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)

So Quiet on the Inside

 

"Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth." (Psalm 46:10)

This has been a real transformation for me.

I have never felt so quiet, so cleansed, so clear, so clean on the inside.

I spent so much of my time thinking that I had to think, feel, do, act a certain way in order to have a clear connection and full revelation of all that my loving Father wanted to do through me and in me.

The torture, the pain, the strife was so great in my life. It was very difficult to get through life from one day to the next, as I was convinced that I had to make sure that I was quiet, or rather quieted inside.

Now I understand that my identity is fully in Christ, and no one can take that away.

It does not matter how I feel. It does not matter what is going on around me, or in me, or through me.

For the longest time, I was not aware of my solid, and unrelenting identity in Christ Jesus.

For the longest time, I was convinced that God would come or go in my life, depending on what I was thinking, what I was feeling, or what I was doing.

There was no stable data, no stability in my life. Was God happy with me? Would God be happy with me, sad with me if I did this or that?

This was the challenge that I faced for so long in my life. Today, I am happy to report that I both know and believe who I am in Christ Jesus.

I am the righteousness of God in Christ!

I am accepted in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:6)

Who I am and His life flowing in my has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with how I feel. It makes no difference how I may feel tomorrow. It makes no difference if the police pull me over, or if a corrupt judge lies about me and tries to put me in jail.

I don't stop being God's child just because bad things happen to me. That is a very important lesson for everyone of us to learn, and what we should all have derived from the experience of Joseph. He knew that he was his father's beloved son, even if he was kidnapped, sold into slavery, and for all intents and purposes dead to his own father.

The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man (Genesis 39:2). We need to identify with Him who has been from the beginning, not with ourselves, with our thoughts, feelings, or circumstances.

It's all about what Jesus has done, not what we need to do!

Nothing Will Separate Me From God's Love -- Including My Sin

"38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)

For the longest time, I used to believe that my sins, my thoughts, the perversions in my flesh had to be removed from me before I could understand, received, enjoy God's love.

It's amazing to me how I didn't understand this, even though I have been hearing this verse so many times before.

Nothing can separate me from God's love--and that is because I am now in Christ!

"But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:" (Ephesians 2:4-6)

This love is active and involved in my life. Nothing is stopping it.

Nothing can prevent it.

Just as Paul wrote, I had to be persuaded to believe it.

It takes time.

It does not happen overnight for us.

Again, this is why Paul had to pray on his knees that we would understand how much God loves us! (Ephesians 3:14-19)

There is so much clutter that has to be removed in our lives, so many things that we believe which are ... wrong.

Let's believe the truth -- let's know and believe in God's love for us!

God's Amazing Grace: Jonah

"If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

"Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me." (Psalm 139: 9-10)

This verse comes from one of the most beloved and well-known Psalms, and yet it's a perfect segue to another powerful example of God's grace in action: Jonah.

Like Abraham, Jonah was a prophet, and he was called to preach to Nineveh, a great, evil nation that had plagued the nation of Israel.

Jonah didn't want to do it!

"But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD, and went down to Joppa; and he found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof, and went down into it, to go with them unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD." (John 1:3)

Now, how effective is it to flee from God?

Really? But that's precisely what Jonah tried to do. God then caused a great wind to come over the sea and strike the boat that Jonah was fleeing on. All the sailors prayed to their gods. They even had to rouse Jonah out of his sleep--can you imagine this self-righteous prophet, sleeping soundly in the bottom of a tempest-tossed ship?--so that he would pray to his God.

Then they all drew lots to see what was causing this terrible storm.

And the lot fell to Jonah, who declared:

"9And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land." (John 1:9)

This is hilarious. Jonah prides himself as the prophet of the One and Only Living God, and yet this prophet is defying God brazenly, refusing to prophesy to Nineveh!

What kind of rash arrogance is this?!

Jonah then told the sailors what to do so that the storm would be calmed:

"Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you." (Jonah 1:12)

Jonah was so determined to disobey God's command, that he preferred to be tossed into the sea, to be killed in the flailing storms of the rough waters!

