Faith – Living in the Substance

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Faith is something I give attention to and from time to time I reflect on the practical issues of faith as a lifestyle. This reflection is a fresh way to communicate what “living by faith” is all about. But before I get to that, let me back track with you and give you a couple of headlines on why faith is a big deal for me.

Faith is the only way to please God! That’s what Hebrews 11:6 says. “Now, without faith it is impossible to please Him” (meaning God). That means that “faith” has to be a primary quality in every person’s life. If we do not have faith we do not please God. This does not mean we have to blindly believe crazy things. We can have a reasoned understanding of the things we believe. But when all is said and done “faith” must be the essential ingredient. Otherwise we have completely failed to please God.

Christians, therefore, are not to simply apply faith as some initiation rite into the fold. Faith must be an on-going element of the Christian life and lifestyle. It is no use saying, “I had faith 35 years ago when I put my trust in Jesus.” In order to “please” God we must have an ongoing experience of faith. The Bible refers to that as “living by faith”. The concept is given in the Old Testament (Habakkuk 2:4) and quoted several times by New Testament writers (Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, Hebrews 10:38). “Righteous people will live by faith”.

Living by faith can involve two broad expressions – the pro-active faith that presses in to win battles and make gain; and the passive lifestyle of faithfulness that maintains commitment and direction over time and against obstacles. The Greek word translated ‘faith’ in the New Testament can equally be translated as ‘faithfulness’. So, faith does not have to be demonstrative to be real and to please God.

OK, so that’s my quick summary of some faith essentials. Now, to the point at hand. Faith functions in the Christian’s life in the same way that ‘substance’ does. That means that a person who has faith for an outcome will feel the same joy, etc as someone who actually already has the outcome. The Apostle Paul put it this way, “Faith is the substance of the things that are hoped for. It is the evidence of things which are unseen” (Hebrews 11:1).

A person who has faith already “has” the substance of what they believe for. Faith does not leave a person in a “hope so” state. It brings an assured confidence in the outcome. Over the years I have met some lovely and well-meaning people who were raised on the “do good” gospel. These sweet people made it their business to be caring, sacrificial servants who did as many good works as they could. Yet they were putting their faith for eternal salvation and God’s favour, in their good works. One such lady said to me, “I hope I get to heaven”. She had no ‘substance’ – because she did not have faith.

Now, let me fuse two of the faith verses together and give you my fresh perception. If Christians are to “live by faith” and “faith is the substance”, then people of faith, are people who are “Living in the Substance”.

Christians are people who live in the substance of salvation, their eternal destiny, God’s blessing, their victory over sin and the devil, their hope of glory and so on.

Another way of putting it is that people of faith are the Possessors of the Unseen. Yet again, people of faith live in the reality that others do not see yet, because people of faith have the substance even before it is outworked in their lives. Which ever way you look at it, living by faith is a radical lifestyle. It is the way millions of people live, right across the globe. It is the privilege that gives eternal and miraculous power to the underprivileged, disadvantaged, inconsequential and overlooked people in the world. It is something that everyone should enjoy.

I recommend living by faith. I recommend “Living in the Substance”.

Journey of the Heart

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WHY DID GOD PUT ME IN THIS FAMILY?

Life is an Adventure – with a Sting in the Tail!

Welcome to Kindergarten!!!

 

It’s how you respond that counts!!

“Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” Proverbs 4:23

 

When God chose for you to be born into your family He “set you up” for the chance to go to the top of the mountain, into the Holy of Holies and into the heights of human experience.

He did that by carefully choosing your mum and dad, brothers and sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunties and cousins.

He also did that by choosing a wilderness for you to go through and giving you some tough times, then throwing in some high points – to see how you respond.

He dumped some garbage onto you and sprinkled some gold-dust as well.

 

And then He watched what you did with it all.

He gave you time, even patient when you messed it up – not giving you what you deserve as soon as you deserve it, but waiting and watching to see what your heart will do in response to all the good, the bad and the ugly of your life.

 

He did all that, as your “Kindergarten”.

 

If you flunk kindergarten you get stuck in the sandpit for the rest of your life, fighting with the other kids for the broken fire-truck and sun-bleached plastic spade.

If you flunk kindergarten you get to go back week after week and year after year to the same old squabbles, insecurities, petty jealousies, empty dreams, play acting, hurtful words and treadmill existence.

If you flunk kindergarten you get to carry a bunch of enslaving reactions and attitudes for the rest of your life.

Even when you grow old you will still be salve to the same childish struggles which trapped you in your childhood.

 

But if you succeed in kindergarten you move up to the next grade. You get to face some tougher challenges and more meaningful issues, which lead you to even more challenging situations where you can do much more decisive things which impact far beyond the sandpit. In time you may even stand on the mountain and God and see what God sees. You may hear His voice and feel His heartbeat about things that are yet generations away. You may change the course of nations and impact multitudes who don’t know your name.

