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      LIVING UNDER THE NEW COVENANT       
Study #10: Living a Life of Faith  

"By grace you have been saved through faith...it is the gift of God, not as a result of works..." - Ephesians 2:8-9 
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 Dr. Bill Miller                                  Volume XVIII Number 46                            November 15, 2015
  

Greetings in the Name of Jesus and welcome to the PLN Sunday Night Bible Fellowship!
 
Thanks for joining us tonight as we continue our discussion on the topic of living under the New Covenant. Each of the articles in this series focuses on a particular area of life under the New Covenant that in my view isn't being fully experienced by the average Christian to the level that God makes available. To start with we come into the Kingdom of God when we're born again needing to leave behind a lot of "ugly" habits we developed while we were in the World and exchange them for NEW ways of thinking that the Holy Spirit faithfully and continually teaches us (John 14:26). The Bible calls this TRANSFORMATION (Romans 12:1-2) and the speed of that process is directly related to our progress in developing a good UNDERSTANDING of the Word of God. None of us is perfect so we're ALL at some level of development but it seems to me that the median "score" is way lower than it could be.
 
It is true that not everybody learns at the same rate, but it's also true that not everybody STUDIES at their optimum rate. So a lot of folks are behind where perhaps they could be. Add to that the fact that the Body of Christ is inundated with unbiblical traditions and we come to the point where a bunch of us are today spiritually confused and under-developed. Could it be that this is because a lot of us have been satisfied to rely on the ideas and traditions handed down to us from others instead of going directly into the Word of God for ourselves? If that's true then scripturally we could expect to be experiencing a CRISIS OF FAITH in the Body of Christ because Scripture clearly says that FAITH COMES BY HEARING THE WORD (Romans 10:17). It doesn't come by hearing traditions or hearing hand-me-down ideas. No friend, our FAITH grows stronger in direct proportion to the PERSONAL WORD KNOWLEDGE we have dug out for ourselves.

Tonight's focus then is about one of the most important aspects of New Covenant life which is the area of FAITH. In case you didn't know, FAITH is quite a big deal in the New Covenant. To be sure there were special people of FAITH in the Old Covenant as well and you can find some of them mentioned by name in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews. Their FAITH in God and in His ways of doing things were counted for them as righteousness (Romans 4:5). On the other hand, there were some other folks back then like the Israelites in the wilderness whose lack of FAITH was met with God's anger (Hebrews 3:10). And today under the New Covenant, it is still FAITH that pleases God (Hebrews 11:6) but it's FAITH in Christ that makes us righteous, which is why the Bible emphasizes that under the New Covenant believers should LIVE by faith (Romans 1:17).

How the Lord Looks at Faith
 
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 considering the same thing:
 
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 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 by itself is NOT 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 as it turns out, it's impossible to please Him without it (Hebrews 11:6). That's because whatever we do in life that doesn't have FAITH attached to it some way or another 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). And so, the bottom line pure and simple is that Believers are supposed to live our lives BY FAITH and by doing that we'll be able to connect to God's GRACE (undeserved favor and empowerment). And within that GRACE, we'll find the fullness of all of the blessings and ability and wisdom and authority that God has made available under the New Covenant.  
 
How to Live by Faith
 
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. In sum, we each have a responsibility to study the Word and as necessary go out to look for insights that others have reported on until we can RECEIVE our own personal REVELATION about the various aspects of Christian life. The Bible says "we're 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 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 choice or decision on what we found there.
  • 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 as already mentioned FAITH comes by PERCEIVING the Word with understanding. A lot of Christians wonder why their lives are in disorder all the time and it's been months since they last looked in their Bibles. Friend these two things are inextricably connected: FAITH is strengthened by understanding the WORD. It CANNOT be circumvented in any respect: get into the Word or suffer the consequences of weak faith.
Some Concluding Thoughts
 
In conclusion, you may find the following outline useful as a short summary of the FAITH LIFE PROCESS. Certainly it's not all inclusive but it can hopefully be helpful in arriving at your own REVELATION of living by FAITH:
 
Understand and trust in the Word
Hear what God is telling you personally
Believe that God REWARDS those who seek Him
Take personal possession of the promises
Take action on what He and His Word tell you to do
Resist the enemy's interference in the fulfillment of the Word
Do not ever give up on a promise
 
Thanks for joining our discussion tonight. We'll be looking for you again NEXT Sunday night on November 22. In the meantime may the Lord bless you with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3), pushing you to VICTORY in every area of life!
 
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Sinners' Prayer
 
If you've never invited Jesus to be your Lord, you can do so today by believing and saying out loud the following simple prayer:
 
Jesus I declare today with all my heart that I believe in you and I believe that God raised you from the dead. I acknowledge that my sins have been forgiven for all time and I ask you to come into my life today and be my Lord and Savior. Thank you for salvation and eternal life.
 
If you were sincere as you prayed, God has already come into your life and you're a new creation, a totally new species recreated in His image. Now ask the Lord to lead you to a good faith-based, bible-teaching church where you can be equipped to fulfill your potential in the Kingdom of God.
 
When you get a moment have someone help you look up the following scriptures because they confirm what you've done by saying this prayer and believing what you said:
 
Romans 10:9
2 Corinthians 5:17
Ephesians 2:8
 
Prayer Requests
 
If you have a Prayer Request, please connect to the Link below and follow the promptings. The PLN staff members pray over Prayer Requests every Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM central time. Agree with us for God to answer your petitions.
 
 
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