Tag: victory

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Fully Inhabiting the Big House of the Believer

The faith life is a better life.

faith life

Imagine an expensive, 10,000-square-foot home in which every room and hallway has a door. Every door is locked, and there is no way to leave a door unlocked. There is one master key that opens every door. There is only one state for every door in the home: a locked state. And there is only one way to access all the beautiful rooms of the mansion: one must use this key.

This is a picture of the Christian life. The rooms are all that God promises his beloved children: The blessings of joy, peace, love, self-control, and a sound mind. The blessings of forgiveness of sin, justification, sanctification, and righteousness. The blessings of loving relationships. And the blessings of the presence of the Holy Spirit, his infilling power, and his spiritual gifts. The blessings of physical healing and health. The blessings of financial and material provision and well-being. And the blessings of fruitful and successful work and ministry. The blessings of spiritual wisdom and knowledge. And most importantly, the blessings of fellowship with God himself. And more.

The master key

But all these doors are locked to a person who does not believe what God says in Scripture. The master key that opens every door is faith. Some Christians have used the key to get through the front door but after that put the key away. Consequently, they cannot enter all the beautiful rooms of the home God intends for them.

Scripture says, “The righteous shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17).

The righteous shall live by faith to begin the Christian life. The righteous shall live by faith to continue it. And the righteous shall live by faith to finish it. The righteous shall live by faith to flourish, grow, and gain the victory in every difficulty of life. The righteous shall live by faith to appropriate every promise God has given, for the promises do not work automatically.

The difficulty and ease of the faith life

In one sense, the life of faith is not easy. The lives of Abraham and Sarah were not easy. It is not easy moving around a house in which you have to use a key for every door. But that is how every promise and every blessing of God is accessed: by faith alone. The doubter “must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord” (James 1:6–7). “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6).

But in another sense, the life of faith is the easiest life one can live. For it alone is the life of victory in every situation. Life is miserably hard for doubters and unbelievers. It is hard just as living in a home that loses electricity is hard, just as traveling in a car that runs out of gas is hard (it is not easy pushing an automobile). A righteous and blessed life runs on faith or it does not run at all.

Sooner or later the person who gets in the house but then loses the key begins to think most of the Bible is not reliable, that the Christian life does not work. It is hard to be a partial believer or a semi-unbeliever. It is a life of disappointment, sadness, and confusion. A semi-believer is trying to live in two, mutually exclusive worldviews.

The intellectual humility of the faith life

No, the victorious Christian life is one lived all-in with regard to faith. We believe everything God says in his Word even when we do not understand everything.

We know we cannot think true thoughts autonomously (that is, by ourselves, relying on our own understanding rather than on God’s revealed truth). And we cannot understand reality autonomously. We are completely dependent on God for knowledge, and that knowledge comes through Scripture rightly interpreted and applied.

So we humble our minds, as God requires, trust him and his words, and walk by faith and not by sight. We believe God’s Word even when circumstances deny the Word.

Taking a stand in faith

About eight months ago I had a chronic problem with sleep. Actually the problem was not with sleeping but with how I felt when waking. Whether during the night or getting up in the morning, I would almost always awake with an emotion of impending evil.

On rare occasions I would open my eyes to a new day and feel complete peace and well-being.

After one of those feel-good mornings I realized how unusual it was and that I had a problem I should not be enduring. I decided, A child of God filled with the Holy Spirit and loved by his heavenly father should not be waking up again and again with a sense of ill-being, having to fight off fear, expecting bad news around the next corner. I should be waking up with a positive emotion and expectation.

The words of Proverbs 3:24 came to mind: “If you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.” And Psalm 127:2: “He gives to his beloved sleep.” I determined that my experience was not lining up with the Word of God and decided to take a stand in faith on the Word.

A simple prayer

My stand in faith was not big and complicated. I spoke the Word aloud and claimed it to be true for myself. And I said something like, “I bind and renounce and oppose whatever in the spiritual realm may be bringing this feeling of evil against me. If there are demons attacking me, I bind you and command you to leave me and this apartment and never return. From now on I will awake with a sense of shalom, a sense of God’s peace.”

Nothing dramatic happened when I prayed, but it worked. My stand in faith happened three or four months ago, and except for the occasional bad dream and the creepy feeling that comes in its wake, I no longer chronically wake up with an emotion of ill-being. I usually wake up with my thoughts on the Lord and with a desire to meditate on his truths. The difference between how it was for the years prior and how it is now is unmistakable.

Using my shield and sword

This happened because I decided to stand in faith on what God’s Word said should be true for his children. And I used his Word in my stand by believing it and declaring it. I cannot say for sure what had caused the problem, but I can say for sure I no longer have it. Praise God!

