And Now You Know The Rest Of The Story-Part Three

Today, I promised to talk more about "efffortless faith".  Faith that does not require us to wrestle or struggle to believe something, but simply to experience faith that comes easy.

On Friday, Jan 21, 2011, I gave a definition of faith I heard one preacher declare. He taught that the word faith, in Hebrews 11:1 is the Greek word for persuasion and that it comes from a root word which means "to be persuaded because of an argument to the extent that it impacts your world or your belief system".

To give an example of this I mentioned that in my life, when I heard the "argument" if you will, that God sent His son Jesus into the world to die for my sins and through faith in Christ, my name would be written in the Lamb's Book Of Life, I became persuaded to the extent that it changed my belief system about my eternity.

This is an example of faith...salvation faith. It is that same faith by which all of God's promises come to pass in our lives.  I didn't have to act a certain way for a certain period of time to qualify for God's gift of eternal life.  I didn't have to confess everyday, over and over again until I could muster the strength to believe what God had said about salvation to receive Jesus as Lord.

Once I became persuaded of God's word and His will, salvation was mine...a free gift as a result of God's mercy (His unmerited favor toward me) and His Grace (His Divine Influence in my heart). Faith is something that happens to me, it is not brought on as a result of me working up a frenzy to believe for something.

To get a better understanding of this let us look at Romans 10:8-9 NLT And that message is the very message about faith that we preach: ⁹ If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved.

vs. 17 So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. 

So Hebrews 11:1 states that faith is the persuasion because of an argument that impacts your belief system and Romans 10:17 says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.  The word "word" in Romans is the Greek word "logos" which means "a reasoning or a computation".

This is important: If we don't know what God's reasoning is we will never have God's faith. If I have a certain reasoning in life and I teach it to my son throughout his years of growing up in my household, he will have the same reasoning; the same persuasion that I have. 

I know growing up that my father had a certain reasoning which affected me. He felt that if someone was talking to you, it was important to listen and not allow distractions to turn your attention away from them while they are speaking, otherwise your actions would indicate that the person is not important enough to deserve your attention. He just felt that was rude and he persuaded me, by his beliefs to reason in the same fashion. And so, I now have the same persuasion as my father has in his life. So what this means is that the same reasoning or faith that my father has in him is in me because his reasoning is in me.

In Mark 11:22, the bible literally says, "Have the faith of God".  The literal Greek here doesn't say Have faith in God, Jesus was saying "Have the faith OF God" or Have the God-kind of Faith". Now the only way to have the Faith OF God is to understand the reasoning of God.  We need to reason like God; we need to think like God. We need to have His reality and basis of reality in order to have His faith. The bible says that "our ways are not like His ways and our thoughts are not like His thoughts.  Our sinful, flesh nature which is where our ways and thoughts are produced are not that of our Heavenly Fathers, but the Good News is that our ways can become His ways and our thoughts can become His thoughts.

That is why it is so important to know God's word. That is why Romans 10:17 says Faith comes by hearing... hearing what?  Hearing how Johnny So-and-So lost his job?  Hearing how bad the economy is?  Hearing the report of the doctor?  No, faith comes by hearing God's word. 

Now here is where the "rest" of this story comes.  It doesn't mean that I am to simply grab a scripture or promise of God and memorize it; confess it; name it and claim it; read it every day for 6 months- tape it to my bathroom mirror and so on and so forth.

No, I must come to an understanding of what God's reasoning says about a situation. I need to get His reality on a matter.  If He said that I simply need to believe that He sent His son into the world to reconcile sinful man back into a "right relationship:" with Him, and confess it with my mouth then that is it.

He simply told me to get His persuasion and declare it with my mouth.  I don't need to wrestle, confess, hoot and holler or anything to make that a reality in my life. I simply trust Him and believe His word and then I can rest in Him.

Today will you enter His rest and be blessed?