Taking Ground through Faith, by Ps Chris Field

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You are a Christian by faith.

As a Christian you live by faith.

Only faith can please God.

So, have your considered the significance of those statements?

Just Faith

You may have gotten the idea that God can be pleased by your singing, or song writing, or performing, or kneeling with tears of emotion, or preaching, or getting into the wonderful worship session, and so on.

If you watch the Worship Videos released by many big churches around the world today you could easily get the impression that being moved in an orchestrated worship event is the high point of Christianity.

But I am here to burst your bubble.

The ONLY thing that pleases God is your faith.  (See Hebrews 11:6)

Not Your Talent

Since you can only please God with your faith, there is no reason to believe God is pleased by your talent.  Your funky skills on an instrument or with a microphone may have absolutely nothing to do with faith.

Your ability to create poetic lyrics and stirring melody, or create fantastic riffs to accentuate a song, or to play the drum rhythm exactly as they do it on the Hillsong recording, counts for nothing.

ONLY YOUR FAITH pleases God.  Your talent has NOTHING to do with it.

Now I don’t say that to offend those wonderful talented people who I enjoy listening to.  I say that simply to pull down the wrong ideas that get sown in people’s heads.

I want you to hear what the Bible says, and not to let your wrong ideas rob you of the truth.

Evidence of Faith

So, if faith is the ONLY way you can please God what is the evidence of faith at work in your life?

Faith will lead you to works.  Those works will be expressions of your trust in God.

But if you have all your needs met and have good health, good income, no worries in life and no need to rely on God, you may not have any evidence of faith.

That does not mean you cannot have faith if all your needs are met, but it does put you at risk of cruising along relying on your natural conditions and not living by faith.

Remember what I said at the start, “As a Christian you live by faith”.  That is a truth stated several times in the Bible.

“For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” Romans 1:17 (See also: Habakkuk 2:4, Galatians 3:11 and Hebrews 10:38)

Take Ground or Hold Ground

Many years ago I realised that if I am not careful I will fall into the pattern or not living by faith.  In the affluent western world we have so many support mechanisms that we often rely on God as a last resort.

We have doctors, specialists, jobs, technology, money, material goods, security systems, ready access to food, running water, gas, electricity, ambulances, and on it goes.

So how do you use faith when you don’t need to?

That’s the challenge.  If you do not need to employ faith how to you “live by faith”?

The answer is that you must use faith to TAKE GROUND or you’ll have to use faith to HOLD GROUND.

Let God be God

If you do not need God in your life you will not exercise your faith in Him.  But if a doctor diagnoses some serious illness your prayer life will probably become more active.

If you lose your job you are more likely to pray for God’s provision or protection than when everything is going fine.

If you decide to take on the enemy and rout him out of your family or culture, then you will be calling on God to be God and to win the battle for you.

In order for you to be keen to find God’s power at work you will either be trying to Take Ground from the enemy, or you will be in one of those situations where you are struggling to Hold Ground against some calamity or challenge.

Choose to Take Ground

If faith is the only way to please God and you must “live” by faith, then you need to choose to Take Ground from the enemy.

That’s why Jesus taught us to pray “Your Kingdom come and Your Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”.  That is a prayer for Taking Ground.  It is a prayer to see evil driven back and God’s Kingdom established in new ways and in new places.

If you are living to take ground for God’s Kingdom you will be living by faith.  You will be employing faith in your prayers and in your actions.  And God will be pleased, because ONLY FAITH pleases God and you will be employing faith.

Use It or Be Forced to Use It

You have heard the saying “Use it or Lose it” but in things of the Spirit it might be better said, “Use it or be Forced to use it!”

If you are a Christian you are to live by faith.  If you don’t live by faith what will God do?  God wants you to live by faith because only your faith pleases Him.

Maybe God will have to force you into a place where you use faith, so you can be living by faith and pleasing Him.  So, how would God force you to live by faith?  Maybe God will have to send a few problems your way.  Maybe God will have to pull the rug out from under your feet.