I experienced the truth of Ephesians 6:16–17: “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

Takeaway

The level of your faith determines your spiritual standard of living. It determines how many rooms of the house designed by God you are able to live in. The level of your faith determines whether you live by what most people think is humanly possible, normal, and expected, or whether you live by what God’s promises reveal to be divinely possible, normal, and expected.

The righteous live by faith in everything God promises, and keep living by faith.

Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)

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Established in Faith

When you are established in faith, you can truly know God and his ways.

established in faith

In the Fall of 2012 I was working full-time for a publisher and part-time as pastor of the church I still serve. One day my supervisor called me to his office and informed me that the company was laying off a large segment of its work force due to financial deficits and that I was one of those losing his job.

I had never experienced that before. You hear stories of people losing jobs and being devastated, and you wonder what you would do if it happened to you. As my supervisor explained the process of ending my employment and as I walked back to my office, my thoughts and emotional reaction surprised me. Although suddenly confronted with a long list of uncertainties and losses, my heart was calm. I was disappointed, sure, but not afraid. I felt confident that God was in charge, that he would provide for me and my wife, and that we were beginning an exciting new chapter.

Certainly I have not always been so assured. I recall a decade prior to this layoff driving for several hours with a friend to a meeting, and as the conversation moved to plans for the future, I admitted to my sense of financial insecurity. In other words, I was afraid and told him so. I did not see how I would have enough money for old age. For years I lived with foreboding about this.

Why? Because I did not adequately know God. Yes, I was a regenerated Christian, a devoted follower of Christ, a pastor. I knew God in the sense that I was born again and knew the Bible well and understood many truths about God accurately. But I did not know him well enough to trust what he repeatedly promised in Scripture about providing for my needs.

Faith and knowledge

To the extent that we do not really believe what the Scripture says, we do not know him. True knowledge of God depends on faith. One can articulate the most intricate aspects of the doctrine of the Trinity yet find it difficult to joyfully say, “God loves me.”

This is why the subject of faith is so important for Christians who want to know God better. Our knowledge of God cannot exceed our faith. The quest to know God is far more about increasing faith than about adding theological information and answering our questions.

What Jesus expected

As you read the Gospels, have you ever noticed what Jesus repeatedly called attention to as he engaged with his disciples and strangers? He certainly talked a lot about love, obedience, righteousness, and truth. Nevertheless, though I have not tallied the occurrences, it seems to me he talked most about faith and unbelief. He regularly either commended people for their faith or admonished them for doubt. He expected people to have what we would classify as enormous faith. And he marveled when his disciples were afraid of drowning in a momentous tempest. He admonished them when they worried about going hungry in the desert although they had just two loaves of bread and a couple of fish and a crowd of 5,000 to feed. He bypassed others who doubted he could heal the sick and demon-afflicted.

Moreover, he taught things about faith that are, well, unbelievable. He said true believers would with a word be able to move mountains, perform miracles, replant trees in the sea, and receive whatever they ask. Not only can God do amazing things, so can we.

God’s will

This stretches one’s faith to the breaking point. Some Christians respond by reaching for that level of faith, though it is by no means easy (that is, unless you become as a child [Mark 10:15]) and it raises many questions. Others do not know what to do with these teachings. They might explain them away, regarding Christians who pursue such faith as unwise or unhinged, asking for trouble and disillusionment. Or they might accept the teachings, but shake their heads and regard them as personally unattainable. Some might say these teachings of Jesus are for those who have the special gift of faith.

Based on my reading of the Gospels, I do not think Jesus would say that. He expected big faith from everyone. Moreover, to limit strong faith to a spiritual elite is to relegate most Christians to a stunted knowledge of God, as described above, and the fear, insecurity, instability, weakness, and defeat that comes with it.

No, Jesus said, “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22). That is an imperative. Thus that is his will.

Scripture warns against being double-minded, saying to one who asks for wisdom, “Let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (James 1:6–8, ESV).

Hebrews 11:6 says, “without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

Romans 14:23 says, “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”

Isaiah 7:9 says, “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all” (NIV). The RSV says, “If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.”

The trouble with accepting unbelief

We cannot experience the Christian life described in the Bible without faith in what God says. So the idea that we should tolerate in ourselves an unbelief of anything God says in his Word is simply wrong. We must not be satisfied with anything less than believing all he says. Unbelief insults God, implying that he is not truthful, cannot be trusted, and is not Almighty. Being content with unbelief requires resisting Jesus, who is the “author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).

Therefore we must not rationalize and excuse our own unbelief. Unbelief will creep and grow. It is Satan’s foot in the door. It is an invitation to the unmanageable power of fear and the ruin that accompanies it.

Established in faith

So we need to be established in faith.

To establish means to put on a firm basis, to make stable or permanent.