The sailors did what Jonah requested, but God was not finished with Jonah:

"17Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights." (Jonah 1:17)

Let's assess what we have learned about Jonah:

1. He's a prophet

2. God entrusted him with a great calling, to preach judgment to Nineveh

3. He deliberately refused to do so.

4. He was arrogant enough to think that he could outrun God's call on his life.

5. God sent a storm that troubled the sailors' lives on the ship that he was riding in.

6. He didn't care even about what they were going through, he was sound asleep in the boat!

Yet for all this brazen, arrogant, selfish behavior, God prepared for Jonah to survive, even providing a huge fish to swallow him so that he would survive in the depths of the sea.

And then Jonah called out to God for help:

"Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish's belly,

"And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the LORD, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice." (Jonah 2:1-2)

Can you imagine the brazeness of this?! He is praying to the very God whom he had blown off, deliberately disobeyed.

But God hears Jonah, and He delivers his wayward prophet from the mouth of the big fish:

"And the LORD spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land." (John 2:10)

This is an interesting verse because of the word "vomit", which first appears in Leviticus:

"And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants" (Leviticus 18:25)

Every other context mentions "Vomit" to mean the abject rejection of a people from God's inheritance.

Its final mention appers here in Jonah, and here we have a disobedient prophet being vomited onto dry land as opposed to being vomited out of the land. What amazing grace.

God has not rejected Jonah, and He will not give up on giving this prophet the mission:

"1And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying, 2Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee. 3So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey. 4And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." (Jonah 3:1-4)

This was all it took for Nineveh to repent. Everyone, from the King right down the commoner repented, put on sackloth, abstained from food, and prayer for God to be merciful to them.

That's all it took!

And God was pleased and relented from His punishment upon them (Jonah 3: 10-11)

Even though Jonah still had a negative spirit about him, even when he still refused to be gracious, hoping that God would change His mind yet again and destroy the entire city, God was still gracious with Jonah, God still ministered to him, and reminded him what grace is all about:

"And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death. Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night: And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?" (Jonah 4:9-11)

I submit to you that Jonah wrote this entire account, from beginning to end, and he did not hesitate to "Tell on himself." I imagine that Jonah even laughed at his insistence obstinance, but through it all God was good to him.

This account demonstrates how great God's grace really is!

He is there for us even when we want to get away from Him. The most we try to run away from, taking the wings of the morning and to dwell in the deepest parts of the sea, God is not only there for us, but He is guiding us! He is taking us right where He wants us to go.

In fact, God would use Jonah's ministry, his struggles to foretell the coming of Christ Jesus, God's own Son!

"An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." (Matthew 12:39-40)

God doesn't just use are failings, He even uses are deliberate disobedience to further His plans, and we in turn are blessed, too! He doesn't give up on us. He simply wants us to reach out to Him every time we face trials and tribulations--even when they are our own fault!

Yes, I Am a Mighty Man of God ... in Christ!

Ten years ago, I faced unparalleled challenges in my life.

Every day, I woke up as though everything in this world was on my shoulders.

Yes, I was saved, but from that point on everything depended on my. My life depended on my efforts, and I had to figure out everything that needed to be done and that was going to take place in my life.

For a year, I was attending one church, and I found that many of the people in the church were fractious gossips. It was very difficult to enjoy any kind of peace or prosperity.

But there was one woman, she was very encouraging to me, but at times I thought that she was just being nice for no good reason.

"Hey Arthur, you mighty man of God!" she would say to me.

I sure didn't feel mighty at that stage of my life. I felt loss, uncared for, useless.

I was so lost, not sure what to trust, what to believe, where to go in my life.

But she keep saying to me every time that I met her: "Hey Arthur, you mighty man of God."

This statement comes from Judges chapter 6, when the Angel of the Lord, a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ, finds Gideon, the judge whom He would call to free Israel from the oppressive Midianites:

"And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him, and said unto him, The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour." (Judges 6:12)

God calls those things that are, even if they do not appear to us (Romans 4:17).

I heard this message today. Then I thought of that lady from the local church, and then I started criticizing her when she had been telling me that I was a mighty man of God, a mighty man of valor.

Then I started looking over everything that has been happening in my life since then.

Indeed, I have confronted bad politicians, corrupt elected officials on city councils, rogue police officers, Antifa. There have been bad press agents, large crowds of angry mobs, and in the past month alone I have spoke to different groups in different parts of the state of California.