A sudden loss, health challenge, problem at work, financial crisis, upset in the family, problem neighbour, legal issue, or the like can put you on the back foot and fighting to hold your ground.  Your cosy world can be turned into upheaval in an instant if God chooses to bring a challenge your way.

Taking Ground is Better

If you have the choice of taking ground for God’s Kingdom or being forced to fight to keep what you already have, which would you choose?

I think it is FAR better to be taking ground than struggling to hold the ground I have.  I would much rather be claiming new horizons for God, than struggling to bail out a sinking boat.

Taking Ground is much better than being forced to pray in desperation to get your health back, or to survive a financial disaster, or solve some vexing problem that has attacked you and your family.

When I realised that, many years ago, I decided that I want to be one who takes ground for God’s Kingdom, seeing God’s Kingdom come and God’s Will done on earth as it is in Heaven.

Maybe that’s why I am doing such crazy things as taking on injustice and fraud from the banks and courts.  I am in a place where my daily prayer is for God to be God in my situation and for Him to win for me.  I am staking all I have on my determination to bring new levels of justice to my nation and for my children and grandchildren’s future.

Taking ground is better – because it puts me in a place of living by faith, and that faith pleases God.  And I get to see God work miracles of deliverance and powerful works of transformation on the inside of my life.

I encourage you to do a faith audit and to do whatever you have to do to keep your own faith life active and vital.

Now, to clarity, you don’t need to be in a spiritual storm to be living by faith.  All those pressing in to God for rescue or new ground are engaging their faith.  And once you’ve staked your claim and are standing by it, you are living by faith, even if there is no drama about the matter.  The issue is to be living by faith – engaging your faith so God is delighted with you.

Your Stolen Wealth exposed by Chris Field

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Here is something to shake you up.  Your birthright has been stolen from you by the very people you voted for – and they don’t intend to give it back.

That means your share of the wealth of Australia now belongs to the Pollies, since they’ve stolen it out of your hands.  And you didn’t even know it happened!

Let me explain.

Common-Wealth

Australia really belongs to us Aussies.  We are entitled to the wealth of the land.  It’s called our Common Wealth.

That’s why when we created our own nation just over a hundred years ago we called it the Commonwealth of Australia.  We could use the wealth of the land to build roads, educate the kids, and build the nation.

We the people were in control.  We voted to accept our Constitution.  And we are the only ones who can change that Constitution.  That is stated in the Australian Constitution at Section 128, also called Chapter VIII.  Only a majority of us Aussies, in each state, can change our Constitution.  By the Constitution we are completely in control of our Common Wealth!

And that’s how it was for more than half a century.  Australian’s enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in the world.  We rode on the sheep’s back, made rich by the minerals in the ground and we developed some of the world’s biggest projects, like the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme.

Something Changed

We no longer enjoy the same wealth and we pay tolls on roads and now pay for many things freely provided to our grandparents.  Just about nothing is free any more.  They even want us to pay for the carbon dioxide we breathe out our nostrils.

So, how did we lose our common wealth?

Someone must have stolen it from us.

And they must have done it very secretly, so we did not notice.

Did you see it happen?  Do you know who did it and how?

It was done by putting a fake Australia in place of the Real Australia.

You are now living in the fake Australia, without even realising it.  And your politicians did this to you while you were at the beach, the footy, or the Melbourne Cup.

The Real Australia

The Real Australia is easy enough to understand.  It was created by the vote your great grandparents at the end of the 1800’s.  They voted to accept a carefully written Australian Constitution which created the “Commonwealth of Australia”.

That Common Wealth was based on just a few things: the will of the people; Almighty God; the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; and the Australian Constitution document.

You find all that in the opening paragraph of the Constitution, called the Preamble.

WHEREAS the people of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland; and Tasmania, humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God, have agreed to unite in one indissoluble Federal Commonwealth under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and under the Constitution hereby established

Commonwealth Law

The foundational Australian law is the Constitution, since that document has the authority of all the people and is under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Our elected representatives are empowered to make laws for our good.  The Constitution puts it this way at Section 51…..

