How To Love the Lord thy God

With all your heart, soul, mind and strength

Chapter 12 Faith, how it works

If you want to learn to love God you have to learn faith also. It is impossible to to say, I love God but I have no faith. After you read this chapter you will see why.

The Christian life is a battle, we live on the battleground, and it is expected that we engage the enemies of our soul, and win. The weapon that we use primarily is our faith. 

You may say, I have no faith, I say you are a liar, of course you do, you just don’t use it. Jesus said if you had the faith just the size of a mustard seed you could tell a mountain to lift itself up and plunge into the sea. We would agree that is a lot of faith, we would also agree, I think that a mustard seed is a very small seed. Really really small. The bible says that faith comes by hearing the word of God. Also if you have become a believer then you used a little bit of faith that God gave you when you heard the gospel. So I just proved to you that you have faith, it does not matter how small it is, let me repeat, it does not matter how small it is. what matters is that you use it when called to do so on the battlefield. If you would start using it, it will get stronger, it is like a muscle. Maybe it has atrophied a bit but don’t worry let us get it into shape.

Here is the beauty of faith, no matter how small it is, it works. Because it is the object of your faith that is the most important aspect. Your faith is in Jesus Christ who is called in Timothy the blessed and only Almighty God, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords… he who has everlasting power, amen.

So I think we can agree then on this point, that the object of our faith, Jesus,  is more than able to save us and to deliver us from all our sins. 

I’m just trying to help you think these things through, I know how the devil works, he deceives us, he is the deceiver. Once we fall into his deceptions we lose the ability to think right. We think wrong. So in this book I’m helping you to think right. Right thinking often times is simple logic, so I am attempting to walk you though these things using simple and plain logic. After all if something isn’t reasonable why should we believe it? And bible truths are reasonable, the Bible never asked you to take a leap of faith and believe in something that is not logical. So with everything tha I say in this book you should be able to say, “that makes sense.”

So let us review, 

1. We need faith to fight spiritual battles
2. We do have some faith because we used it to become a believer.
3. Our faith may be small and atrophied but it is there and it is real.
4. What is most important is the object of our faith, the Everlasting Power.

Now if we can just figure out the mechanics of using faith, this very precious tool. Hmmm…

Well let’s create an imaginary friend, lets call him Fred, and let us have him enter this spiritual battlefield and let us imagine that he is going to do everything right, that way we can learn from him. Fred is going to use his faith to defeat his sinful desires, the world, and Satan.

Our friend is aChristian just like you and I. He has his battles too, just like you and i. Today Fred is alone in his bedroom and he his watching some utube videos on his iPad. Suddenly some sensual photos appear out of the blue, we all know that happens in reality. It is not pornography but it is enough to arouse him. Fred knows of some web sites that truly are pornographic, he has visited them before. Fred is struggling. He is being tempted.

All kind of things go through his mind. “Think of a good scripture that you have memorized.” For some reason he can’t. “Go ahead and sin and after ask God to forgive you” where do you suppose that thought came from? Satan.  Notice  it seems like it is not only Freds sinful desires but also satan’s forces are edging him along. And the images themselves, where did they come from? they come from this sinful world.

So now the battle lines have been drawn, it’s Fred versus, 1. His own sinful nature, 2. Spiritual forces of evil, 3. This sin-filled world. Three against one? How can he win? Ah but he can win, and he will.

It is not three against one, it’s three against two, for Christ is by his side, fully armed and ready for battle. Believe me when I say Jesus Christ is ready for this battle. If you could see the look on His face you would know right away, He is ready to do some whooping, these forces don’t want to mess with Him.

So Fred prays something like this, “ Lord Jesus I need your help right now, this temptation is too great for me to bear alone,  I can sense the evil forces applying pressure on me to give in, and to be honest I am almost there.” “ please help me right here and right now, I know of your power, that you are more then able, what is impossible with me is effortless with you.” “ I will prostrate myself at your feet and like Mary and Martha cling to your feet and I am not going to let go until you deliver me.” Lord, either you will deliver me or I will die right here at your feet, waiting.”

That and other prayers Fred prayed, but he endured at the Saviors feet until… yes… Jesus came to his rescue and delivered him from this lustful temptation. this happens and without any fireworks, no emotional outbursts, no anything. so silently, so silently the wondrous gift is given, so God imparts to human hearts the wondrous gift from heaven.

The temptation feelings went away and Fred was able to offer up a prayer of thanksgiving and praise. Fred just learned how to use his faith to conquer his sin. You see, it wasn’t Fred’s faith that delivered Fred, it was his Savior who Fred put his trust in.

