The Word of Truth Ministries   Perfect Faith and Imperfect Faith:  An Important Difference [6, 400 words; 12-pages] __________________________________ “Without faith it is impossible to please him. For he that comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” Heb. 11:6 _________________    The great Apostle Paul, or the writer of the Book of Hebrews, if you will, wrote that without faith it is impossible to please him [God]. Such a statement is grand in scope and places faith at the apex of the requirements for receiving God’s salvation and blessings. It indicates that faith is essential to our ability to be saved and to please our savior. Therefore, since this is the case, it seems mandatory that each person who desires to be saved knows exactly what faith is and make sure that he or she acquires as much of it as is needed to please God. Faith Defined In chapter 11th of Hebrews, Paul says that faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen. Whereas this verse is often quoted as to what faith is, it does not really answer that question to my satisfaction and understanding; it merely makes a statement about faith as many other statements are made about faith in the scriptures. One can say, faith is needed, faith is good to have, faith is essential for salvation, etc., but these statements only tell something about faith; they do not define faith, that is, bring it into existence and set the bounds and limitations of its use, distinguishing it from all other things. That is the function and meaning of definitions.  Even with Dr. Scofield’s notes that offer commentary and insight, there is still a limitation of this statement to define faith to the point of being definitional. Some statements only state attributes about a word or a thing; attributes are qualities that are associated with or as a part of something, but may not differentiate that thing from another—definitions always differentiate one thing from another, if they are clear and thorough definitions. Many words, concepts, entities and things have some of the same attributes but are totally different in meaning.  The Scofield Reference Bible states that “substance” should have been rendered in English and read as “assurance,” and the word “evidence” should have been rendered and  read as “conviction.” But even after reading this verse using those words, the verse does not qualify as a definition, but a comment on faith. I have seen many ministers grapple almost in vain trying to make the verse into a definition. And, of course, there is a scholar who reverts back to the “Greek.”  I will admit, I know nothing of Greek, but I do know English, and my Bible is written in English.  Using my understanding of English, I know that “substance” means the material, the essence, the ingredients, the gist, the stuff a thing is composed of, made of, and without that material, there is nothing. Example, if you were to ask what my shirt is made of, I would tell you it is cotton. Regardless of its form or color, it is little more than cotton—the product of a plant that grows in the ground and produces a substance that men either pick by hand or by machine in most nations. It is processed so that it becomes matted to the point of becoming a cohesive substance that can be sewn, colored and created into a shirt or many more items. But the essence, the substance, of this shirt is cotton and without cotton, there is no shirt.  Evidence is a word that means one will accept an entity or something as proof, substantiation, or support for a certain contention, concept, assertion, or idea that has been put forth by another. Even when looking at this verse with the words defined differently, but correctly as the English allows, from Dr. Scofield’s Bible, I find no definition of faith in this verse, but rather a comment on faith. Indeed, most of this chapter of Hebrews is a series of comments on faith, as opposed to its definition.  That being said, the question still remains, “What is faith, defined in a way that is useful, clear to a saint, and in conformity to the word of God?” I define faith as this:  Faith is to believe (accept as truth) the correctly interpreted word of God and to act precisely and correctly on that word with the haste and diligence demanded by God.  This is perfect faith, as we shall see. But there is, however, another type of faith that is not perfect faith at all. It is a faith far too many Christians exhibit: a type of head faith that is not what God is requiring. [Ezek. 33:31; Mark 7:6] That faith is head faith, where one believes God strongly, mentally, but that belief does not motivate the sustained action of diligently doing the word of God. Naively and to their own destruction, many have done as Peter cautioned Christians against doing: reading Paul and not understanding him because of his great revelations; then they rest their own destruction on what he has said about faith and not see how what he says fits into what James, Peter, and the whole of scripture say. Indeed, that is one of the reasons I am writing: to try to synthesize God’s word on this matter for Christians' clarity. First, we must understand and constantly reckon that God does not think, speak, or behave as man does. [Isa. 55:7-9] And since that is the case, what God says has greater significance than what human beings accord it. As high as the heaven is from the earth, so are God’s ways from our ways and his thoughts from our thoughts. With such an expanse between God’s way and man’s way, human beings need to reconcile