The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws for the peace, order, and good government of the Commonwealth

When the Parliament makes a law that law must be in line with the Constitution and must be for the good of the Commonwealth.  And the Commonwealth is OUR common wealth.  The Parliament has no lawful right to make any law that is not for the “peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth”.  If they make any such law it is not a law at all.

Once a law has been voted on and passed, it must be submitted to the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to be made into a true law.

Remember that we all decided (or at least our great grandparents did) that we are humbly relying on the blessing of Almighty God and under the Crown of the United Kingdom.  That Crown has been given the responsibility to protect all our rights and freedoms, because that Crown gave us the promises of justice and right in Magna Carta and other Imperial Acts.

Creating the Fake Australia

What our pollies did was create a fake version of Australia and the Crown.  Their aim was to stop us having a say about our Commonwealth.  They wanted to make Australia something that THEY controlled, not us.  They wanted to change the laws, sell off the assets, claim the land in their control, and much more, while denying us our God-given rights.

Credit for the big step toward this fake Australia goes to the only Prime Minister in Australia to be sacked by the Crown.  Prime Minister Whitlam’s Labor government, back in 1973, introduced an unlawful authority into Australia.

This was done through an Act of Federal Parliament called the Royal Styles and Titles Act 1973 (Commonwealth), which is Act number 114 of 1973.

That Act was not submitted to the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.  So it was not done according to our Constitution.  It was a Politicians Act, to steal our common wealth.

That Act was the first Act to be made into law without proper endorsement by the Crown of the United Kingdom.

Change the Names

The Royal Styles and Titles Act 1973 (Cth) seemed innocuous enough.  It could have been simply a way of updating the names of things, to keep pace with modernisation.

Instead of the “Commonwealth of Australia” our nation would be simply called “Australia”.  You will note that currency from that time no longer bore the words “Commonwealth of Australia”.

Queen Elizabeth the Second was now to be called the Queen of Australia, which has a much more patriotic ring about it than the Queen of the United Kingdom.

The “Parliament of the Commonwealth” was from then on called the “Parliament of Australia”.

What was not obvious at that time was that these newly updated names have no foundation in law.  They do not refer to things described in the Australian Constitution.  They are fictions which allow our politicians to pretend to be serving the Commonwealth, while they are actually running a Corporation that is not based on the will of the people, nor building the common wealth of the people.

States Follow Suit

In the following decades, and particularly since the Australia Act 1986, each state also abandoned its lawful foundation and become a Corporation stealing the wealth of the people.

That is why several states have undermined the role of their Governor General, changed the names of their historic responsibilities, claimed ownership of the land, and so on.

Today we are living in an unlawful republican society, where our wealth and rights have been taken over by our politicians who have usurped the place of the people and the Crown.

Making Unlawful Laws

Remember that the foundational law in the Commonwealth is the Constitution.  By that Constitution the only laws that can be made are those that are for the “peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth”.

And all laws must be authenticated by the Crown, through the duly appointed representative, the Governor General of the Commonwealth of Australia.

However, now laws are made by the Parliament of Australia in the name of the Queen of Australia and signed by the Governor General of Australia.  While this is all very nice, it is completely UNLAWFUL.

No Federal law made since 1973 is according to the Australian Constitution.  They have all been put into force by unlawful processes.  And that amounts to an enormous amount of law since 1973.

All those laws are now not for the “peace, order and good government of the Commonwealth”, since the politicians have destroyed the common wealth and taken our wealth into their own control.

Australia Act 1986

The Australia Act is seen as changing the Australian Constitution, by agreement of all the states and the Federal Government.  But the only power that can change the Constitution is the “people”, by referendum, since the common wealth does not belong to the politicians, but to the people.

The Australia Act is just one example of the many enactments of the Australian Parliament acting as some other body than the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia.

What results is that we are now ruled by Corporations.  And the politicians have become the corporate bosses.  The Commonwealth of Australia exists in name only.  The politicians keep up the charade that all is the same as ever before, but in reality the Australia we know today is not the Commonwealth of Australia.

