Live By Faith
Not By Sight
Faith is the way of knowing something for certain,
which doesn’t depend upon seeing, human reasoning, touching or feeling.
Faith is the ability to know something for certain
based upon the merits of the object of faith.
A person’s promise is no greater than the integrity
of the person making the promise.
For faith to function, the object words must be implicitly
trusted.
Faith is not blind, but is trusting in someone else’s
word.
Faith is the ability to act, trusting in the one you
believe in.
Faith and trust remain intact, where there is no betrayal
of the word of that person being trusted.
In the bible faith is implicit and necessary, in approach
to God and for relationship with Him.
God can only be approached through faith, because He
can’t be seen, heard or felt and therefore His Word must be implicitly trusted.
The Lord God say’s about His Word
Deuteronomy
8:3
“Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from
the mouth of The Lord.”
Proverbs
30:5
“Every Word of God is flawless, He is a shield
to those who take refuge in Him.”
Isaiah
55:9-11
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,
declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than
your thoughts.”
As
rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without
watering the earth and making it flourish and bud, so that it yields seed
for the sower and bread for the eater, so is My Word that goes out from
My mouth: It will not return to Me empty (void of purpose), but will accomplish
what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
Psalm 119:105
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Psalm 119:11
“I have hidden your Word in my heart that I might not sin against You.”
Psalm 32:8
“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you shall go, I will watch
over you and counsel you.”
The History of Faith
God’s Word is crucial and extremely important. God
can be trusted because HE CREATED EVERYTHING and being TRUTH will only tell
you and lead you in the Truth.
God is embodied in His Son Jesus Christ, and originally
came to Man and told Him the Truth.
Genesis
2:16-17
“Don’t Eat the fruit and disobey Me or you will
surely die”.
He believed God’s Word and didn’t eat the fruit and
lived. He told the same to His wife too after God fashioned her out of Adam,
and she accepted Adam’s word and did not eat the forbidden fruit.
They lived contentedly together, until one day a trickster,
deceiver named Satan entered Eve’s pet the serpent, and started to talk
to Eve, and sowed doubt into her mind.
She became discontented and wanted something forbidden.
She made a grab to be like God in knowledge. She doubted Adam and also God!
Genesis
3:1-6
Doubting God always undermines faith in the Lord God!
Because of doubting disbelief, Eve was deceived out
of the Truth and chose to believe the lie. She deliberately chose to doubt
her husband Adam, and therefore God. She therefore deliberately chose the
consequences that came with believing the lie.
Genesis
3
They were both now sinful and condemned before God,
naked and ashamed. The Lord God came down to see His creatures in the Garden
of Eden. They had never hid from the Lord God before.
Afraid and ashamed they blamed each other and the Lord
God condemned them for their action, and then provided the solution.
They had to believe God’s Word before they could believe
and accept the Lord God’s solution. God promised to come to this world as
a man, to be born of a woman, the seed of Eve. God so provided the solution,
by being a sacrifice for their sin and fault.
This was portrayed in the sacrifice of an innocent
lamb, to clothe them to cover their nakedness and shame. This pointed to
the fact that The Lord God, in the person of Jesus Christ would come to
the earth, and be sacrificed for them to pay the price of their sin and
so be reconciled to The Lord their God.
Faith is crucial for entering a relationship with God
and keeping fellowship with Him, once the relationship has been permanently
established.
Creatures say “I am telling you the truth.”
God through Jesus Christ says, “I Am
The Truth”
John 14:6
For God to be the Truth, He has to be “The Word”
Jesus Christ came down from God as “The Word” and took
upon Himself a human form.
John
1:1-14
Faith from the beginning.
We will look at examples of faith, as we work through
the bible.
Eve had two children at this time, Cain and Abel.
Some of the many occasions of faith in the Lord
God.
1: Abel believed the Lord God and offered
the correct sacrifices, but Cain did not and offered to God incorrect sacrifices
and was rejected by The Lord God, which motivated Cain through jealousy
to murder Abel.