their thoughts to God’s, if we are to understand his ways and words. And for Christians that should be our daily goal. Much of the reason we cannot understand the depth of God’s word is because we often come to it with carnal and immature minds that prevent us from understanding. Example, most modern Christians, especially in America, come to the command of God to "be perfect" with the idea that “No one is perfect.” So God must have had something else in mind when he said to be perfect. [Mat. 5:48; Heb. 6:1-2] He could not mean to actually stop sinning; sin is in the very nature of man; this world is full of sin and we are in the flesh. With that mindset, these so-called Christians have no notion of the mighty power of our great God toward us and that he has endowed us with. And they never think, "Maybe something is wrong with me or the way I think." We so often look at God’s word carnally and cannot penetrate it. Resultantly, the vision of all is become as the words of a book that is sealed, which men take to one who is learned requesting that he read, but he acknowledges that the book is sealed; and in their blindness, they take the book to a person who is unlearned and ask for a reading, but he tells them that he is unlearned and cannot read. They are unable to get any word from God or from from his book because they have not torn their hearts but their garments. They have not put forth the needed effort to see what God is saying. Often they reckon the things of God just as they reckon the things of this life. That is a mistake. And as a result of their lackadaisical attitude concerning the things of God, the people of God experience a famine in their hearing God’s word. And without the word the people spiral into darkness and death, because saints can only live by the word of God. [Prov. 29:18; Isa. 29:11;Joel 2:13;Amos 8:11; Mat. 4:4] A lackadaisical mindset is how they come to God because their minds have not been renewed and transformed; they are still carnal. Hence, they have no idea how to understand God and instead of trying to find out, they pretend they know. But once a person is truly born again, that person is not to be conformed to this world any longer, but he or she is to be transformed by having faith in the operation of God so that their minds are renewed to become like God's. [Rom. 12:2;Col. 2:12] It seems as if would-be-Christians want salvation, faith, the new birth, righteousness, and all God has, but on their own terms instead of the terms and by the definitions of God. That is a serious problem, because God will not accept human righteousness; He will only accept his terms and conditions as He has narrowly prescribed them for mankind. Jesus said if one tries to come up any other way, that person is a thief and a robber. Understand, in the sight of God, outside of Christ, we are as an unclean thing and all our righteousness is just filthy rages in his sight. So to get God to accept us, we must do what He says in HIS WAY, not ours! [Isa. 64:6;  John 10:1] And so it is with faith; it must be the faith of God, as defined by God. How do we Get Faith Although Paul states that it is given to every man the measure of faith, [Rom.12:3] but he is here speaking about church members, not that each and every human being is given a measure of faith. However, trust and assurance are attributes human beings develop as they grow and develop. We hear what others say to us and to others, and we see what they do--whether their words square with their actions or not. The primary source of this learning trust and assurance is through parental behavior. That is why parenting is so important and why our yeas must be yeas and our nays must be nays. Anything beyond that, the Bible says, comes to sin. [Mat. 5:7; James 5:12] Without human beings' ability to rely on, depend on and trust the utterances and positions, and integrity of others, a society would not be cohesive, a parent would never be able to successfully raise a child from infancy to adulthood. Trust is an important ingredient in the intercourse of human behavior and societies. And without human faith and trust, a society would be pathological and unable to function normally. Instead, it would be chaotic. But in this verse in Romans, Paul is speaking about saints being given a measure of faith. And, of course, that measure can be increased. The Bible also states that not all men have faith. [2 Thes.3:2] Again, Paul is talking to the church in the context of wicked men, and that we are to be delivered from wicked men. For he states that there are very wicked and unreasonable men, and these do not have faith; they are subject to do anything because they are under the influence of Satan.  