No Justice

That explains why we do not get our rights in Australian courts.  The Courts follow the corporate rules created by their corporate State, rather than upholding the rights of Australians guaranteed in the Constitution and by the Crown of the United Kingdom.

The Queen of Australia is a non-entity and does not protect us.  That notion of a Queen has been introduced to lull us into thinking all is the same.  We still have the Queen, but we do not realise she is not given her lawful place as the Queen identified in the Constitution.

Usurpers

Those who are leading our nation today are usurpers.

That is a terrible thing to say, but it can only be the truth.

Australia is run as a Corporation.  The authority of the “people” has been usurped.  Your politicians are making decisions only you can make.  They are claiming rights that only belong to you.  They have claimed your land as theirs, not yours.

Your wealth has been stolen.  The common wealth has been taken from you by your political leaders.  The Commonwealth of Australia is no more.  You now live in “Australia”, not the Commonwealth of Australia.

All the protections put in place by your predecessors, in the Australian Constitution, have been cleverly destroyed, by smiling pollies who have changed the names, and completely changed your world.

Maybe you need to know that.  And maybe you need to do something about it.

I give credit to Queenslander Dick Yardley for drawing these issues to my attention.

Faith and Doubt A Lesson by Ps Chris Field

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My recent Doubt Dungeon post led to further thoughts about how doubt blocks faith.  So here is a fresh analogy for the place of faith and doubt in our lives.

I pointed out in Doubt Dungeon that doubt blocks our will.  When we have doubts we are afraid to engage our will to make a choice, since we might be making the wrong choice.

So doubt is a terrible force to allow into your life as it destroys your capacity to make choices and move forward.

Biblical Insight

The Bible speaks about how doubt disables our will, so this is not some mere psychological observation, but a principle that we need to be aware of.  When you have doubts about the choice to make you “halt”.  You are blocked from moving forward.  The ancient Hebrew word used for halt speaks of dancing from one foot to the other, unable to step forward.

“And Elijah came to all the people, and said, How long will you halt between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.” 1Kings 18:21

Having doubts leads you to struggle between two opinions, so you become “double minded”.  And that makes you unstable.  You cannot make clear, effective decisions that you will stick to.

“A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” James 1:8

The Springboard

To give practical form to how doubt and faith work in your life I suggest the idea of a Faith Springboard.  Imagine you have a springboard, similar to those used in athletics to launch a person forward.

Faith is a Springboard that launches you forward in the things you are believing for.  With faith you connect with God and receive His blessings.  God is pleased when you use faith.

However, your faith springboard must be plugged in.  While normal springboards don’t need any power source, your faith springboard needs to be plugged into something.  It needs to be plugged into your Will.

Unless you “choose” to believe, your belief machine (springboard) sits idle and gathers dust.  No matter how many times you look at it or talk about it, your faith will not work until you activate it with your will, by choosing to believe.

So, to get the picture clear, you have a springboard of faith that will catapult you forward in the things of God, but your must activate it with your will, by making a choice to believe.

Faith is choosing to believe.  Faith and the will need to work together.  It is “you” who believes God, with your will.

Abraham Believed God

The most famous man of faith in human history is Abraham, who believed what God promised him.  God told Abraham he would have a son by his wife Sarah.  Abraham and Sarah were already too old to be parents, but Abraham made a choice to believe God.

We know from the New Testament that faith is the only thing that pleases God.

“Without faith it is impossible to please God: for he that comes to God must believe that God exists, and that God rewards those who diligently seek him.” Hebrews 11:6

When Abraham chose to believe God, God was pleased and God blessed him.

“For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” Romans 4:3

Abraham believed God.  He didn’t get carried away in some emotional high, but he chose, with his will, to trust and rely on what God told him.  When Abraham chose to activate faith, by his will choosing to believe God, God credited Abraham with righteousness.

And that is the model for salvation in every generation since then.  We are not made right with God by anything we do, except the choice of our will to believe what God says.  Since Christ’s sacrifice for us 2,000 years ago, we must choose to believe in Christ as our saviour.  Then we are forgiven and made a child of God.

