He That Hath an Ear

Is a Blog devoted to exploring God’s written Word with an ear to Hear what the Spirit says.

And  The Just Shall Live By Faith

I am going to discuss Faith today and over the next few blog posts.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. _{1Co 13:13 ESV}  This is the last verse in chapter 13 of  Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Known throughout Christianity as the Love chapter. I start this discussion on Faith with this verse for several reasons. 1) To lay a foundation for a statement I am going to make about Faith in the next paragraph. 2) So the readers of today’s blog will understand my biblical knowledge and understanding of the three Graces that Paul addresses in this chapter, namely Faith, Hope, and Love. And, 3) to reaffirm my belief the scriptures are complete, without error and infallible as the Spirit of God speaks in and through them.

My statement of belief is, the Greatest of these three Grace’s is Love, however, the most important of the three Graces in living in this world under the sun is Faith, for the following reasons. 1) Faith is the only Grace mentioned whereby we are told we must have it to please God, Heb 11:6. 2) Of the three Grace’s, Jesus prayed for Peter’s faith not to fail before his denial of Christ. 3) In the parable of the persistent widow, in chapter 18 of Luke’s gospel it is Faith alone Christ questions whether it will be found on earth at His return, not Love or Hope.

However, for living the Christian life, a life pleasing God. A  life whereby we stand in God’s righteousness, justification, forgiveness, salvation, and many others graces. These are possessed through faith. Not that we can pick or choose to possess righteousness but, pass on justification. It is identifying and being positionally IN Christ. Standing in His righteousness, His justification, E.T.. I believe Noah’s ark is an example of this. Regardless of a person’s theology, belief or lifestyle. All those in the Ark were saved (delivered) from the flood. All those on the outside were not. We have to be in Christ, and that is through faith.

A thought to meditate on, Love (John) out ran Faith (Peter) to the tomb. _{John 20:4-6}  Love out ran faith to the tomb, but Faith went in first to the tomb. Love works in the heart and encompasses our emotions, motivation, feelings it doesn’t necessarily need a rational reason for feeling or believing the way it does. Not that Love is brainless or irrational, Love simply doesn’t need a reason to Love it just does. What man would ever get married if our wives did not love us regardless of all the rational reasons not to. Whereas, faith needs to be believed with our intellect and is moved, no is made complete when it migrates to our hearts. This is what I referenced in my second post that we must worship in Spirit and Truth.

I believe that Faith must be made perfect in the union of Spirit and Truth as relates to our physical fallen nature, whereas Love does not need our intellect to be complete. This and the fact Love transcends this world with us to heaven  and that God identifies himself as a God of love. These are the reasons I believe it (Love) is the greatest of these. Faith and Hope are earth bound and I believe do not go to heaven with us, there are many scriptures that support this. However, I will not elaborate on them here. Anyone wanting a fuller explanation of this can contact me through this blog. I repeat myself, the most important of the three Graces in living in this world under the sun is Faith. The fact that we even can say we love God is due to God having first Loved us, a truth we must live in by faith. _{1Jn 4:19}

Over the next several weeks we are going to discuss what faith is, what it is not. We going to explore the Nature of faith, the Growth of Faith, and the purpose of Faith. We are going to discuss some common presumptions, misapplications, or plain deceptive  claims made about faith. How many Christians have had their growth or walk in Christ by Faith hindered or outright shipwrecked by these. _1Ti1:19

I will start, by recounting a real life story of presuming on, and misunderstanding faith in mine and my wife’s life. My wife and I were married in 1976. My wife was seventeen and 8 months old and I had just turned twenty. We had both given our hearts to the Lord just a few months earlier, me, four months, and my wife 10 months. To say we were new in our faith is to say an infant is new to the world.

As we planned our life together, we had actual discussions on our life together, finances and setting up a budget to live on. We sat together as we listed known expenses against the salary I was making, and trying to make it work out. I believe I was making $2.85 an hour in 1976. Our two bedroom apartment was little more than ninety dollars per month. You can due the math we could live and meet our expenses if we lived frugally.

The actual budget went something like this: apartment $90 p/month, food $60 p/month and so on and so forth. Where we went awry was in planning for children and medical expenses. Birth control $0 p/month, children $0 p/month as my wife would not get pregnant until we planned it, by Faith.  Medical $0 p/month as we were not going to get sick by faith.

Unbeknownst to us at the time our faith (emphasis on Our Faith) lasted about three days. That is how long our doctor surmised it took my wife to become pregnant. Literally a honeymoon baby, 9 months and 29 days from the date of our marriage we had our first child three days before my 21st birthday, a little girl. I want you to remember that we had an actual budget, and discussion of this before we were married. How naive, presumptuous, and misinformed we were.

What we didn’t know at the time, and were to learn, is that God has a created order. And, even though the fall of man (sin) altered that in certain respects. It did not contravene God’s created order in every respect. The Sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night, were still occurring. _{GN 1:16}   Part of the created order was to be fruitful and multiply. _{GN 1:22, 28}    You cannot have faith that goes against God’s word. Not unless, God who still speaks today says to do something according to the word he has spoken today. We will discuss this in more detail in latter blogs please, do not run with this to imagine whatever enters your heart is the word of God.