Yet we see many in the church today who have not faith, and they will do anything supposedly in the name of God. Many bishops, pastors, ministers, congregants, etc., will lie on significant matters and insignificant matters because not all men have faith, certainly not the faith of God. I have personally seen bishops who head large religious organizations and some who head sections of organizations openly and deliberately lie about significant things; Many have stolen money from elderly saints and not blinked an eye. And all too sadly, these offenses go on quietly among saints without anyone revealing them. These sinful and probably illegally actions should never go quietly among us. They need exposing so those who do such things are shamed and shunned, for they do not serve the Lord, but their own bellies, as Paul says. [Rom. 16:18]  There are any number of reasons for that loss of faith among once-saved people: their faith could have been destroyed through wicked men who have deceived them with untruths and deceptions, and kept on pretending they were saved; [2 Tim.3:13; 2The.3: 2]; it could have been lost because they did not receive the love of the truth and in place of that love received a strong delusion [2Thes. 2:10]; it could have been lost through the little foxes that destroy the vine and have destroyed their vines of integrity a little at a time until all was gone and they were unaware of it [Song of Solomon 2:15]; It could have been destroyed by their having let it atrophied--the locust and the cankerworm destroyed it [Joel 1:4]; it could have been destroyed through having not heard the true word of God enough, because faith comes by hearing, but it has to be the correct word of God; or it could have been destroyed through any number of reasons. Sadly, I have seen men of the cloth devastate the faith of many so that they never return to the Lord and the household of the saints, while the so called men of the cloth continue to preside over God's people. This should not be allowed. One day, the disciples of Christ asked him to increase their faith. At that request, Jesus started preaching/teaching them. But to many, Jesus' response was another of those times where he engaged in seeming non sequiturs--statements that do not follow the logic of the request. But what is a non sequitur to some is not to God; the reason it is considered a non sequitur or indecipherable to some may be the result of their lack of understanding of God's word.*  When Jesus taught them he was, in fact, immediately granting their petition, for he knew that faith comes by hearing the word of God. [Rom. 10:17] And the more one hears the more one's faith is built up/increased--but one must hear the correctly interpreted and mature word of God, not the milk of the word, and must understand it. This is a lesson much too seldom learned by saints. Furthermore, this idea of increased faith and faith itself is connected to Hosea 4:6, in which God said, My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. And because thou has rejected knowledge, I have rejected thee that thou shall be no priest unto me. Notice that Paul says, without faith it is impossible to please him, and Hosea says that God destroys his people because of their lack of knowledge, which is their ignorance. If we cannot please God, Hosea says, God will destroy us, but God will only destroy those who do not please him. Those who lack knowledge; those who are ignorance of him; those who reject knowledge actually reject faith because faith comes by hearing/learning/knowing God's word. And if we do not study God's word as we are commanded to do, we are rejecting it and him, for God is his word. [2 Tim. 2:7, 15;James 4:17]  Hearing is To Know To hear the word of God is to know it. We know things through our sense-gates: hear, see, touch, smell, taste. The more we hear and take heed to, the more we should learn. But we must learn the right thing--you cannot gain faith when you are being fed milk of the word or the incorrect teaching of the word. Faith to increase must have the correct foundation--the rightly divided word of truth that takes you from milk to meat. [2Tim. 2:15-16; Heb.5:13] Again, the more of the rightly divided, mature word we hear and understand, the greater is our faith. This may explain why there are many weak-in-faith Christians among us after far too many years in the church. They know nothing of God's word, hence, they are weak in faith, because faith comes by hearing and understanding the correct and mature teaching of God's word. And after they hear and understand, then they must do it as God says it; that is perfect faith.  But as we live (do) the word, we then see that there is a level of greater truth and understanding of God's word still. And that depth can never be plundered through mere study; it is a depth that only the saint of God who is living God's word, line upon line, and with his eyes set on perfection, will unearth to plunder--it is the bounty of the true saints in light who love his word. It is here in Jesus statement: "If you continue in my word then are you my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." Many have no notion of the freedom in Christ: Free of ignorance; free of this world's bounds; free to rise into the heavenly truth of God for those who would dare to exercise the power of God as begotten sons of God! [Rom. 8:17] Power in Understanding Solomon, the great wisdom of God, wrote that we are to get wisdom as the first and principal thing, and in all our getting we should get an understanding. [Prov. 4:7] The importance of getting God's word and understanding it is seen in the words of Jesus as he gave his parable of the sower. We see from this parable that an understanding of his word allows us to grip it tightly so Satan cannot take it away. If the word of God is taken away, you have nothing;  hence, you have no faith; so hold fast to that which is good through understanding it.