Just as Abraham had to use his will to choose to believe God, we also must use our will to choose to believe God.

Enter Doubt

When doubt comes into the picture it has the effect of pulling the plug on our will.  Faith needs our will to make the choice to believe.  Doubt pulls the plug, so our will is no longer connected to our faith.

When we ‘doubt’ we suddenly have a dead springboard.  It doesn’t work any more.  That’s not because doubt is greater than faith, but because doubt disconnects our will.  When we won’t “choose to believe” our faith lies dormant.

Faith in God is still the most powerful force we can activate.  But it cannot help us until and unless we make a personal choice to believe.  Doubt frightens us off making that choice, and so our faith sits like a broken down machine, unable to do for us what it is designed to do.

Activate Faith

We all need to activate our faith.  We need to choose to believe in God and to trust God’s Word.

If you activate your faith you can keep on springing forward in the things of God.  If you let doubt disable your will, faith will be of no effect to you.

Faith is a choice, not a feeling or some emotional state you get into after hearing a positive message.  It is a choice made in the cold light of day, that you will believe God to be God and believe His Word to be true.  Those who get swept along could easily be swept away, but those who activate their faith, by a choice to believe, squashing their doubts and stepping onto the springboard of faith, will be able to enter into the salvation and blessing God has for them.

So, the lesson is “Choose to Believe”.

Unique Earthbound Worship

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I was blessed on Sunday to enjoy a Worship Sunday service where Roger preached about our whole lives as an act of worship.

What really resonated with me most of all was a statement Rog made at the end of his message, about how “there is no retrenchment in heaven”!

Roger has been retrenched a number of times and on one occasion he simply went home and asked his wife to play worship songs on the piano as he prostrated himself on the loungeroom floor and worshipped God.

That kind of worship cannot be offered in heaven.  It is the Unique Earthbound Worship we can only bring to God while we are stuck on this mortal globe facing the pains of human life.

In heaven there will be no tears, no pain, no sorrow.  So we cannot offer God our worship through gritted teath and pain-filled heart.

Alabaster Box

As a young man I heard a sermon about the lady who broke an alabaster box of precious ointment and poured it onto Jesus, as an act of devotion and worship.

“And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head.” Mark 14:3

By breaking the box this woman released the precious ointment and filled the room with the fragrance of her act of worship.

In the same way, when we are “broken”, we are able to offer God a fragrance of worship that cannot be released if the box is not broken.

My Song

All those years ago, as I reflected on that message, my heart’s desire was to release to God the kind of fragrance that can only come from being “broken” for Him.

I made up a simple song to voice the thoughts of my heart.

“Some times I feel like an Alabaster Box, Waiting to be broken to Glorify My Lord”.

I don’t think I ever looked forward to the “breaking” process, but I knew it would always bring glory to God.

Today, as I work through my battle against bank fraud and court injustice, being crushed by the powers of those who are intent of denying me my lawful rights, I recognise that there is a level of “crushing” going on.  I am heartened to realise that in these difficulties my worship to God becomes all the more precious.

Praising Through the Pain

Only on earth can we praise God through the pain of heartache, fear, loss, brokenness, shame, trials, sickness, and all the other evidences of a fallen world.  In heaven these things don’t exist.  There is no sorrow in heaven, so no way we can praise God through our tears of pain and struggle.

So that gives you a new way to view your present situation.  If you are facing pain, challenge, discomfort, opposition, uncertainty or anything else that causes you pain, you are in a perfect place to offer precious worship and praise to God.

Healed

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I celebrate the wonder of standing in faith. God has blessed me at times of standing in faith and I have always been drawn to those Biblical accounts of men who took hold of God. So let me encourage your own faith stand with a lovely testimony.

Kara is a young uni student friend hospitalised last year with sudden onset of a mystery disease. Her mum was called back from Christian ministry overseas because there were fears for Kara’s life.