Would Christ had delivered Fred if Fred did not exercise his faith? No! Absolutely not. Get that simple truth through your thick skull, Jesus Christ abides in you, waiting. You are not a robot. You are not artificial intelligence. You are a real human being. That means you have a free will. You can sin all you want, even though you are a believer. Chrlst will restrain you from going full tilt sinning but he won’t stop you. You are free to chose whatever you want every day of your pitiful life. So if you want to sin go ahead and sin. There is no one in the entire universe that will stop you, but… there are consequences to your behavior and you will have to pay the consequences. Are you going to go to hell if you don’t stop sinning? The short answer is yes. I know that most of you are going to disagree with me on that and I am not going to argue with you, read your bible. Forget everything you have been taught, for a simple thought exercise erase everything you think you know about the bible, then pick up your bible and start reading. I don’t even care where you start reading, just read and believe everything that you read is true. Do I have a suggestion what to read? Sure, you can try Ephesians, its only 6 chapters you can plow though it in one setting. You might try reading in over and over until you think you have understood it. And read prayerfully, the Holy Spirit is there to help us and to teach us. And read the Gospels, here you will find the words of our Savior, listen to Him.

So there you have it, I used an imaginary friend Fred to teach us a lesson on faith. So let’s review. Firstly we are going to be tempted. This puts us in the midst of a spiritual battlefield whether we like it or not. Secondly we are faced with a choice, to sin or to resist, this too happens whether we like it or not. Thirdly, we exercise our faith, to use our faith is to cling to the Savior and not let go until He delivers us. Again a reminder, we are using a tiny bit of faith in a very big and powerful God. It works, trust me on this, it will work. Those few moments of waiting for deliverance is called endurance. We must endure. I good idea would be to do a bible study on endurance. As a matter of fact I did do a whole chapter on endurance because it is so important. But for now let us have a discussion about works.

 Let us go back to Fred. Fred is eager to please the Lord, he is a new Christian and wants to be a good one, whatever it takes. Fred is currently reading the book of Ephesians, comes to chapter 5 vs.19 …

“When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outburst of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit and kingdom of God.” Eph.5:19-21 NLT

Fred sees not only in Ephesians but in almost all the books of the Bible that we are taught to behave ourselves, to live holy and righteous lives and by golly Fred us up to the challenge, “if that is what the Savior wants me to do then I am going to do it, no matter how hard it is”, Fred says.

Fred is struggling with lust. Every time he sees a hot looking babe he can’t stop looking at her and his lust just seems to take over. Fred knows this is wrong so he fights it off the best he can, but even after she goes away he still thinks about her lustfully. His imagination us running wild and he can’t seem to stop it.

I could list a half dozen other sins that Fred is also struggling with but I think you get the picture, and we all have one sin that is the hardest to overcome.

Day after day, week after week, month after month Fred is struggling with this and other sins and things just seems to get worse. Then he reads Romans chapter 7 “ I don’t understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong, it is sin living in me that does it. And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. I have discovered this principle of life- that when I want to do what is right, I inevitable do what is wrong. I love Gods law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Romans7:15-24 NLT

“Hey! Paul struggled with sin the exact same way that I am.” Exclaimed Fred. And you can include me, your dear author on that list as well.

But Paul got the victory and so did I and so did our imaginary friend Fred. But how? Faith is the key. Read on, read Romans 8. The key is in chapter 8. Paul lived a victorious Christian life, make no mistake about that. He is our champion when it comes to faith living. He set an example for all of us to follow. And he taught us how.  

 The Apostale Paul and I are working together to teach you about faith and love and eventually leading you to the point where you begin to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Just remember, it is not going to be easy. Does Paul in chapter 7 sound like he is having fun? No.

In chapter 7 Paul is struggling with what is called a works based righteousness. He is trying to do it all by himself, without Christ’s help. Look at the portion of scripture I just quoted, do you see the word,”faith” in there? No. Faith is not mentioned at all in chapter 7. He did mention living in the Spirit at the end, which is indeed a faith walk. But the whole point of chapter 7 was to contrast trying to please God in our own effort verses living in the Spirit, which is a faith walk that is laid out in Romans 8 where you are always looking to Christ to rescue you from sins desires. Always. It is a life style where Christ is your constant companion.

In summary, use your faith in Christ to obtain and keep the victory over your sins. Don’t try to do it on your own or you will look like something out of chapter 7. Don’t concern yourself with how small your faith is, just remember how big and powerful your Savior is, your faith is in Him, He is your deliverer.