Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at The New Covenant P26 (07-21-21)
What Is Faith?
Faith sounds like a churchy word, but have you ever pondered what that means? Is it faith in the mystical, the mystical body of Christ? Is it faith that God exists? What exactly is faith? A better question is in whom should you place your faith in for what really matters. If I know I am a sinner, and that sin is what caused my death, then not only do I need forgiveness of sins, but I need life, for sin is what caused my death. Who is the only person who can and did accomplish that for me? Who alone has already forgiven my sins and has offered me life?
Forgiveness cannot give eternal life. It can only be a necessary preparation for eternal life to be given. For if Jesus did not eternally take away the sins of the world, then eternal life could not be given, because the next time man sins he would die again. Only LIFE can give life, and the only person with life in His name, who has no sin of His own and who was raised from the dead and lives forever is Jesus. Jesus is the only one who has eternal life to give us as a gift to be received by faith. Quit asking God for what he has already done. Forgiveness is finished. Catholics teach error that you can go to a priest for forgiveness. Protestants teach error that you can go directly to God to get your sins forgiven. And Jesus is telling everyone forgiveness is FINISHED! Now receive His Life and that Life is only found in Jesus! No one else can give you Life.
God left us His word, through eyewitness, the apostles, who walked and talked with a man named Jesus. Jesus claimed to be God, showed by His life that He is God, and testified that He is God. The testimony of God concerning His Son is greater than man’s testimony. The apostles heard what God said concerning His Son. They heard the word of God spoken out of the mouth of Jesus, who is the exact representation of God in the flesh. Having heard the message of truth, they believed in what God accomplished for them. They received the Holy Spirit, and that Spirit is the Spirit of grace and truth in Christ Jesus. That same Spirit living in them brought to remembrance everything the Lord had said and done that God wanted them to write down. God revealed to them the meaning of the word of God and He wants to do that with you and me today also.
So, have you got a grasp on foundational truth in the word of God? Have you understood what the gospel is, as you read 1 Corinthians 15, which explicitly states what the gospel is? Have you understood the meaning of the death, burial and resurrection? If you do not have a strong foundation built on this gospel then you will sooner or later crumble.
It is like a house built on a strong foundation with reinforcing bars of steel with the correct number of them. That foundation will stand. But if the foundation is not built properly because a shady builder cut corners and did not put enough bars in or no bars at all, that house will crash eventually when the storms come. Why? You can put up a wall and a roof and make it look nice on the outside, but the shifting sand moves that foundation and so eventually the house will come down with a crash.
So is your faith on a strong foundation or is it on the traditions of men? Would you rather listen to a priest who says you must come to him for the forgiveness of sins? Would you rather believe a Protestant who says you come direct to God to get your sins forgiven, those ones you committed today? If you are in Christ, and you know the totality of the cross, that Jesus did not come to cover sins, but to take your sins away, then you know that in Him you have the forgiveness of sins. It is not faith to ask for what in Him you already have. You are, in essence, calling God a liar who said “It is finished”, meaning in Greek, “It is paid in full”. Are you believing that God did shed His blood to just take away some of your sins away, but not the ones you commit today, where you are told by men you have to make yourself clean before God, to get those marks erased?
The traditions of men will destroy people. Many people have not come to Christ and will die in their sins. Why? They have not placed their faith securely in what Christ Jesus alone accomplished for him by His death, burial and resurrection. They have added or subtracted to what God says has already been done. They failed to come to Christ for life for the sake of their traditions.
If you have forgotten that you you have already been forgiven of your past sins, you cannot grow in grace. You are on a shaky foundation. You can only walk in faith, and allow that faith in Christ, alive living in you, for the fruit of the Spirit to be worked in you and through you. You cannot do that by the energy of your flesh. That only causes what is often called spiritual burn out because your thinking is based on a faulty foundation. Only from a firm foundation can goodness, kindness and brotherly love, those things the apostle Peter mentions in increasing measure, be worked in your life. You must have your mind renewed with truth, starting with a firm foundation, and then you can walk in the new way of the Spirit, growing from glory to glory, living in increasing measure that which God has already given you, which is everything you need for life and godliness.
Thank Jesus, God in the flesh, for His completed forgiveness on the cross for ALL your sins today. And if you have not already done so, receive Him for Life. For Jesus gives eternal life to everyone that places faith in Him!
Hebrews 4:16
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