[1Thes. 5:21] And the more we get, understand, and keep, the greater is our faith; likewise the less we get, understand, and keep, the weaker is our faith. [Mat. 13] So in all our getting get an understanding of the rightly divided word of God that we may hold it tightly, for without the word, we have no faith.. In the acquisition of faith, we must see that the voice of God is not just in the Bible, as King David wrote and enlightened us in Psalms 19; God's voice/hand is throughout his creation. David stated that the very heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows God's handiwork. Day after day speaks to God's wisdom...there is no speech nor language where their [God's] voice is not heard. David is saying that God's voce is heard throughout his creation--all things were made by him, so look for God's DNA, as it were, to be in all his creation. [John 1] We must be keen and intelligent/wise enough to see it and hear it-- it is there; that is why Solomon said seek wisdom as the principal thing. Such wisdom will allow you to see God in his glory.  When Paul was in prison, he requested the books and the parchment he left. Paul and any man of God must read the Bible and beyond the Bible as well, because knowledge is of God and God has made all things. The more we know of his creation, the greater is our faith, because faith comes by hearing and to hear is to know. Sadly, however, many ministers do not even read or know the Bible (this one book) and are unable to build up the faith of Christians, so there are weak and sickly Christians in the flock. There is value in knowing God's word and something about all God has made. Paul knew this and requested the books that he left. Furthermore, we see Paul in the use of the voice of God through others. In Acts 17, we see Paul on Mars Hill debating with the Greeks; there he cited a Greek poet as the voice of God and brought that Greek poet into Christian literature: In him we move, live, and have our being; we are the offspring of God. Though written by men not of the Christian faith, Paul knew that their words represented the voice of God. Indeed, David had tutored Paul through his Psalms 19, that God's voice is throughout his creation. Can you see it? It is all around you. Observe it and know what to look for. An example is this. The Centurion soldier asked Jesus to heal his servant and Jesus said that he would go to his house to heal him. The Centurion said to Jesus that he was a man who commanded men and understood the use of power and delegation of that power. And since he understood and made assumptions about the power commanded and capable of being delegated by Christ, he said to Jesus that he need not go to his house, Only speak the word and his servant would be healed. So powerful was this man's faith/knowledge of the natural and his ability to see God's reflection in that knowledge, that Jesus marveled and exclaimed that he had not seen so great a faith in Israel. [Luke 7:9]   Let's look at this man's source of such great faith: Knowledge. Knowledge of the things of God was his source of faith. That same knowledge God's people are destroyed for not having. This man understood the natural aspects of soldiering and supposed that the things of the spirit, which realm Jesus was in, were like the things of the natural, and since he understood the natural, he knew the spiritual and challenged Jesus with his knowledge: "Only speak the word!" He understood the natural and assumed the spiritual was like it; he may have known that from hearing or having read that Moses was admonished to make all things according to the pattern that he had been shown and saw that God commanded him to stay with his pattern, possibly because the pattern of the earthly is like unto the heavenly. [Heb. 8:5] What this man knew was that he was a soldier and as such, he gave orders to men and was ordered by men above him. He delegated authority and was certain of that delegation being carried out. He further knew that the way of a captain or centurion was to marshal men and command them into situations of life and death without question of his word. No doubt he reasoned that if he could do this and it was the universal order and convention of soldiers and commanders throughout the known world, maybe the spiritual domain is built on the same order. And that Jesus was the commander of legions of spiritual beings and angels and needed only speak the word, the order, the command, and they would immediately and without hesitation obey his command. That he believed and that he put to Jesus in faith. The same understanding of the world around her, which world God has made, is seen with the Syrophenician Woman, who sought Jesus to heal her daughter. Jesus initially refused, saying that it was not right to give the children's bread to dogs, such as she was. But she recognized the analogy in that message and understood the possibilities in it; she petitioned Jesus for the possibility, stating, that the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the table of the children. We can see from that statement that she, too, understood the lessons of the natural to be lessons in the spiritual. She could lift out of the natural to see the spiritual. Had she not  had that knowledge of the natural, her faith would not have been strengthened and she would not have received the miracle of God. Jesus said to her in Matthews 15, "Great is thy faith." He called her knowledge and understanding of this natural pattern in life, which she applied spiritually, faith. This woman was an intelligent woman and did not go through the ignorance of becoming indignant at Jesus having called her a dog. She understood what he was saying and responded appropriately to it and was rewarded. Jesus was speaking in metaphorical language, disguising his message, but she understood his words. And in Mark 7:27, Jesus said concerning this act, "For this saying, go thy way, the devil is gone out of thy daughter." Her statement reflected knowledge, which God applauds and rewards. Indeed, God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification.