THE WALK OF FAITH
Grace provides light unto our path
As ye have, therefore, received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him, rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding with thanksgiving.
Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of your brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of seed that is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and abiding word of God.
Faith is critical to our walk in the Lord at every level. We are expanding our faith discussions to look a little deeper into the mechanics of this important subject. In the previous discussion our focus was on the state of our being “in Christ”. It is by faith that we have entered into Christ, into the state of being in Christ. The realities of our life have changed. The temporal resources of the flesh no longer control us. Now, we are able to use temporal resources to serve God’s grace. Now, in Christ, we have our personal mentor, the Holy Spirit. Now, in Christ, we have unseen eternal resources in the heavenlies.
The person of the Holy Spirit is revealing the mysteries within us of being in Christ. Our eternal resources are being identified by faith in scripture. It is a matter of walking by faith rather than sight, walking by what is unseen rather than what is tangible. We want to explore these unseen resources and consider how the Holy Spirit creates a grace culture which is a new life style in Christ. Welcome to eternal life walking in faith while still in our mortal flesh.
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
We are saved by faith which itself is a gift. We have already seen the similarity between faith and believe. Believe is the word scriptures often uses as our gateway to salvation. We have previously observed believe and faith have the same Greek root, πιστέυω and πιστός. By context, however, the use of the word faith produces evidence of our belief. That is, we are seen by what we do and how we do it. In other words, our activity is an expression of what we believe. Faith is an activity. Works without faith is not faith at all. When we profess belief not supported by our actions, we deceive our own self. Our faith is defined by our behavior and not by what we claim or even want it to be.
Hebrews gives us our classic definition of faith; Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Many are familiar with this definition but do we really understand what it says? We tend to link faith with hope in the sense of a wish or something we look forward to in the future. This may be ok for Webster’s but in scripture it must be evidential, it is tactile and knowable. Faith is tangible evidence or substance we can see, touch and feel. Faith produces what the CSI people look at in their lab. How did this tangible substance appear. What is it’s source? It is the product of what men and women believe. Faith is product or substance as a consequence of what we believe. Product is something we make or produce by our energy. Faith is what we produce by our spiritual energy. It involves action and activity. Hebrews 11 contains examples of how substance appeared. It is always a product of activity based upon belief.
We all have faith. Everybody believes in something! How we spend our time and energy suggests the nature of our faith, what we believe. Our faith is not always organized knowledge based on reason. Often, it is based upon feelings of the heart while being contrary to our mind. We may say we believe one way based on our reason and actually do what is based upon desire. In this case our desire trumps our faith and it is not faith at all. What we do is the evidence of faith not necessarily what we say we really believe.
Our faith is the reality of what we do.
Our last printed discussion concludes with the question of Jesus to His disciples, “Where is your faith?” The disciples had witnessed in Mark 6 the feeding of 5,000 men plus women and children with five loaves and two fish. From there Jesus sent the disciples across the lake in a boat rowing into the winto Bethsaida. Later that evening Jesus was walking toward them on the water. They took Him for a ghost and were afraid. He greeted them telling them not to fear. He got into the boat and the wind stopped. The scripture says they were “astonished”. They had witnessed the feeding of the five thousand, they watched Jesus walking on the water and they were astonished the wind stopped when He got into the boat! Reality for the disciples had not yet converged with the reality of Jesus. Mark explains it this way, “but their hearts was hardened”.
Our reality, like the disciples, is conditioned by reliance upon self. Our natural culture promotes rugged individualism, self esteem, pride, sensuality, authority, power and control. Not bad things, in and of themselves, but they are barriers to reliance on upon the unseen things of the Spirit. Our reliance on self “hardens our hearts” filtering out things that do not affirm our experiences. We have to train our self to accept as true those things contradicting temporal, practical experience. The natural self is hostile to God and the things of the Holy Spirit. The consequence of this intuitive disposition is “hardening of the heart”.
Regeneration is the doctrinal term describing a physical change taking place in us so that we become “born again”. The term “born again” is apt because it takes us out of the realm of natural things described above and births us into a divine life flowing from God Himself, through Jesus Christ, by the personal work of the Holy Spirit. This work of regeneration takes us out of the “world view” of life and places us into a totally different culture. It is a culture no longer controlled by circumstances or the naturally worldly system. This culture is defined by heaven’s absolute eternal Truth. Our new birth places us inside this Eternal Culture of Grace. It is timeless, absolute and beyond the capacity of human reason.
The politically popular definition of “born again” is quite different then what Jesus conveyed to Nicodemus in John 3. Being born again has to do with a totally brand new life. Jesus explained to Nicodemus there are natural things of the flesh, on the one hand, and spiritual things on the other. These two things are contrary to each other. Any person “in Christ” is a new creation, the old things that governed life have passed away and all things have become new. The things of the flesh no longer dictate our life. That power has been put to death and replaced with the “dunamis” power of Jesus Christ. It is clear from both experience and gospel context the former natural life is very much alive but dead in that it no longer dominates the person who is in Christ. The intellectual understanding Nicodemus was reaching for in his mind was about 18 inches away from the heart belief Jesus was explaining.