Genesis 4:1-16
2: Noah believed The Lord God when God said
that He was going to Judge the earth with a global flood. The people of
the earth did not believe God’s servant Noah and perished.
Genesis 6-8
3: Abram believed the Lord God and left His
father’s household at the call and promise of The Lord God, to establish
a great nation through him, even though His wife Sarai
was sterile.
Genesis 12:1-9
Abram doubts God’s Word with awful consequences!
A: Abram went to
Genesis 10-19
B: Abram agrees to take Hagar a mistress
wife, to get a son and heir, even though God promised a son and heir through
Sarai.
Genesis 16
C: Abram half lies about His wife to say
she is His sister and not His wife, out of fear for his life. Sarai was very beautiful. God promised a son would come to
him through Sarai.
Genesis 20
Abram believes God’s Word with great blessings!
A: Abraham believes God at His Word and receives
a son, Isaac through Sarah. God changes their names from:
Abram (High Father) to Abraham (Father
of Many Nations)
Sarai (My Princess) to Sarah (Princess)
Genesis 17
B: Abraham is tested to sacrifice his only
son, believes God and obeys Gods Word and command, and is rescued by the
provision of a ram to sacrifice.
Genesis 22
4: Joseph disbelieves God’s timing for Him
and appeals to Pharaoh for his release from prison when God promised him
a future, and so would be his delivered.
Genesis 37 & 40
Joseph tells the children of
Genesis 50:22-26
5:
Exodus 14 and Numbers 14
6: Daniel believed and trusted in the Lord
His God, and continued to pray to Him, even though he was threatened with
being thrown into the Lions den. He continued to pray and was thrown to
the Lions and was delivered from their mouths by an angel.
Daniel 6
7: Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednigo refused to pray a false God of Gold,
and were cast into a furnace of fire. They thought their faith in God’s
Word and command more important than any compromise. The Lord God delivered
them in and from the fire.
Daniel 3
There are many examples of faith and lack of faith in the
Old Testament, and the consequences of blessing and cursing which followed.
Read about the heroes of old, they were examples for us:
Hebrews
11
The Lord God for their faith commended many of the Old Testament
believers.
God has opened the door of faith to the non Jewish Believers
(Gentiles)
Acts
14:27
We too can stand firm in our faith in the Lord God!
Faith is trusting in God’s body of Truth
We are justified (declared righteous) by faith
Romans
5:1
We live by faith, and not by sight.
2 Corinthians
5:7
Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard
through the Word of Christ.
Romans
10:17
The righteous will live by faith
Romans
1:17
Accept the weak in faith without passing judgement on disputable
matters.
Romans
14:1
Stand firm in the faith, be men of courage
1 Corinthians
16:13
We live by faith, not by sight
2 Corinthians
5:7
A mustard seeds faith is mighty
Luke 17:5-6
Live by faith in the Son of God
Galatians
2:20
Fight the good fight of faith
1 Timothy 6:12
Be active in sharing your faith
Philemon
6
Faith is being sure of what we hope for, the evidence off
things not seen.
Hebrews
11:1
Without faith it is impossible to please God.
Hebrews
11:6
Faith overcomes the world
1 John
5:4
We are encouraged by each other’s faith
Romans
1:12
During the Tribulation the Israeli believers are commanded
to run for the Hills when they see the image of the anti-Christ being set
up in the temple (The abomination that causes desolation), run to a place
prepared for them where The Lord God will protect them during the last three
and a half years of the Tribulation.
Daniel
11:31, Matthew 24:15-30
By being alert in their faith, they will know where and when
to run.
Faith in the Word of God is everything. You express faith
through acting on what you believe, in the Word of God.
To believe in Jesus Christ is eternal life, to reject Him
is eternal condemnation!
John
3:18 & 36
Jesus Christ rewards our faith in eternity, to whom we will give an account for our faith.
Hebrews
4:12-13
Jesus Christ our example on whom we concentrate.
Hebrews
12:1-4
“I am coming soon! My reward is with Me, and
will give to everyone according to what He has done.”
Revelation
22:12