[1 Cor. 1:30] There is no reason we should be ignorant to his word and all that He has made! Solomon, speaking for God, says to get wisdom; it is the principal thing.... This is the command of God. But far too many "Christians" have assumed that ignorance is the better potion. I assure you it is not! Matter of fact, it is deadly. Whereas God's people are destroyed for their ignorance--their failure to understand their King's words--God rewards those who would understand the multiple messages he has implanted in his word and throughout all that He has made. For Peter says that no scripture is with any private interpretation; God's word is so profound and rich that He may have multiple messages in one utterance or one act and certainly there are multiple messages throughout his creation. That is how great our God is. [Psa. 19; 2Pet. 1:20] But many of his people would rather die than find out about him in his word and through his creation! To not find out about him is to die.  There is a reason why they prefer to die: to learn about God requires much study, and much study wearies human flesh. [Eccl. 12:12] Study is not what the body wants to do, whether it be in matters of academia or matters of the spirit. To get something of great importance correctly understood, requires long hours of painstaking and rigorous analyses deciphering between arcane ideas and concepts that sometimes seem contradictory and confusing. There is a real cost to attaining lofty concepts and legitimate degrees; they are not given away; they must be taken. Even the language of academia is not, "Which school gave you a degree?" Such language is an insult. The proper language is, "From which school did you TAKE your degree?" Any true academician knows that he/she has to take his advanced degree at great cost of time, effort, personal life, money, thought, life, pain of the body, etc. That degree is of great value and cost and can only honestly be attained if there is great cost expended.** These are godly patterns in nature that tell us something about spiritual matters. The more we know of these things, the more we know of spiritual matters.  Furthermore, any true academician can understand better than most ministers the words of Jesus when he said, "The kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force." [Mat. 11:12] As is the natural aspects of academia, so are the spiritual things of God. These things are so precious and so valuable that they are attained at the cost of altering the very behavior, personality, lifestyle, and mental imaging of an individual. It must be taken by force! And Jesus said the things of God are so valuable that if a person does not want to receive them, simply label them dogs and swine unworthy of the things of God, and move on. Furthermore, we are admonished to not give his word to ignorant and unappreciative people. [Mat. 7:6]  God goes further still and says through the mouth of Paul, if any man would be ignorant, let that man be as he will, ignorant. [1 Cor. 14:38] Some people are willingly ignorant, Peter tells us, and they are destroyed. [2 Pet. 3:5] When people are in the flesh/carnal, they want whatever is pleasing and pleasurable to their flesh, not to their spirits or their greater man/mind. Those unwilling to study God's word the way it should be studied (it may be 95% of the ministers and 99% of the Christians) are usually just carnal, and that is what God knows and comprehends when he says my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. [Hosea 4:6] But we should be able to see the connection between faith and knowledge: Little knowledge, little faith; much knowledge, much faith. God has given us truths through nature, through the parenting process and throughout all his creation. We must be able to extract them as the soldier and the mother did. Perfect Faith and Imperfect Faith James wrote that faith without works is dead being alone. [James 2] His contention was that there is a faith that is alive, and there is a faith that is dead. Dead faith must be of necessity considered imperfect faith. It is dead therefore impotent to change a situation or to bring about the attention of God. God is the God of the living, not the dead. [Mark 12:27] James is saying that it is dead faith because it has no works with it. It is not enough for a person to believe [accept as true] God's word alone. [James 2] With believing there must be doing as well. Without the doing, you have only a  head faith, which is nothing more than accepting the word of God as true. That, James said, is not enough--the devils also believe, but they merely tremble. [James 2:19]  A saint of God must do much more than that, if he is to say in truth, "I believe God." He/she has to do that which he or she believes because faith without works is dead. This is God's standard! Paul said that the word preached profited some nothing because it was not mixed with faith. That is, the word profited them nothing because although they believed with their heads, [a dead faith being alone] they did not believe into doing the word. [Heb.4:6]  Faith and love are much alike, they must be done, not merely said. Notice this: if you confess with your mouth the Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you shall  be saved. [Rom. 10:9] Believing in the heart is often the pivotal point where many fail. Paul said with heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is  made unto salvation. With the heart--the center that motivates action--man believes unto the doing of righteousness; with the mouth he says it, but there must be the doing of that which he says or else there is dead faith, as James says. [Rom. 10; James 2]  The heart is the center of our behavior and actions. One can know many things--that is of the head--but if one believes a thing and does it, the heart motivates that doing. Notice what Solomon said, "Out of the heart are the issues of life." [Prov. 4:23] The issues of life are action things that define the person, who we really are. There are, as Paul said, many vain and unruly talkers, but what a person does is who a person is. The proverbial young boy said, "Your words may be wise and true, but I would rather get my lessons from the the things I see you do." People say a thousand things and often mean none of them, but what they do is who they are and what they mean. That action is from the heart! Paul styled his actions and behavior while he was in Judaism as a conversation in the Jews religion. He knew that his actions were, in fact, his words. [Gal. 1:13] Jesus spent much time talking about the role of the heart in the actions of man: He said in one instance, "Out of the heart a good man brings forth good things, and an evil man brings forth evil things." In another instance he said, "Out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, thefts, etc." These are actions that are motivated by the heart of a person. [Prov. 4:23;  Mat. 12:35;Mark 7:21] Evil men do as they are and good men do as they are; they do it from their hearts. So the one who believes from the heart, believes unto the doing of God's word, not to some head or mental gestalt belief that is static. Often I see these "I believe (mentally) and I am now saved" Christians as scam artists who are attempting to do nothing more than talk their way, as it were, into heaven; spiritual con men who have misread the word of God, or allowed a preacher to misread the word of God and mislead them into believing that faith requires nothing more than saying "I believe." That is far from faith, and one who tells you that you are saved has unwittingly or wittingly deceived you. You are still in your sins if that is the nature of your salvation. How many Christians are muttering the words and not doing the actions and still think they are saved? They are not! You cannot obey the wrongly interpreted word of God and think that God will honor that. He will not, because of a wrong interpretation of God's word is not God's word! It is not what God is saying, and man can apply all forms of human rationale to justify an incorrect response to God, HE will not accept our obeying something HE has not said. For God to do so is for him to make himself a transgressor of his own word. [Gal. 2:18] To misinterpret God's word, regardless of how tenacious a person may persist that he is correct, is like a man being told to go to a certain street--let's say Treat Street--and turn left, and that man goes to Fleet Street and turns left. He has gone the wrong way, and he has not done what he was told to do. No one will honor that mistake; it is not what the man has been told to do!  Each Christian is obligated to know the correctly divided word of God; there is no acceptable excuse for not knowing it, when we have been commanded by God to study to show ourselves approved of him; there is no excuse when we have been given apostolic patterns to follow by those who walked and talked with him; when God has and will open our understanding to his word if one is willing to see and accept the light of God available among his present day saints in light ministers. [2Tim. 2:15; James 4:17]  For God's way is line must be upon line, precept upon precept according as HE has stated them. And, never forget this, all  man's righteousness is just filth in God's sight if it is not done God's way. [Isa. 28:9-13; Isa. 64; Heb.8:5] If we disregard his word with human rationalizations, justifications,  and excuses, we stand on sinking sand, not the rock of  his word, which is Christ! True faith in God's word motivates action to obey it completely. Mere head faith believers are those who hear the truth and accept it as true but do nothing more. [See Mat. 13] That is of no avail. Such a faith is dead. Notice again the close similarity between faith and love: Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my word...." [John 14:21-24] With love, as is with faith, there is always the doing, and the failure of the doing is the failure of faith and love. Without the doing, that one who says he has faith is merely looking into a mirror at himself and walking away with no remembrance of what type of man he is. [James 2] He is deceiving himself in many areas. Jesus has done it all in reconciling us back to God, but since we are back in the presence of God, we must obey God's word. There is a line in an old song that says, "Must Jesus bear the cross alone and all the world go free?" The song answers itself by saying, "No, there is a cross for everyone, and there is a cross for me." The type of "Christian" who has misread the word of God and wants the "I'll do nothing faith," will say that God's word says he has nothing to do and that there is nothing he can do. That is a failure of understanding God's word. Indeed, Jesus said, when beckoning sinners to him, "Come unto to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." But he goes on to