 

How few ever rise above the first ridge! They tangle their tread with the cords of their selfish heart – snared by a mouth pouring venom from their beating chest. Rage and unforgiveness, outrage and intolerance, pride and indignation swirl churning in a stew of surging shame.

 

They trudge back to the sand-pit,

dirty shirted children,

bogged in a mire they cannot comprehend.

Fierce in their rebellion,

demanding explanation,

they jeer or cower or trudge on to their appointed end.

They raise a laugh and titter

and scramble for the glitter

of things that have no value, save to a vanquished soul.

They remonstrate and make demand

while others come and rake the sand,

and all this nonsense doesn’t make them whole.

 

So, is it any wonder

the world is torn asunder

and very few achieve the heights for which their life was born?

Very few have seen the light

that leads them through the darkest night

into the dazzling brilliance of the dawn.

So where are you upon this way;

in the sand-pit to this day?

Or have you found God’s Grace and made a start?

The road is very close at hand,

it starts with one foot in the sand,

for it’s a journey made within your heart.

 

Be diligent to keep your heart

from wrong reactions which then start

to poison all you have and all you are.

Forgive and trust and pass on grace,

to those around you in this race,

and you are sure to your journey high and far.

God bless you as you make a choice

to trust in God and then rejoice

in all that He has done for you and me.

God bless you as you trust Him still

and go His way each day until

you compass all that is your destiny.

 

Welcome to the Graduation!

Prophetic People

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Numbers 11:29 “And Moses said to him, Are you envious for my sake? I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit on them.”

Moses’ wish is also that of the Lord. When God promised to put His Spirit on all flesh, in Joel 2, the emphasis was that God’s people would be a “Prophetic People”.

Joel 2:28,29 “It will come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, you old men will dream dreams, and your young men with see visions; And also on the servants and on the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit.”

When the Apostle Peter quoted this text on the Day of Pentecost he cast an even stronger emphasis on Prophecy resulting from the giving of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:17,18 “And it will come to pass in the last days, says God, I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh: and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams: And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit: and they will prophesy.”

Prophets tell or reveal things about God. They display truth about God. They speak of the marvelous works of God.

All of God’s children are called to do this. Such a role is part of them being a chosen people for God.

1Peter 2:9 “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, to show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.

We know from the example of God’s prophets in the Bible, that some prophecy comes as spoken words. Other prophecy comes by way of action and example.

Spoken prophecy reveals the mind of God and calls people to respond appropriately. It is also used to call something into existence on God’s behalf, by prophetic declaration. Just as God calls those things which are not as though they existed (Romans 4:17), and then the thing materializes or becomes real, so too God’s prophets spoke things which then resulted as real outcomes.

Prophecy by action also reveals the mind of God and calls people to a response. Actions of faith can result in calling things into existence.

A Prophetic People will both speak with Divine authority and also act on God’s behalf. This is the calling of God’s People.

Prophetic Call

There is currently a call emanating from heaven, drawing people to a place of obedience and the fear of God, which will accelerate the manifestation of a Prophetic People.

God is raising a new generation of awesome people, a Prophetic People, who know their God and act in profoundly powerful ways (Daniel 11:32). Many of these people are unseen. They are not on the platforms or the TV screens. They are not writing books or composing the latest songs. In due time they may do all of those things.

Right now, however, they are simply responding to God. They are feeling His heartbeat and His call on their life. They are doing the painful thing of yielding to God, sometimes at great cost. Others around them may be getting it easy, but these Prophetic People can’t get away with such things. They are under the mighty hand of God. They are being humbled right now, but in due time they will be raised up (1Peter 5:6). 

Many of these people do not realize what God is doing. Some can only see that things have not turned out as they hoped. They are almost in despair because they have been plunged into challenges they never wanted to face. But those very people stand in a prophetic moment. How they respond will either lead to their frustration or the glory of God. Some will experience the loss of all they hold dear, but will then rise from the ruins with such grace and glory on their life that they will be a prophetic testimony in everything they do. 

Many feel as if they are in no-man’s land. They can’t go back to where they were. The world doesn’t satisfy them any more. Yet they can’t tell where they are going. They are on an Abrahamic journey to a new land, having left their past, but having no clear idea of where they are going to end up.

THE PROPHETIC CALL

There is a prophetic Call going out across the earth, by the Spirit of God.

A trumpet has begun sounding in heaven, and although people can’t hear it audibly, something inside them is stirring and restless in response.

New horizons of destiny are opening. The skies are clearing. New kinds of journeying are now possible which were not available in the past. Just as a century ago the church tried to come to terms with things that were old yet new again, so too this new generation will struggle to get a solid grip and theology on what is happening.

