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Grace Bible Church
Tree of Life
A Weekly Review
Week ending 102112
Throne Words.
Tree of Life
A Weekly Review
Week ending 102112
Throne Words.
GAL 5:22-23, But the fruit of the [Holy] Spirit [the work which His presence within accomplishes] is love, joy (gladness), peace, patience (an even temper, forbearance), kindness, goodness (benevolence), faithfulness, Gentleness (meekness, humility), self-control (self-restraint, continence). Against such things there is no law [that can bring a charge].
The first category is self ward or inward Love, Joy and Peace. All three of these are inside of man. Love is not something you do, love is something you think. Joy is not something you do, joy is something you think. Peace is not something you do, peace is something you think.
The next three are outward concepts: Longsuffering, Gentleness and Goodness.
These are directed toward other members of the human race.
The last three are Godward: Faith, Meekness, Temperance.
The word “faith” actually means faithfulness or the expression of faith — faith-rest in action.
It is a mental attitude of grace, a recognition of the principle of grace, thinking grace; it is realizing grace, knowing grace. Faith means confidence, trust, to hold something as true.
Of course, faith must have content; there must be confidence or trust about something.
The Biblical definition comes from HEB 11:1, Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.Your eyes are in your soul, and your soul must have Bible doctrine. We see the unseen through doctrine.
HEB 11:6, And without doctrine resident in the soul, it is impossible to please God, for when one is occupied with God, he must be convinced that He is and that He becomes a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
The object of faith always has the merit. It is the object of faith that counts, not the worthiness of the one with faith.
Faithfulness: fidelity; loyalty; firm adherence to allegiance and duty; as the faithfulness of a subject.
Truth: veracity; as the faithfulness of God. Those led by the Spirit will produce the fruit of faithfulness in their lives
Webster's New World Dictionary defines faithful as “maintaining allegiance; constant; loyal; marked by or showing a strong sense of duty or responsibility; conscientious; accurate; reliable; exact.”
Faithless means not keeping faith; dishonest; disloyal; unreliable; undependable; unbelieving. It’s synonyms include doubting, treacherous and unscrupulous. Faithfulness is love hanging on. It is love saying, “I will not quit”. You may get discouraged, disappointed, but faithfulness says, “Even though there is discouragement & disappointment, I will not let go, I will not quit.”
We need to realize that temptations will come. Just as surely as Jesus was tempted to be unfaithful, we will be tempted to be unfaithful - in our marriage, in our relationship with the Lord, & in the Church. That’s what Satan does. He will tempt us to be unfaithful. And we’re being pressured on every side to develop negative habits, tempting us to be unfaithful in church attendance, to be unfaithful in prayer, & in studying the Word of God.
So, are you going through a painful experience? Do you feel that you’ve been knocked down, or maybe that you’ve fallen? Are you tempted to quit?
Don’t stop, keep pressing on, hang in there, because faithfulness is love hanging on. The faithful man of God is one that really trusts in the Lord and counts on God to deliver him from the wiles of the devil and the scheming of the Kingdom of Darkness.
Faithfulness is a mind set. We must be of the mind that we want to serve God first in our life and meditate on all that is good (MAR 12:30; PHI 4:8). We should all strive to have a greater and stronger faithfulness to our God.
How do we develop this greater and stronger faith? Basically, by studying the word of God and applying it to our lives in every way (not just the areas we want). A sincere study of His word will prompt the believer to pray fervently and realize a greater dependence upon God. A greater, stronger faith is developed when we study the Bible, learn, meditate, assemble with the Royal Family and study on a regular basis.
MAT 25:23, His master said to him, Well done, you upright (honorable, admirable) and faithful servant! You have been faithful and trustworthy over a little; I will put you in charge of much.
The doctrine of the Faithfulness of God.
Point 1 definition. Faithfulness is the consistency and stability of God.
Faithfulness is the perfection of God's essence and the fact that He cannot be inconsistent or compromise His essence. Faithfulness is the fact that God cannot change his essence and be unfair to anyone. God is consistent with Himself; therefore, He is faithful and consistent with us. God keeps his word. He has never made a promise He has not kept. There is only one person who is totally faithful to you and related to you, and that is God. He can only be faithful to you because of His perfect character.