say, "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." [Matt 11:28-30] The reason many want to accept a salvation with a make-believe faith is because they do not want to really see this salvation as God gives it. Salvation is freely given, but there is a cost thereafter if you accept it. Matter of fact, Jesus said if you do not take up your cross and follow him, you are not worthy of him. We have to take up our cross daily when following him--that is a process of denying ourselves, laying down our very lives, families, and possessions sometimes. [Mat. 10:38; 16:24]  The cost of faith in Christ is great; we must drink of his blood and eat of his flesh--an expression Jesus used to symbolize the harshness of this way to the flesh and behavior of man. [John 6:51] Paul said that we must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. [Phil. 2:12] And, indeed, if the righteous scarcely be saved, (and they shall) where will the sinner and ungodly appear? [1Pet. 4:18] We have deceived ourselves and allowed others to deceive us about the things of God. This way of God is narrow and few there are that find it and walk in it. [Mat. 7:14] The Billy Graham type of give your heart to the Lord and you are saved right where you are has nothing to do with God's truth and all to do with what man wants God's truth to be. But desiring a truth different from God's truth does not make your desired truth God's truth. God's truth and it alone is acceptable to God! Not withstanding the national historic statue of Billy Graham or any other great personage, we must believe God rather than a man. [Acts 5:29] Such a notion of salvation is not the door to the sheepfold, I assure you by God's word! To be saved and become a Christian God's way, and that is the only way, you must do it God's way and it alone. Anything else is vain. See A Discussion of Being Born Again Correctly.     This teaching will be completed next week ___________ *Jesus was asked to increase their faith and he responded by teaching them the value of faith and what could be done were one to have a very tiny measure of it. That answer is seen by those unfamiliar with the word of righteousness as not responsive to their request. But it was because Jesus acted upon a knowledge he had about the nature of faith. And operating on that knowledge he teaches us something. Another instance of this seemingly non-responsiveness is found in John 12: The Greeks came to Jesus' disciples and requested to meet with Jesus; his disciples did not know what to do with that request because they knew that it would render Jesus unclean according to the law. But they had seen Jesus do many things that were contrary to the law so they decided to simply lay the request of the Greeks out to Christ and see what he would do. After stating the Greeks' request for a meeting, Jesus started a long monologue, "The hour has come...." And Jesus never answered them, as found in scripture. Instead, Jesus answered God--they were merely God's voice saying to Jesus that his hour of Calvary was near and he had better get himself ready to tear down the wall that separated Jews from Gentiles. They wanted to see Jesus, but their time was not then--the wall had not been torn down so both Jew and Gentiles could come to God. And through their request, God was reminding Jesus that the awful, brutal and beautiful purpose for which he had come into the world was fast approaching. So Jesus hearing God's voice, exclaimed, "The hour has come..." So whereas his response is baffling to many, it can be understood if properly seen in this context.  In Mark 8, Jesus heals a blind man partially and had to redo it. Jesus spat in his eyes and asked the man how was his vision and the man said that he saw men who looked like trees walking. Jesus then took the man and touched his eyes and the man saw things clearly. This appears to be an instance where Jesus made a mistake. But Jesus is the very God of very God, so he cannot make mistakes. And accepting that truth as context, we then ask, what, then, is the message Jesus is giving/teaching us? Since it is the case that God makes no mistakes, but he teaches lessons, we see this redoing of a flawed healing as a message. There are many people who have had a touch of God but did not see things as they are. Many as still seeing men as trees. They need to have a second touch of God to see things as they really are. I submit Apollos in Acts 18 and the disciples of John the Baptist in Acts 19. And hadn't they received those second touches, they would not have had the truth and clarity of God. Apollos was mighty but partially sighted; the disciples of John the Baptist were sincere but blind.  **Taking my doctorate was with great personal and financial costs. I had to focus all my attention, ambitions, and energies on completing the work and ensuring that I endure the seeming treadmill I was on. I had to make them acknowledge that I was worthy to be admitted into the halls of intellectuality through my studies, and through my having added to and expanded the field of study. I had to reach my known and unknown limits and still exceed them. That is how precious that degree is. And unless you see it that way, you will never force the door open. The Ph.D. degree is not given; it must be taken! Likewise are the things of God--the violent take it by force. Most Christians need to become desperate and spiritually violent men. ...............................................            ......Home The Word of Truth Ministries P.O. Box 6573 Oakland, CA 094603