelings and the flesh with faith. My parents taught me to walk by flesh and sight rather than faith and spirit. They were so focused on themselves they didn't see a living Savior caring for them.

They really believed that they were all alone in the world, or that praying to God was something that they did as an exercise, an activity to earn some favor or support. But for most matters in their life, they lived as though they were on their own.

It's a tough life, that kind of self-imposed hardship. It's remarkable how I was able to get through the earlier years of my journey. Both my parents did not have the full and working knowledge of God's grace and peace at work in their lives.

God is real! Christ is Alive! We are not stock on this rock called Earth trying to live our own lives in our own effort. We have Him who has been from the beginning (1 John 2:13) and we are not alone in this fight:

"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)

Faith is about recognizing divine reality apart of our limited senses. Faith is about recognizing truth based on God's Word, not man's world.

Consider the first example of faith in the Hall of Faith (Hebrews 11):

"3Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." (Hebrews 11:3)

God's Word spoke the worlds into existence. Before the world, there was the Word.

John could not have said it more plainly:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)

Let's hear God's Word and believe that God has all the power that we need to get thorugh and thrive in this world. It's not about ourselves. It's about Himself. Christ Jesus died for us, rose for us, and lives for us after the power of an endless life at the right hand of His Father--and our Father!

Self-effort, man's striving, man's attempts to keep the law are NOT of faith:

"And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them." (Galatians 3:12)

Right before this point, writes clearly how the righteous live:

"But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith." (Galatians 3:22)

This verse is the Gospel in a verse, one of the most oft-repeated verses in the entire New Testament, and for good reason.

Faith is all about seeing Jesus, and seeing that He has Finished the Work. Self-effort, self, works, tiring and toiling under law, is all about man looking at his thoughts, his feelings, his efforts, his world, his own words and works -- and always coming up short. We cannot save ourselves. Man seeking to make himself wise became a fool, convinced that God was holding out on him, and thus partaking of a tree which was not good for man to eat.

The knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of the law, does not make us live good and godly lives. The Tree of Life, the Gospel of Grace, seeing Him who is Invisible by faith based on His Word, that is how we live and reign in life.

Now more than ever, everyone in the Body of Christ needs to stop focusing on their feelings and the facts before their senses, and start seeking greater revelation, to see Jesus at work in their lives and around their environs, based on faith, not our feelings, not our fantasies, not our make-believe attitudes.

It's time for us to make these prayers our priority, that we would see more, not try to do more; that we would believe more, not achieve more. For the more that we believe in Him, the more that we can receive from Him, and the more that He can achieve through us! AMEN!

" [I] cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints," (Ephesians 1:16-18)

and

"That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God." (Ephesians 3:16-19)