Indeed, I have done mighty things, but it's all because of Jesus!

"20I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 21I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." (Galatians 2:20-21)

The more that I see Jesus, the less that I see myself, and thus the more mighty I have become. Indeed, when people speak out by faith, when they claim the promises which God has given us through His Son Jesus, they do come to pass.

We just need to spend more time looking at all the great things that Jesus has done. We need to not look only at our present trials and immediate needs. We need to see that Jesus, Him who has been from the beginning (1 John 2:12-14) is taking care of us in every way.

And indeed, He makes us mighty:

"Let the weak say, I am strong." (Joel 3:10)

The Kingdom Which Seeks Us

In Matthew's Gospel, the account which focused on Christ Jesus as King of the Jesus, our Savior declares to His disciples:

32(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6: 32-33)

For a long time, this passage used to cause me great confusion.

If I seek His Kingdom, who will take care of everything else?

Incidentally enough, Jesus answers this question:

"25Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? 26Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? 27Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? 28And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?"

"Take no thought for your life", Jesus says.

How is this possible??

We need to accept a harsh truth first.

Man on his own does not have life to begin with.

He is born dead in his trespasses, all because of Adam's fall!

"12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: 13(For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.14Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come." (Romans 5: 12-14)

God was not mincing words when He warned His beloved creation about the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: "The day that you eat from that tree, you shall surely die."

We don't have to worry about our life, when we realize that Jesus came to give us life, and that more abundantly (John 10:10)

Notice in Matthew 6:26, Jesus points out that God the Father--our Daddy God!--feeds the bird of the air. Aren't we worth more? Yes, and there is a clear reason why:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

God values us so much, that He gave His Son for us!

So, we can rest assured that He will take care of us.

The Gospel affirms how much Our Good Shepherd loves us:

"Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." (Luke 12:32)

So, what's going on? In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells the disciples to seek the Kingdom.

But in Luke, Jesus says God the Father wants to give us the Kingdom

Keep in the mind the audiences to whom Jesus is addressing Himself.

The disciples saw Jesus as a pattern to follow, a mentor to mind.

Jesus did not come to be an example. He came to be our Savior:

"For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45)

Consider what Jesus did right after His Sermon on the Mount:

1When he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. 2And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 3And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 4And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go thy way, shew thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. (Matthew 8:1-4)

Jesus was willing and able to heal this leper. Amazing! The Kingdom of Heaven came down to all of us, to save us from our sins, to heal us from our diseases, and to cause us to reign in life (Romans 5:17)

Indeed, Paul identifies the Kingdom of Heaven for us:

"For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." (Romans 14:17)

This righteousness is a gift, and we do not seek it!

We now receive it, because of Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension at the right hand of His Father, and our Father!

"For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)" (Romans 5:17)

So, the righteousness that Jesus urges us to seek in the Gospel of Matthew is now ours for receiving as a gift, one which we keep receiving, especially when we fail, when we fall, and when we falter.

This wonderful gift of everlasting righteousness (Daniel 9:23) enacts God's new and wonderful Covenant with us:

"10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

"11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

"12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8:10-12)

Now, let's go back to "Seek you first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness ..."

Notice that under the New Covenant, as outlined in Hebrews 8. our Daddy God will be a God to us! He will guide us and care for us. Why? Because He will not remember, no longer recall our sins ever again!

That's called "righteousness." When we believe in Jesus, and we accept His gift of righteousness, we are allowing God our Father to protect us, to provide us, to grant us all things:

"He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Romans 8:32)

I know that this post is an extended commentary on the goodness and grace of God, but I cannot help but share and report. So, when we understand that our Daddy God has our backs, that He us covered before and after, we have the answer to the rhetorical questions which Jesus asked on behalf of the disciples in Matthew 6.

Thank you, Jesus, for being my sacrifice. Thank you, Jesus, for becoming sin, that I might be  made the righteousness of God in you! (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Thank you Jesus for fulfilling the Old Covenant and bringing me into a New Covenant with your Father ... and with Mine!

AMEN! I am so happy, so blessed to be a citizen of the New Kingdom! (Ephesians 2:19)