I live on the 20th floor of a high-rise. I have watched many high-rises built around us. Before the first floor is built, I have seen dozens of holes drilled deep in the soil and then filled with concrete. I have seen a quarter million tons of concrete, steel, and glass go into a tower one floor at a time. A high-rise is as established as a man-made building can be. It is heavy and has a big footprint. It is anchored to the ground with deep underground columns. A puff of wind will not knock it over, nor will a normal trembling in the earth crack it to pieces.

To establish something is to position it to endure. It is in balance, not teetering. It is grounded, not suspended in midair. It has a foundation. It is built on rock, not sand. It is consistent, not wavering. It is single-minded, not double-minded.

The 20 truths this series highlights will bring you to this place of established faith. Believing these 20 truths will make you an immovable, spiritual rock. And most importantly, you will know God as he is. You will know him in your experience, not just intellectually. And your Christian life will work the way the Bible describes.

How the Christian life works

The Bible describes the life of a Christian as one marked by peace and joy even in the midst of conflict; by strength abounding even in our weaknesses; by answered prayer even though for a long time we walk by faith and not by sight.

The Christian life does not work as the Bible describes without faith, without faith in everything the Bible promises, without faith in the worldview the Bible describes—a worldview in which God is almighty and responsive to the prayers of those who believe. That is not the worldview of most people in educated, Western cultures, for whom the idea of a God who can do miracles is inconceivable. If you want to know and experience God, you must abandon that worldview and fully adopt what the Bible says about God and his ways with us.

Each of these 20 truths plays a crucial role in the superstructure of established faith, so do not miss a week. You will learn to call these truths to mind before you pray and then pray with confidence. When you sense fear and unbelief slipping into your soul, you will call these truths to mind, and they will reestablish you in immovable confidence. You will learn to live all day, every day, established in faith—and thus knowing God better than ever before.

Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)

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Practicing God’s Presence: The Happy Rewards

“Practicing God’s presence is one secret to experiencing all the New Testament promises.”

To grow in our knowledge of God and his ways we must learn to practice God’s presence. This is how we enjoy a personal relationship with God, rather than merely know facts about him.

The normal Christian life

Moreover, practicing God’s presence is foundational to the Spirit-filled life taught in the New Testament. It enables us to have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). It makes us aware of him throughout the day no matter what we are doing. We will have the fruits of the Holy Spirit in every situation (Gal 5:22–23). It is how we fellowship with God all day.

By practicing God’s presence we obey the Scriptures that tell us to “pray continually” and “give thanks in all circumstances” and “rejoice in the Lord always” and “do all to the glory of God” and “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” and “cast all your anxiety on him” and “abide in Jesus” and “walk in the Holy Spirit.” (1 Thess. 5:17–18; Phil. 4:4; 1 Cor. 10:31; Mark 12:30; 1 Peter 5:7; John 15:4; Gal. 5:25)

The secret of overcomers

Practicing God’s presence is one secret to experiencing all the New Testament promises to those who are a victorious new creation in Christ.

If we are persistently sad, angry, fearful, and discontent, we are not practicing God’s presence. When we regularly feel empty and dry, we are not practicing his presence. If we often feel guilty, distant, and disconnected from the Lord, if we live in continual defeat before some sin or addiction, we are not practicing God’s presence.

God’s presence brings joy. Supernatural peace. Faith and confidence. Satisfaction, contentment, and fullness.

God’s presence is life. His presence is living water and bread from heaven. His presence gives strength and victory.

As we practice God’s presence, we sense his love and gracious intentions. We feel close to him and can bring everything to him moment by moment. He is at our right hand, ever before and around us.

And even when we feel nothing, we will know he is there and hears us. We will not have a sense of doubt and disconnection that makes us feel something is wrong between us and God. We can practice God’s presence even when we do not feel his presence.

Let me say that again because if you miss that you will often feel like a failure. We can successfully practice God’s presence even when we do not feel his presence. (More on that in upcoming posts)

So practicing God’s presence is one secret to the abundant Christian life.

Practicing God’s presence is well within reach

Thankfully it is not hard to do. It is not just for super saints or longtime believers. Even a new Christian can learn it.

Though not hard, it must be learned. We must build new mental habits, which take time.

If you put the teachings in this series into practice, in one or two months you will be well on your way to a transformed life. And then for the rest of your life you will keep learning more.

You will be stronger in the Lord than you imagined possible. You will defeat life-controlling habits. Your Christian life will work.

Does that sound too good to be true? Am I overpromising? I don’t think so.

Certainly we will experience trials, discipline, and struggles all our lives. Certainly we will have ups and downs in practicing God’s presence. We will always have unanswered questions.

But when we practice God’s presence, we walk through these difficulties as overcomers.

An apostle’s example

Paul describes this: “We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” (2 Cor. 4:7–10)

And elsewhere, “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Phil. 4:11–13)

And again, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom. 8:37–39)

This is the victorious life possible for those who practice God’s presence. We will learn how in upcoming posts.