November 5, 2015
Note : I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of you who are studying God's word with u ! To all of our Russian brothers and sisters.... bless you !! Get your friends to join us .
In this our third week on faith we looked at some more aspects of faith. We took 5 verses and discussed each one. One of the five verses was Hebrews 11 : 1. We have started each class on faith with this verse. We covered it last week in the notes but we will look at it again here just to remind you .
" Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. " Hebrews 11 : 1
The reason this verse is so important is it tells us exactly what faith is and how we are to show faith.... ACTION ! As you read the rest of the chapter you will see that each person showed their faith in God by doing something. Building an arc, leading an army, leading a son up to be murdered, action is how we show our faith in God and to God. However, the biggest mistake Christians make is to do something they think God wants and then ask Him to bless it. This is backward, wait on God to lead you and show you what to do THEN take action.
" ... looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God " Hebrews 12 : 2. Two major points her 1) This tells us where we get our faith !! By keeping our eyes on Jesus, He was the author of faith when He died on the cross and the finisher of our faith that He now sits at the right hand of God. By faith, we with Jesus as long as we keep our eyes on Jesus. 2) Tells us why we should have faith. Jesus was happy to do the will of His father, even unto death and humiliation. This tells us that if we truly love Jesus, we will do his will even unto death !!!
" ... that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. " 1 Corinthians 2 : 5. When we prepare to take the action God has set aside for us, we need to make sure that we do God's way not mans. A good example might be if you are to teach a new bible study class and the church says to do certain things to le people know about it.... before you do any thing pray. God may want your class to reach different people than those in the church ! He may want you to put up notices in homeless shelters to reach those people. Always pray before taking action to make sure God's will is done His way !!!
" ... but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. " John 20 : 31. Here John is saying that all of Jesus' miracles were written down as proof that He was the Son of God. Not just a prophet or a good man. It is interesting to note that no where in the New Testament was any of the miracles that Jesus ever did were questioned... even by His enemies !! Even His enemies knew He was sent by God ! Knowing that Jesus died willingly to do the Fathers will should give us comfort in doing the will of Jesus even unto death !!!
" So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. " Romans 10 : 17. In those days, they did not have bibles as we do today. They would only get God's word when a priest would read from the scrolls in temple. Thus they would hear the word of God. For believers today we have bibles and faith comes by reading and/or hearing God's word.
This raps up our study on faith. Next week we will take a look at joy !
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