Many will be awakened, but some will go off on tangents of the flesh and the devil’s direction. What we are about to see will be messy and unworthy of God’s Kingdom. Yet this is a move of God. This is the work of the Lord.

 

“My Life is MINE!” – A warning to youth

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Have you been told, “It’s Your Life!” Well, don’t be fooled by that idea. Yes, you have a free will. You can make your own bed and you will have to lie on it. But that doesn’t make you your own property, nor your life your own life.

Part of the destruction of young lives is to disconnect them from real meaning and purpose. A clever way to do that is to suggest, “It’s your life, so do with it as you please!” If a person feels ownership of their life they think they are not as accountable for it. They only have to answer to themselves. “It’s my life, so I can waste it if I want to!”

At the same time they are disconnected from real meaning, purpose and fruitfulness, because they go off chasing butterflies rather than connecting with bigger things.

You are not your own! God owns you. God created you for His purposes. You are on the planet for divine reasons, and you are not supposed to miss them or mess them up. And what’s more, you impact others and must give account for that as well. If you cause someone else to stumble you will be dealt with severely by God. If you undermine someone else’s destiny and divine calling your will have to answer to God. If you marry someone and entangle them in your own life-wasting activities you will be held accountable for that.

Your life is not your own. You are not here to do as you please. You are a fully responsible person and you will be judged for ETERNITY for the things you do and say. There are HUGE consequences to your life. You will even have to account for every idle word you speak, let alone those big arguments, or those obvious times when you hurt others. Even your THOUGHTS are laid bare before God.

To make matters worse, God is watching your actions, words and intentions and will give you what you deserve based on what He sees. The eyes of the Lord are in every place, seeing what both the good and evil people do. God rewards those who trust in Him and he curses those who trust in themselves or who live life by man’s wisdom and standards.

The only thing you own is your will. But even there, you have no power to do anything but love God and be blessed or defy God and be cursed. You have no power over your life or the outcomes of anything you do. God holds you in His hand. God can bring you sunshine or rain. God will give you what you deserve – almost!

The good news is that God is patient and loving toward you, and will not give you everything you deserve as soon as you deserve it. He is patient with you, waiting for you to repent and get rid of the garbage in your life.

Give up your foolish self-focused ideas. Get into reality. You are a created being, put on the planet by the Living God, for His eternal purposes. God has an amazing destiny for you, but He requires you to trust Him, in faith and to go His ways, no matter how hard that turns out to be. God allows you to cop out, run away, rebel and be eaten up with foolishness. It’s your life to destroy if you are stupid enough to do so. But in reality it’s not your life to do with as you please. Your life is God’s life, created for His pleasure and purposes.

Get smart. Humble yourself before God and make Him Lord of your whole existence. He will put you through the ringer, giving you some touch challenges, to sort out the men from the boys, but the end result of going God’s way is incredibly beyond anything else you can ever hope to do with your days.

Your life is His Life – so yield it to Him.

Nailed in Place

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On my first visit to Malaysia I spoke at a businessmen’s breakfast and shared about God’s call for men to be men. A learned man in the audience was so touched by my message that he asked me to take his speaking engagement at a luncheon that day and to share the same message.

One point I made strongly in that message was about being “nailed in place”. This issue comes from places where men were commissioned to be men. It is used when David commissioned Solomon to be king. It occurred when God called Joshua to replace Moses.

The actual term in the English translations is the call to “be strong”. The original Hebrew word, chazaq, means to “fasten” something in place or to take hold of something with no intention of letting it go. I use the term “nailed in place” to emphasize that real men, men who are fulfilling their godly destiny, do not change. Real men are nailed in place in terms of their commitment, faithfulness, determination to trust God, choice of values, and so on.

Western culture’s values are constantly shifting. Godly men do not change their values with the culture. What was evil and repulsive thirty years ago, is still evil and repulsive to them. What they stood for when they were full of zeal, is what they still stand for today.

Sadly, Christian men have allowed standards to crumble around them. What they once thought inappropriate, they now allow. What was once deemed offensive is now tolerated, or even promoted.

Western culture has slid downhill in succeeding generations because men who should have been nailed in place just kept stepping backwards with each new onslaught. Rather than holding ground they gave ground. Instead of seizing and fastening upon unchangeable things they went along for the ride and never regained the things they gave up.

It is time for a new generation of men to rise. It is time for men who will be “strong”, because they have fastened themselves onto things that they will not give up. It is time for such men to not only stand firm, but to work together to build stability and godly depth into their society.

I expect, however, that repentance might be a good place to start. Something like, “Lord God, forgive me for being weak in the knees and for compromising things which You want me to hold firm.”

Doing business with God is a powerful way to become strong. Then you can lend a hand to others who are looking for a mentor – someone who will stand up for what they believe.