Greetings in the Name of Jesus and welcome to the PLN Sunday Night Bible Fellowship:
For nineteen weeks now we've been discussing the biblical TRUTH that God wants His people to PROSPER. He has ALWAYS wanted us to PROSPER in every area of life including our finances and it wasn't until we arrived at the New Covenant that so many Believers started looking for reasons why He changed His mind about finances. As we've seen in previous articles the various forms of the word PROSPERITY are mentioned more than 90 times in our bibles and when we add hundreds of references to similar words like success and abundance to that context, the Lord's intentions ought to be obvious. But apparently they're not or we would see more Believers confidently taking possession of their financial PROSPERITY and a lot fewer folks telling us we're supposed to be content with our insufficiency.
Indeed, the Bible says that it was God Himself who gave His people the ability to obtain wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18) and that PROSPERITY was/is His way of BLESSING people (Deuteronomy 28: 11-12). So, since He was so clear about making PROSPERITY available back in the day, doesn't it seem quite necessary to you that He leave behind some clear instructions to cancel those previous blessings if He wanted to make such a radical change for all us new folks? Especially since according to Scripture He's the SAME yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8)?
Well He didn't give us any scriptures like that; and oh yes, according to Galatians 3:14, God Himself DID make it a point to connect us back to the covenanted BLESSING of Abraham which we really ought to pay a lot of attention to because that Covenant predating the LAW did include financial blessings (Genesis 13:2), and because it was/is an everlasting, non-expiring, eternal COVENANT that's still in effect (Genesis 17:7), and because it all started with the fact that Abraham was a man of great FAITH (Hebrews 11:8-10, 17). As a result you and I by FAITH in Christ are heirs to EVERYTHING God promised to Abraham back in that previous COVENANT (Galatians 3:29) in addition to all those even better promises contained in the NEW COVENANT with Christ (Hebrews 8:6).
How the Lord Looks at Faith
Now during all these weeks, we've talked repeatedly in every single article about the essential role of living by FAITH for connecting to God's PROSPERITY. This week we want to focus on it in a little more depth because while a lot of folks talk about living by FAITH, there are not all that many of us who're actually doing it. Frankly, many of us don't really know how to; and yet without it, without a growing FAITH that's firmly rooted and grounded in an increasing understanding of the Word of God (Romans 10:17), without strong and tenacious and even violent FAITH, the act of connecting to God's PROSPERITY is hopelessly impossible.
So, in order to live by FAITH we have to first know what it is and understand it. You can find the Bible definition of FAITH in Hebrews 11:1 which by all means look up for yourself; but here's my interpretation of that verse to insure that for the purposes of this article we're all seeing the same things:
FAITH is the unwavering confidence that you've ALREADY taken possession of the things of God that you're hoping for even though you can't presently perceive those things yet with your five physical senses.
Many Christians equate FAITH to the act of believing: "I believe in Christ therefore I have FAITH." But just believing isn't FAITH and here's another one of my interpretations this time from James 2:19-21:
"You do well to believe that there is one God but even demons get that far and they tremble in their belief. FAITH requires that you go beyond mere belief, put your life in God's hands and take possession of ALL that He has for you."
God is very serious about FAITH and in fact it's impossible to please Him without it (Hebrews 11:6). That's because whatever we do in life that doesn't somehow have FAITH attached to it is SIN (Romans 14:23). In other words we SIN every time we go out in the Flesh to try to get something accomplished instead of trusting God for it. And even though Jesus has ALREADY paid for all our sins for all time (Hebrews 9:12), God doesn't want us involved in SIN because it opens a door for the enemy to come in to kill, steal and/or destroy all the things that God's making available to us through Christ (John 10:10) including His abundance and PROSPERITY. And so, the bottom line pure and simple is that Believers are supposed to live their lives by FAITH (Romans 1:17) and by doing that we'll be able to connect to God's GRACE (undeserved favor and empowerment) and in that GRACE is all the PROSPERITY we've been hoping for, including financial PROSPERITY.
How to Live by Faith
Now volumes have been written about how to live by FAITH but for tonight we're limited to this brief Newsletter format which restricts what I can share about it. Nevertheless, in sum we each have a responsibility to study the Word and as necessary go out and look for insights that others have reported on until we can RECEIVE our own personal REVELATION about it. The Bible says we're supposed to live by FAITH so we need to go find out what that means so we can actually do it. Following are a few things that are basic to living by FAITH:
- Living by Faith means we have to stop doing things in the Flesh and depending on our natural
senses to determine our decisions and choices. In other words in order to walk by FAITH we have
to stop walking by the natural senses (2 Corinthians 5:7).
- Another basic requirement is that we learn to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit so we can be
Spirit-led instead of relying on our Flesh (Romans 8:14). We'll either rely on the Holy Spirit or
the Flesh because they're only two choices.
- Whenever we're pursuing something in life or trying to make a choice/decision about
something, we have to look for a way to make that process go through FAITH. One way to do that
is by finding a promise or a principle in the Word and then basing our pursuit on it. Another
important aspect is finding out if the Holy Spirit agrees with what we're trying to pursue BEFORE
we initiate the pursuit. His agreement provides a PEACE about what we're trying to accomplish
that we can release our FAITH on.
- And, in order to live by FAITH without exception we have to be immersed in studying the Word
because FAITH comes by PERCEIVING the Word with understanding (Romans 10:17). A lot of
Christians want to know why their finances are in disorder all the time and it's been months
since they looked in their Bibles. Friend those two things are inextricably connected because
PROSPERITY also comes by FAITH which comes by PERCEIVING the Word.
