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Posts Tagged ‘Faith in God’

First Step Towards Being Dead in Christ

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , , on April 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Romans 6:10-13

The beginning of every spiritual achievement is founded in FAITH. From the depths of our sin-prone estate we look to the dizzy heights of Christ-like achievements like being “dead in Christ,” and some of us feel a deep kind of despair in that such an achievement is humanly unattainable. Humanly, yes, but IN CHRIST we can make it.

The first question therefore is how do I do it? The answer is loud and clear in the above passage in Romans 6 – by faith reckon it so. This is not some kind of mental or metaphysical exercise of the will, but a God given ability to believe God. The reckoning of the death of Jesus Christ to be my death can only be brought about by the knowledge of His life being my life, and the sure faith that the life of Christ in me will kill the Adamic life, which is ever present in the form of sin within my members.

One of the greatest signs of the life of Christ in me is the fact that I can see the Adamic nature within my own members.

There was a day in my youth when I went to God with the feeling that I thought I was free from all sin. But He said to me that I should sanctify myself. Naturally I asked Him how, and He told me to watch my members and keep them free from sin. The first few hours were disastrous…. I had sinned with my feet, my ears, my mind, my mouth, and my eyes – there was lusting, idleness, carnal mind, prying ears, and evil speaking. It was quite a shock for someone who thought he was holy. Only the Holy Ghost can reveal one’s sin to himself. The difference between God revealing sin, and the devil doing it, is that when God reveals sin it blesses the believer, the motive being to lift him up. When the devil does it, it is to cast down and deride.

If therefore, we are to reckon ourselves dead, we need first to know that we are not dead (dead to sin), but that we desire to be, and that this is attainable through the death of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

If we believe that we are joined to Jesus Christ by His death, and that His death is the death of the carnal man within us, then our reckoning this to be so will create within us the death to sin which we desire.

This is the first step towards being “dead in Christ”. In our next devotional we will deal with the second step that follows.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, August 1984)

Thought for today: Even though being “dead in Christ” is humanly unattainable, it is reachable IN CHRIST by faith.

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Faith Born of God

Posted in Faith in God, tagged , , , , , on March 28, 2024| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: I John 5:4

Faith, “born of God,” is the victory which overcomes the world. What do we mean by “faith born of God?” Faith can be born of greed. Someone can have faith to win the lottery, or to play the horses, or to get property. Faith born of God cannot be selfishly motivated. Faith born of God cannot be competitive or prideful – i.e. to have the biggest auditorium in the U.S.A. or the biggest congregation in the world. The root of the faith that is born of God is in God. “Whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world.” Finally faith born of God overcomes the world.

I see the children of God struggling under the burden of worldliness. Even the kids are made to uphold all the worldly standards and be a part of every whim of the world which the kids of the non-Christians uphold. Instead of being taught of God they are taught by the devils of the system. Their paragon is not Jesus Christ and the holy men and women of the Bible, but the cursed televised demons of Hollywood, Paris, San Francisco, and New York. It does not matter how much faith you have for miracles and how much results you might have in this area, if you are not overcoming the world, the flesh, and the devil, then your miracles are nothing but condemnation because you believe in a God of miracles and deny the greatest of all miracles which is the victory over self and sin and Satan.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, May 1986)

Thought for today: Faith born of God overcomes the world.

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Exercise Your Faith

Posted in Faith in God, tagged , , , on December 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Hebrews 11:3

It says in Hebrews 11:3 that God made the worlds through faith. I don’t know if we can really understand it. It is so vast, and so terrible, and big. Look what is up there. Jupiter is so large that three meteorites the size of the Earth flew into its side and only left three little holes in it. That is how big the planet Jupiter is. They said they saw a planet out in the space that is the size of between the Earth and the sun, 90 million miles across. It is God we are talking about! And He said that by faith all these things were built; meaning to say, God believed it, and God spoke it, and it was done.

Try it, brethren. Begin to try little things. Just exercise your faith. The more you exercise it, the bigger it is going to become. You need it now, because you are going to have to have faith in the coming years to be delivered from what is coming on the earth.  Amen.

I was listening to a man one day. He said the Lord showed him that the Christians should get out of debt. I said, “How could we get out of debt when we all have to live in houses?” We all have to buy our cars and by the time you buy a car and finish paying for it, it is about ready for you to buy another one. So you will always be paying for a car. This man said he asked God the same thing and God answered to him, “If you believe, it will happen. Little by little, the money will come, and when it comes, put it against that debt.” As you put it against that debt, he said it is going to pay it off. He showed several people who it happened to. I believe him. I believe if you believe God, you put that first. You don’t say, “But Lord, how can I do it? I don’t have this money and I am only getting so much.” Not necessary. Just believe God and say, “God, do this for me. I do not want to owe this debt. I put it in your hands.” And every money He gives you to pay it, pay it off, and see what happens. May God help us to really reach out and take ahold of that substance that is called faith.