Kara’s system seemed to be in turmoil and her skin was covered in dark blotches. So much was going wrong with her at once that half a dozen different specialists were each trying to diagnose the bizarre and life-threatening symptoms.

The family called me to the hospital to pray for Kara on several occasions and I was delighted to see that, weak as she was, she was holding on in faith, believing God to heal her. However, the disease and the mystery lingered.

Kara had been previously diagnosed with chronic rheumatoid arthritis. What we now understand is that new medication she had been placed on a few months before caused her mystery symptoms, but the doctors did not realise that at first. The life-threatening severity and the diversity of symptoms had the team of specialists at their wits’ end.

Kara’s Faith

Meanwhile Kara continued to believe that God would heal her. There was no evidence of recovery and no insight from the doctors, but Kara determined to believe the truth of God’s Word, that we are healed through the physical torment endured by Jesus Christ on our behalf (Isaiah 53:5).  Kara’s mum wrote about her daughter’s ordeal…

“It was a real challenge for Kara as she had been there for 8 weeks, during which she was in ICU 3 times, as she battled and triumphed over acute liver failure/hepatitis (twice), bibasal pneumonia, lymphadenopathy, HITS syndrome, autoimmune haemolytic anaemia for which she had 2 blood transfusions, severe anaemia & thrombocytopaenia, and HHV6, for which she had bone marrow biopsy and surgery for lymph gland biopsy, not to mention all the countless daily blood tests, MRIs, X-Rays, Scans, Picc lines etc… AND, God’s presence was with us all that time!

“We have so much to testify to, of God’s goodness and miraculous touch. Kara herself took authority over the enemy in Jesus’ name one morning at 5.00am, waking her sister who was sleeping in the room and insisting that the sister agree with Kara in prayer.  We registered Kara turning around from then.

“In many ways her faith was stronger than mine and she shone through with the sweetest disposition, much to the admiration of the many specialists and nurses looking after her. They commended her for what they perceived to be her ‘positive’ attitude and stoic outlook.”

After her surgery Kara insisted on having the word ‘HEALED’ written on the bandage on her head.  She instructed her sister to write it there as a testimony to what she believed for.

“Thereafter, with each daily change of the bandage, she would request that the word ‘HEALED’ be written afresh. She would walk around the ward and other areas of the hospital – the admissions reception area, canteen, gift shop, garden etc with her bandage, holding onto her dripline. She was not shy to share her faith, and openly declared that she was healed. I thank God for His hand upon her life, for His love and grace and mercy!”

When the ordeal was over, and the bizarre symptoms no longer plagued her, tests showed that not only was Kara released from the many life-threatening conditions, but the original, underlying problem of rheumatoid arthritis was completely healed.

Kara’s faith, seen in her determination, her persistent confidence in God, and her public testimony worn on her head, brought her through to healing.

Faith Champions

Faith champions are very ordinary people. What makes them stand out is that they are willing to believe that God can and will bless them as they cry out to Him.

God said it, I believe it, and that settles it! God has done it before and God will do it again. Nothing is impossible to God. I won’t be dissuaded by how big the challenge is. I choose to believe what God says in the Bible, and I will not give up.

Faith champions are often like children when it comes to trusting God. A child is likely to say something like, “Don’t cry mummy. God will fix the problem.” Or he may say, “Isn’t God bigger than our problem?”

Jesus told us that we enter God’s kingdom like a little child. And that includes child-like faith that rests confidently in God, in the same way a little child sleeps soundly in his daddy’s arms.

Take a Faith Stand

Those who take a faith stand appear extreme or foolish to those who struggle to find faith. Remember how Gideon stepped out in faith and reduced his army to just three hundred men. Yet that small band defeated a huge army of Midianites.

Moses trusted God to deliver Israel, not knowing that God would open the sea and lead them safely through. David confidently ran to face Goliath when all the trained soldiers were too afraid to do so.

Kara believed God, before there was any evidence of the healing. She made public testimony that she was “Healed” before the doctors even knew what to predict.

I encourage you in your faith. Choose to believe God. Take a faith stand.