Divine faithfulness is God's grace expression to the believer using His perfect character as the basis for expression. Faithfulness hinges on the essence of God. God is perfect, fair, and stable to Himself, and He will be all these things to you as well, LAM 3:21-25.
LAM 3:20-25, “Surely my soul remembers and is humbled within me. This doctrine I recall to mind; therefore I have confidence. The Lord’s grace support [logistical grace] never ceases; His grace expressions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul; therefore I have confidence in Him. The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him.”
God can be faithful to you because of propitiation which means that God the Father is satisfied with the sacrificial ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross on behalf of you. His faithfulness, therefore, does not depend upon your spiritual status. Propitiation removes any compromise to the essence of God. Divine faithfulness also manifests itself in divine discipline to the carnal and reversionistic believer and in blessing to the mature believer.
Now, all faithfulness in the human realm resides first of all in the soul. Faithfulness is an attitude to something in life which you love, respect, admire, or recognize its authority. The fact that you are alive plus everything you have is a matter of God’s faithfulness to you. He is faithful and loves you every moment.
Point 2, God is faithful to us in rebound.
1JO 1:9, If we acknowledge our sins, He is faithful and righteous, with the result that he forgives us our sins [known sins] and cleanses us from all unrighteousness [unknown sins].
Name the sins you know and God forgives all the sins you’ve committed. This same principle is taught in 1CO 11:31; JER 3:13; PSA 32:5; PSA 38:18. David set the pattern in PSA 32:5, “I acknowledged my sin to Thee, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’; And Thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. Selah.”
God knew our sins in eternity past. He imputed them to Christ on the Cross and judged them. God is interested in the fact that Jesus Christ took our place as our substitute. God is justified to forgive us because He has been propitiated by the sacrifice of His perfect Son. Therefore, there is no compromise to His integrity when He faithfully forgives us when we name our sins.
PSA 38:18, “For I confess my iniquity; I am full of anxiety because of my sin.”
JER 3:13, “Only acknowledge your iniquity, That you have transgressed against the Lord your God And you have not obeyed My voice,” declares the Lord.
Only acknowledge your iniquity.
HOS 14:1-2, Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, For you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to Him, “Take away all iniquity, And receive {us} graciously, That we may present the fruit of our lips.”
That’s rebound! A very important principle, there is no merit in naming a sin. Legalism says you must feel sorry to be forgiven, but grace says that how you feel is not the issue. When we name and cite our sin, God faithfully forgives us regardless of how we feel. Therefore, you can forget the sin and move on immediately.
There are four mechanics involved in rebound:
- Name it, 1JO 1:9
- Isolate it, HEB 12:15
- Forget it, PHI 3:13
- Keep moving, PHI 3:14
This is a big problem with the legalist and those who are influenced by self-righteous arrogance.
Only arrogant people say you can commit a sin which will cause God to abandon you and not forgive you. However, as we noted in the doctrine of grace, grace forgiveness is never a license to sin but is the motivation to press on to spiritual maturity.
Point 3. God’s faithfulness is manifested in His perfect plan,
1CO 1:9, God is faithful, through whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
We were called in eternity past when God was aware of all our failures. God found a way to take us through His grace plan without any compromise of His essence. Knowing every sin, every human good deed, and every evil thing we would ever do, God still selected us to have human life at birth, and elected us to equal privilege and opportunity at the new birth.
PSA 100:3, Know that the Lord Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; {We are} His people and the sheep of His pasture.
As a part of His faithfulness, He has provided for every believer His very own plan in which to function as the basis for equal opportunity to reach spiritual maturity.
Point 4. God’s faithfulness is manifest in logistical grace provision and supergrace blessing, 1TH 5:24, Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.
You should never worry about the basic necessities to sustain your life. God will provide everything you will ever need.
PSA 100:5, For the Lord is good; His grace is everlasting, And His faithfulness to all generations.
Remember that it was harder for God to find a way to save us than it is for God to bless us in time. If He could do the most for us at salvation, it follows, a fortiori, that He can provide the lesser blessing of logistical grace support in time.