Let us pray: Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, we come before You to thank You that You have given us all things in Christ Jesus, and that there is nothing that we want to serve You with that we cannot have. Many of us are sick in our bodies and we are going to put this before You first. We are asking that your body of people might receive divine health. Divine health, Your plan, Your purpose, Your will, and those of us who have an ailment, we need divine healing. Let it be, Lord God. Break the power of sickness from the people of God. LOOSE! AMEN! This is what we believe. Send this power across the world tonight, and break the power of sickness in the lives of the people of God, amen! You said that when the plague came, it would not take us. You said that those who dwell in the land of Goshen were delivered from the plagues of Egypt. There was no plague in Goshen. But, Lord God, when the plague comes, it takes the Christians as well as the sinners. We are asking You now, Lord God, as we reach out in faith, that You will break the power of these different plagues and sicknesses that are going across the land. Save Your people, Lord God! We ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, September 8, 2002, pg. 16-18)

Thought for today: Exercise your faith. Begin to try little things. The more you exercise your faith, the bigger it is going to become.

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“God, Have Your Way!”

Posted in Faith in God, tagged , , , on December 6, 2023| 1 Comment »

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Scripture reading: Hebrews 12:1-2

I have noticed that some of us go to God in prayer and say, “Oh, God, I’m so poor and needy. Lord, God, such and such a person did me so and so. Oh, God, they talk about me. They do this and that and the other.” You are complaining to God everything that God knows already! What God wants to know is what you want to do about that!

So you go to God and say, “Father, You and I have a blood covenant and I want to see righteousness come forth in me!” Oh, God is so glad to hear that! He is going to give you every opportunity to be righteous. That means He will let the trouble come down on you. He will let the devil loose on you. Yes! He said, “All right, you are strong enough.” Let the devil loose on you, sit down and watch how you handle the devil. Amen.

Hebrews 12:1 says that the brethren who have gone on before are a cloud of witnesses watching us and seeing how we run the race. What does that mean? That means that there are certain things happening to you because God wants to find somebody who He can let those things happen to in order to give an object lesson to those who have gone on before who did not overcome! Let me give you an example: you have a temptation to drink. Some of you hide it, of course. You have a temptation to drink and every now and then you go take a little sip. The angel of God is watching you. He wants you to overcome that spirit because it is a spirit that is coming and taking you. Yes. He wants you to overcome that spirit because Tom Stokes (or whoever) who is in heaven did not overcome the spirit. I know mighty men of God, who never overcame the spirit of drinking. For example, Brother Allen. I knew him personally. I worked with him, and he couldn’t stop drinking. The man was one of the most powerful men you have ever seen. He would come in and command the devils out of people! They brought to him a mad man, chained, and he just commanded the devil out of him. It was because God gave him the gift and he practiced, he knew what he was doing. God would not take the gift away from him. He had the faith yet; God gave him the faith. He should have used it on his own behalf.

Brethren, use the faith you have been given to overcome the spirits in your life. You see, first, you have to believe. But then, you have to go forward. You say, “I am going to do it. I am going to let God have His way.”

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, September 8, 2002, pg. 11)

Thought for today: Go to God and say, “Father, You and I have a blood covenant and I want to see righteousness come forth in me!”

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Walk by Faith

Posted in Faith in God, tagged , , , on December 4, 2023| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Hebrews 11:1

Today, I want to talk to you a little bit about faith, what it really is and how to walk in it, because sometimes you know a thing but you don’t know how to do it. That is a real problem. We will look at Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith is the substance of things that we hope for and when you have the substance, you have the evidence. In other words, when you go to court, the first thing they ask you is, “Where are your evidences?” You have to have different people come and say, “I saw so-and-so,” and then the judge believes it. But God is saying that faith is not only a substance, but it is also evidence.

Now, let us consider what kind of a substance this is. Let me give you an example: if you want to make a podium here, you have to go and get wood. After you get the wood and get it all cut into the right place, you have to get a cover for it, maybe something laminated. You had to get the substance for this particular thing. But when you have the substance, you don’t have the podium as yet, do you? But you have to use the substance to produce the podium with some labor. It does not take just one BAM and the whole thing comes at one time, but you have to walk it out. You have to get the nails, the fasteners, whatever it is, and you have to walk it out.

One day in the service, many, many years ago, before some of you were born, the Lord spoke and said, “Faith is an unseen light that shines more and more every step of the way you venture to take!” Now, that’s not in the Bible but the Lord said it. Faith is an unseen light. If you can see it, it’s not faith. If you make a plan to get so much and to do so much, it is not faith. It is a plan. But God is talking about raw faith.

God said that faith is the substance. Brethren, I am going to ask you a very serious question. Do you walk by faith? Come, let’s get back to this morning. You got up, you had so and so to do, so and so to look after breakfast, clean house, do this, do that. Do you really walk by faith? God is challenging you. Walk by faith! Do you know what it is to walk? Let me show you how people walk; maybe you forgot. You go right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot; that is how you walk. But what if I jump forward? Did I walk? No, I jumped! Some of you believe that, because you have faith, you must jump from one place to another. God says, “Walk by faith.” Do you understand what that means? It means that you must make little steps, step by step, step by step, step by step. You are not going to be all good the same day, but you must walk by faith.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, September 8, 2002, pg. 4-6)

Thought for today: Do you really walk by faith? God is challenging you. Walk by faith!

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