Understanding Faith

Faith is fully trusting and relying on God.   It is knowing with full confidence and assurance.  It is impossible to please God without faith.  We receive salvation by faith in God’s Word.  If we have faith to be saved from eternal damnation, we should have faith to receive all of the 66,000 promises in the bible.  

Hebrews 4:1, “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should come short of it.”

The word fear in this scripture is translated good for you or wholesome.  God doesn’t want you to die until all the promises have been fulfilled in your life on this side.  Faith is a lifestyle.  It is not a back up plan or “spare tire” that you take on and off as needed.  Faith cannot be your last resort but a lifestyle.  There are a lot of people who believe and know without a shadow of a doubt they are going to Heaven, but are they going to enjoy the trip?  It is not good enough to have a destination without the ability to get in a vehicle and travel there without breakdowns.  Many of us are breaking down and pulling out the spare but it is not the spare we need.  Some of us are going off on side roads and developing a desert mentality.  But when God gives you directions, it is generally a straight and narrow path, no side roads.  

 

Hebrews 4:2, “For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.”

 

Instead of the Israelites mixing the Word with faith while they were in the desert, the mixed it with murmuring and complaining. You have to mix the Word with faith, not fake (not mental assent).  

 

Hebrews 4:3, “For we which have believed do enter into his rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.”

From the beginning all the works were finished.  God started and finished everything.  If God said it is finished, it is finished whether we believe it or not.  God has already done all he is gong to do about your situation.  What are you going to do?  He has already finished the work but we have to accept it.  

Hebrews 4:4, “For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.”    

It’s not that God is gong to do it.  He has already done all He is going to do.
Resume Your Position. Take your regular position in God.  Starve your doubts and feed your faith.  When are we going to resume our position?  When are we going to get back what has been stolen from us?  Today!

Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.”

Faith is now.  We have suffered enough lost.  Jesus already suffered on our behalf.  Stop nailing yourself to the cross. Romans 4:16 tells us that “it is of faith that it might be by grace.” Grace is the completed work of the cross.  You could never have faith if the work of the cross was not complete.  To eliminate faith out of our lives is to trample the blood underfoot.  As a result, we fail the work of the cross.  We have counted what Jesus did as nothing.  God confirmed His Word through His Covenant.  
Hebrews 4:16-19, “For men verily swear by the greater; and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Vs 17 Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: Vs 18 That by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Vs19 Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;”
When you accept God’s Word it puts an end to all strife.  God cannot lie.  We have to lay hold to the hope set before us.  Jesus is the hope of our salvation.  Hope is the anchor of our souls