ROM 8:32, He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
God’s perfect faithfulness to you in eternity past inevitably leads to His perfect faithfulness to you in time. There never was a time when God wasn’t totally faithful to you. If God was faithful to you in eternity past, He can only be faithful to you in time and eternity as well.
God will not allow us to be tested or tempted beyond our capacity and capability to pass the test or say no to the temptation.
1CO 10:13, No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it.
2CO 4:17, For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,
ROM 8:18, For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
We are even tested in the area of logistical grace support from God to see if we are going to trust in His faithfulness.
LUK 12:27-32, “Consider the lilies, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these. But if God so arrays the grass in the field, which is {alive} today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more {will He clothe} you, O men of little faith! And do not seek what you shall eat, and what you shall drink, and do not keep worrying. For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek; but your Father knows that you need these things. But seek for His kingdom, and these things shall be added to you. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom.”
We are also tested regarding our love of doctrine versus social life, loved ones, our failures, other distractions, and our families. Remember that prior to the different stages of spiritual growth, we must all pass through the different forms of suffering that the Lord brings in. Even in spiritual maturity, we face testing, as did Abraham when he was commanded to offer his only son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. So you are tested in all stages of spiritual growth, but never beyond your capacity.
And as a part of God’s faithfulness, He always provides the doctrine or the opportunity to get the doctrine necessary to pass each test before it comes. Therefore, Bible doctrine is your way of escape from each test, and that doctrine is provided by the faithfulness of God. God will never give you something for which you do not have the capacity, be it blessing or testing.
Point 6. God is faithful to the Royal family of God, HEB 10:23-25.
HEB 10:23-25, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near.
You have the most fantastic escrow blessings on deposit for you, protected by the faithfulness of God. The more doctrine you have in your soul, the more you see God’s perfect character, and the faster you will advance to spiritual maturity. This results in the things around you which were formerly distracting to your spiritual growth becoming less and less important.
Point 7. God is faithful to the apostate believer, 2TI 2:13, If we are faithless, He remains faithful; for He cannot deny Himself.
Since God has perfect character, how can He not be faithful to us even if we reject and deny Him? God cannot be anything less than He is. In fact, God is faithful in keeping the degenerate believer alive for discipline. That same believer still goes to heaven after an entire life of rejection of Bible doctrine just as surely as the apostle Paul went to heaven.
Point 8. God is faithful to the believer in the realm of the angelic conflict. God is faithful to protect and guard you in the midst of the unseen angelic battle which is fought daily all around you.
2TH 3:3, But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one.
Point 9, God’s faithfulness becomes a reality as you advance to and reach spiritual maturity.
HEB 11:11, By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised;
How refreshing it is to know that in spite of all the evil in the world, there is one who is faithful. Faithful in all things, at all times, even unto the end!
DEU 7:9, “Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God,”
This quality is essential to His being, without it He would not be God. It is one thing to accept the faithfulness of God as truth it is another thing to act upon it. God is faithful to us and He is not only faithful to tell us the best but He is also faithful to tell us the worst. He has faithfully described the ruin that negative volition toward doctrine leads to. He has faithfully diagnosed the terrible results and effects of sin. God is faithful in all things.
The Bible states many ways in which God is faithful. For instance God is faithful in keeping His promises, 2CO 1:20, For as many as may be the promises of God, in Him they are yes;
NUM 23:19, “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”
Think of all the rebellion that the children of Israel fell into and yet God was faithful. Many times they were faithless but He was faithful! Because in HEB 10:23, He who promised is faithful;
The permanence of God's character guarantees the fulfillment of His promises. In 1PE 4:19 to those who are going through undeserved suffering Peter says, Therefore, let those also who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.
Therefore, the faithfulness of God is a truth to be acknowledged by us, not only when we are at ease but when we are in trouble. To agree with this means that we humble ourselves before Him even if we're under discipline and owe up to the fact that we fully deserve His correction and instead of any murmuring or complaining, we thank Him for it.
PSA 119:75, I know, O Lord, that Thy judgments are righteous, And that in faithfulness Thou hast afflicted me.
God is not only faithful in stopping affliction but in sending it as well.
PSA 89:33, “But I will not break off My lovingkindness from him, Nor deal falsely in My faithfulness.”
To be worried and concerned is to reject this doctrine.