Perfection
You don't need to be perfect in execution to be perfect in faith.
God is looking for the fullness of faith....the choice to believe that He is who he says He is:
Loving father
Almighty in power
Unlimited in love
Sovereign over all truth
God is looking for those who are willing to choose to believe that His ways...His judgments...lead to redemption and life.
God's ways are not our ways. He calls things sin that we would, in our flesh, wish He didn't care about, and He actually de-emphasizes a lot of things we think are really important, often due to our religious upbringing.
The point of life is learning to yield to truth established by the One who established life and let Him establish us in that truth.
This takes...it's only possible...by His Spirit and supernatural help.
It takes God just to breathe and have a heartbeat! How much more does it take God to love, have wisdom, understanding, hold truth, and stand in the face of all that resists God?
God is looking for those who submit to this truth: that He knows what He is doing, what He says is true, and we need His help to stand in that truth...that none of us, in our own strength of obedience, even COULD measure up to His truth.
The difference between the faithful follower of God and the hypocrite is simply the admission that we can't really fully agree with God and that we are utterly dependant on His help and strength to obey Him. His mercy overflows to those who admit they need it and reach for full compliance with His truth, knowing they need Him to even begin to move in the direction of obedience. These are the ones He calls obedient (i.e., David)!
Wanting the perfectly loving and infinitely powerful God to make you into something that is impossible for you to be is what opens the door for the miracle of living Holy forever to happen to YOU! This is the faith the Bible is talking about.
I have to really want it, but He has to really do it!
God is truly looking for faith that produces a life of growing agreement with all that marks those that know Him.
When God gives us a list of behaviors that agree with Him, He isn't giving us a punch list to make sure we have covered...He is giving us a vision of who we can be if we humbly come to Him and let Him lead us in learning to need Him... To embrace our need of Him.
When God gives a list of behaviors in the Bible that are unacceptable to Him, He isn't sending us away if, and until, we get control over those things. God is inviting us to declare our need of Him. The faithful ask God to arrange our circumstances and send His power to help us get free of what is entangling us.
For me to accept God's help, first I have to believe He WANTS to help, and actually requires that I lean on His help to be pleasing to Him.
Faith is faith in the kindness of His heart and the severity of trying to live apart from all that He is. It is offensive to God when I try to do apart from Him what only He can do. ESPECIALLY in my heart ... Some of the most sacred space Earth will ever host! It is equally offensive when I go in the other direction and try to ignore all that He has commanded I be. He loves me to need Him to be like Him. He loves for me to believe He will empower me to be like God!
Genesis 1:26Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness...
To live in the narrowness of this truth is to: PRAY for what I need. To ask and receive is the only method laid out in the Bible to seek first the kingdom. This asking and receiving will result in a lot of other activity, but this is the only origin of holiness offered in the Bible. I have to come to the mercy of the Holy One to get holy, but I MUST get holy!
To continually be asking Him to make me into who He wants me to be pleases God. What grows in me in this environment is humility, strength, character, mercy, truth, and power. Man can never achieve this apart from a savior who died to give it freely.
Hebrews 11:1Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
2For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.
3By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
4By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.
5By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
6But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Faith answers the question: who do I hope God is?
The simple truth is that I will ask God for the help I want Him to give me and my faith will be evident in what I want and where I believe it is found.
He rewards those who want Him to be their everything...the air they breath, the beat in their heart, their source of obedience, truth, and mercy, their dreams, their purpose, their glory...
God is looking for the fullness of faith....the choice to believe that He is who he says He is:
Loving father
Almighty in power
Unlimited in love
Sovereign over all truth
God is looking for those who are willing to choose to believe that His ways...His judgments...lead to redemption and life.
God's ways are not our ways. He calls things sin that we would, in our flesh, wish He didn't care about, and He actually de-emphasizes a lot of things we think are really important, often due to our religious upbringing.
The point of life is learning to yield to truth established by the One who established life and let Him establish us in that truth.
This takes...it's only possible...by His Spirit and supernatural help.
It takes God just to breathe and have a heartbeat! How much more does it take God to love, have wisdom, understanding, hold truth, and stand in the face of all that resists God?
God is looking for those who submit to this truth: that He knows what He is doing, what He says is true, and we need His help to stand in that truth...that none of us, in our own strength of obedience, even COULD measure up to His truth.
The difference between the faithful follower of God and the hypocrite is simply the admission that we can't really fully agree with God and that we are utterly dependant on His help and strength to obey Him. His mercy overflows to those who admit they need it and reach for full compliance with His truth, knowing they need Him to even begin to move in the direction of obedience. These are the ones He calls obedient (i.e., David)!
Wanting the perfectly loving and infinitely powerful God to make you into something that is impossible for you to be is what opens the door for the miracle of living Holy forever to happen to YOU! This is the faith the Bible is talking about.
I have to really want it, but He has to really do it!
God is truly looking for faith that produces a life of growing agreement with all that marks those that know Him.
When God gives us a list of behaviors that agree with Him, He isn't giving us a punch list to make sure we have covered...He is giving us a vision of who we can be if we humbly come to Him and let Him lead us in learning to need Him... To embrace our need of Him.
When God gives a list of behaviors in the Bible that are unacceptable to Him, He isn't sending us away if, and until, we get control over those things. God is inviting us to declare our need of Him. The faithful ask God to arrange our circumstances and send His power to help us get free of what is entangling us.
For me to accept God's help, first I have to believe He WANTS to help, and actually requires that I lean on His help to be pleasing to Him.
Faith is faith in the kindness of His heart and the severity of trying to live apart from all that He is. It is offensive to God when I try to do apart from Him what only He can do. ESPECIALLY in my heart ... Some of the most sacred space Earth will ever host! It is equally offensive when I go in the other direction and try to ignore all that He has commanded I be. He loves me to need Him to be like Him. He loves for me to believe He will empower me to be like God!
Genesis 1:26Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness...
To live in the narrowness of this truth is to: PRAY for what I need. To ask and receive is the only method laid out in the Bible to seek first the kingdom. This asking and receiving will result in a lot of other activity, but this is the only origin of holiness offered in the Bible. I have to come to the mercy of the Holy One to get holy, but I MUST get holy!
To continually be asking Him to make me into who He wants me to be pleases God. What grows in me in this environment is humility, strength, character, mercy, truth, and power. Man can never achieve this apart from a savior who died to give it freely.
Hebrews 11:1Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
2For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.
3By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
4By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.
5By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God.
6But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Faith answers the question: who do I hope God is?
The simple truth is that I will ask God for the help I want Him to give me and my faith will be evident in what I want and where I believe it is found.
He rewards those who want Him to be their everything...the air they breath, the beat in their heart, their source of obedience, truth, and mercy, their dreams, their purpose, their glory...
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