However, God does speak to us still, today.  Paul, in the Letter to the Hebrews in chapter 3 versus 7-8 references Psalms 95, and admonishes us, today if you hear His voice and harden not your hearts. I am no scholar or linguist however, the best bible dictionaries and commentators I have access to say today means today, now. The reason you can’t have faith against God’s word is faith comes from God’s word. That is Christ, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. _{Jn 1:1} Faith is a gift from God that He distributes to every man/woman according to His divine purpose. _{Rom 12:3-6, Eph 2:8, Heb 12:2t}  It is true that each of us at some point heard the gospel and responded to it in Faith?  It might not have been in its entirety, but we responded probably in repentance and Faith. Faith is a gift of God, So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. _{Rom 10:17 KJV}  My purpose for writing these blogs is that we might learn to hear the word of God.

We should be asking ourselves when we read this verse in Romans why God, the author of all scripture repeats himself in telling us that Faith comes by hearing the word of God. I believe this verse confirms that we need to be listening with our natural ears. Our intellect, the mind is the gateway to our soul, heart. So if I may paraphrase this verse this way. So then Faith comes by hearing (God’s word) with the ear and the ability to hear what God is communicating past our intellect (mind) comes by hearing what the spirit says.

Isn’t this what God says in Romans 10 verses 9 and 10, man believes with the heart, and confession  is made unto salvation. Luke 6:45 tells us that out of the heart the mouth speaks. Confession in part is an act of our will and involves the mind (intellect) declaring the reality of God’s word.

Why then hearing and hearing? It is because  God’s word must be united with Faith. James tells us that even the devils believe. _{Janes 2:19}  James goes on through his epistle to bring to light the difference between believing and Faith. That is, Faith not only believes God’s words but also obeys God’s word. Many believe, fewer believe and obey. _{1Sa 15:22}

Hebrews, chapter 3 and 4 says it this way,  Israel did not enter God’s rest. Possessing the promised land was to be a foreshadow of entering God’s rest. The rest we find in Christ. Hebrews goes on to tell us they did not enter His rest because of an evil heart of unbelief, they that heard it did not mix it with faith. _{Heb 4:2}

Let’s look at this as demonstrated at the fall. God created paradise and put man in it to enjoy and take care of. He could eat freely from all the trees of the garden Except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, the serpent came and asked Eve a question. “Now the serpent was more cunning than any animal of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” _{GN3:1 NASB}  I find interesting Eve recites the command not to eat only, from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam must have passed this warning on that God had given him before God created Eve. Eve adds neither shall you touch it. A prohibition not recorded for us in the original command to Adam.

Satan then calls God a liar, and the reason he  offers for God’s lie, is that God knows. It reminds me of Peter when standing before the Lord Jesus asking Peter does he Love Him. _{JN 21:15-17}  There is much here to digest however, I believe in part Christ asked Peter 3 times was, in part for Peter to come to realization that God does actually know, everything. _PS139  

Back to satens discourse with Eve, God is keeping something from you that is beneficial, it is up to you Eve to make the choice to move on past God’s restraints. Eve shifted her eyes off God and on to the fruit and all she could gain from eating it. She saw that it was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for making one wise. Game, set, match. Satan had won.

What I believe we can learn from this is, obedience to God’s word when we are being tried to sin or tying to discern between choices brought to us should be our default response. I recommend all readers of this blog read a small book authored by Dietrich Bonhoffer, “The Cost of Discipleship” It will give perspective to what I am about to relate to you.

I am going to give an example from my own life and struggle with in me to something I believe God was saying to me in spirit. Hopefully by now the readers of this blog know God’s word is absolute, period, no addendums, final. I had known the Lord approximately 20 years and had diligently, can I even say fervently, studied his word for 19 of those years. So much so, that I was getting teachings from the bible that no preachers or teachers at the time were talking about. In fact my first teaching from the Holy Spirit was from the Gospel of Luke chapter 12 verse 50 where Jesus says, “But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” The baptism of suffering. There is much to share on this, however, that’s for another time.

The Lord started speaking to me in my spirit to quite my job and start a business. What I knew as the voice of the Lord in spirit, that I had known my whole life as a Christian, was telling me to quite my job. So you will better understand my reluctance to believe this was the Lord speaking. I was the sole provider for my wife and 8 children. All 8 children still lived with us and my wife and I still provided for them.  I wrestled in prayer with the Lord, no really with myself trying to discern if it really was God speaking to me, or me speaking to me, or a deceptive spirit. Anyway this went on daily for three months.

I was making about $300 per month on the side cutting grass. I had put a contract in at the local Christian school to clean it at night for about $30,000, we were hoping to send our children to it. We had not heard from the school as to whether we were awarded the contract. I was being pressed hard in my spirit to quit even after 3 months of wrestling. I had been waiting to hear if we had gotten the school contract before I was going to quit.

It was a Tuesday morning when I was backing in to a parking space at Federal Express where I still worked. I was still praying about quitting when the Holy Spirit said to me, Kevin are you going to trust in a contract or me, you know what I have said, either do it, or don’t do it. Stop making excuses. I was making $300 dollars a month I could count on besides FedEx. With tears in my eyes I told the Lord as I was walking across the parking lot. God have until I get in to the office to stop me or I was going to quit my job. God I believe you have told me to quit my job. If you didn’t have mercy on me before I get in to the office.  I did in fact quit that day. I was making $300 a month of income I was able to generate, that was May 28, 1996. My first day in our new business was June 1, 1996. I was starting a 2 week vacation on June 1, and my manager told me I needn’t come back after the vacation.

There is more to the events I just related but, I believe we will leave that for later. To wrap it up we did get the cleaning contact a week after I quit FedEx, the $300 per month we were earning at first in our business. Ended up grossing nearly 2 million a year before we went bankrupt 2017. God has spoken to us through his word and is still speaking to us to today, If we have ears to hear what the spirit says. God Bless everyone.

Kevin