August 11, 2008
Be
Believing
John
20:27 Then
He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach
your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving,
but believing.”
There
is a saying that says, “Seeing is believing!” That may be true but seeing is
NOT faith! We are called to walk by faith and not by sight.
Faith is having confidence and a certainty. It begins with believing God
is who He says He is. And ends with believing God will do what He says He will
do. At salvation you had to believe that Jesus was and is who He said He was and
is: God’s son. Next you had to believe Christ did what He said He would do: He
died and was raised up again three days later for the forgiveness of your sins.
Too often, we allow our faith to fail us and begin trying to earn our own
righteousness. We tell ourselves we have to pray more, go to church more often,
fast, or read the Word longer. Then, we tell ourselves, I’ll be more
acceptable before God. Romans 10:2-3 tells us that many have a zeal for God, but
are ignorant of God’s righteousness and have not submitted to the
righteousness of God, because they seek to establish their own. When we begin to
believe the lie Satan tells us that we must do-do-do in order to gain God’s
favor, we are really saying that what Christ did for us wasn’t good enough!
Our faith is not in operation. We have quit believing that Christ did what He
said He would do.
Romans
10: 4 says, “For Christ is the end of
the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” That doesn’t
mean everything in the Old Testament is obsolete. It means that following the
law (all the rules and regulations) to have right standing before God has ended.
(It never worked anyway, because Christ was the only one able to keep the law.)
It means that for those who believe, that Christ was God’s son and came to
earth to die and after three days be raised back to life to return to the Father
with His own blood for the atonement of man, those believers will stand
righteous before God and their sins will be forgiven.
1 Corinthians 15:17
says, “And if Christ is not risen, your faith is
futile; you are still in your sins!”
Hebrews
11 runs down the list of people in the Old Testament that lived by faith. Verse
4 says, “By faith Abel offered to God a more
excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was
righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still
speaks.” If we look back to Genesis 4:3-5,
we see that Abel’s sacrifice was the firstborn of his flock, a substitute, an
atonement, which Hebrews tells us gave witness to his righteousness. Cain on the
other hand, was a tiller of the ground. He brought an offering of the fruit of
the ground. In other words, it was the fruit of his own labor. Something he had
produced himself and worked for. It was not acceptable to God. Our own works
will never produce righteousness or be acceptable to God. Don’t misunderstand
me. I know faith without works is dead, but works are a fruit of our salvation
not a means to our salvation!
Hebrews
10:6, 8 say,
“But the righteousness of faith speaks…
8
But what does it say? “The word is
near you, in your mouth and in your heart.”’ Even
though Abel is dead, his faith still speaks! He was not ignorant of God’s
righteousness! Cain however, remained ignorant of God’s righteousness and
sought to establish his own. It was not respected by God. “Without
faith it is impossible to
please Him, for he who comes to
God must believe that He is, and that
He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6
Remember
just as you were saved by faith and believed in your heart and confessed with
your mouth, continue to let your faith speak or even shout! God IS and His
promises are true. Do not be
unbelieving, but believing.
God
is who He says He is and He will do what He says He will do!
Janet
Fairbrother