The resurrection power accomplishing new birth does not equip people to become good, self-righteous or better. Quite the contrary, this new birthing places us in Christ, in His righteousness. We actually become holy even as He is holy. In Christ we virtually have a new nature, we are partakers of Christ’s divine nature and have been joined with Him in Spirit, the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. John puts it to us this way, “… as he is so also are we in this world.” We have become righteous because a death has occurred. We have died with Him, were buried with Him and His resurrection power has birthed us in Him by His mercy and grace. Union with our Lord is sealed, complete and eternal. We are placed in His family and no one is going to snatch us out of His hand. His is our divine nature and it is hid with Christ in God.
We often hear comments and references about our “two” natures. This term implies we have competing forces in our lives enticing our will to choose between good and evil. There are several variations on this theme containing partial truth. This teaching is not credible in the context of the whole gospel message. Paul makes it clear the flesh or the old nature has been put to death. The flesh has not been wounded, it has been put to death and buried with Christ. That is what the death of Christ is all about. The good news is that death was conquered by the resurrection of Jesus. This is referred to as resurrection power, the dunamis (δύναμις ) power to which we often refer. It is the dunamis power protocol of God by which He creates a new life replacing the old. We have been born a second time, it is a spiritual rebirth but in the same old body. This rebirth is Christ within us, the second Adam, an incorruptible seed, for you have been born again not of seed that is perishable but imperishable. We are born out of His incorruptible seed. This is why John says no one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. The Greek word used here for seed, by the way, is sperma, σπέρμα. This is who we are in Christ.
We must clarify this does NOT means we are born into sinless perfection. The “old nature” is still alive and present but it no longer controls and dictates our behavior. It is dead in the sense that it is now subject to who we are in Christ. It is constantly warring against who we are in Christ but now is subject to our will by grace through faith. This is a very important part of our salvation and too often neglected.
There is a spiritual war going on that is very real and targeted at those in Christ. There are spiritual terrorist making very compelling arguments by deluding truth with just a measure of lethal lie. It is tempting to call this warring force the old nature but the scripture is clear it is dead. It is a fair description as long as we clearly understand it is a warring influence and is not on equal footing with our new nature secured by redemption purchased with the death of Jesus, the man on a cross. “The old nature” is not to be equated with the dunamis (δύναμις ) power that gives us life and sustains us in the Holy Spirit given to us as our seal and earnest payment of what is yet to come.
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.
The flesh is the wrapper in which we live, the vessel in which we dwell. This is where the sin resides, in the flesh, and it makes war on us. You and I sin because we make decisions in the flesh, but this is not our nature. Paul explains it this way, “Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me”. In the same way we have been delivered from sin and the flesh, we have been given sperma life in Christ.
Paul says it so eloquently in Romans 5.
“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by (in) his life.”
While we were yet sinners Christ died for us. While we were hostile and enemies of God, He took upon Himself to become a man, enduring the humiliation, suffering and anguish of our sin. By doing this He made it possible for us to share His glory. If He did all that while we rejected Him, spurned Him, why would He not do even more, “much more”, when we accept what He has done by saving us in His life. Paul tells us in this same passage that God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. This is the dunamis resurrection power given to us for our salvation after we are “saved”.
Faith is walking in the Spirit while living in the flesh.
It is one thing to know we are in Christ, it is quite another to accept it in our soul so that our behavior, which is seen in the flesh, is a transparent copy of Christ. As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. There are two ways to define our faith. One is based upon the absolute scriptural reality of who we are in Christ. The other is based upon the reality of our experiences. In Christ, we live in the Spirit but typically walk in the flesh. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. The challenge becomes one of accepting as true what God has declared about us being “in Christ”. We tend, rather, to rely upon our experience or reason.
The first step in learning to walk by faith in the Spirit is to acquire knowledge about Christ and an understanding of being in Christ. “Know yourself, accept yourself and then be yourself”. We refer to this idiom often. Thank you, Mrs. Brown. I learned this platitude in Sociology 101 at SF Baptist College. Mrs. Brown would repeat it to us over and over again. I find it works well as a spiritual training tool.
First, our mind must possess the Truth. This is essential to discern truth with understanding. Second, we must accept in our heart what we discern to be true with our mind. Third, we need to be who we are. We must exercise our will consistent with the truth in our mind and heart. We are expressing in behavior what we are committed in our heart and mind to do. This is “working out your salvation” because it is God working in your heart and mind. Know yourself in the Lord, accept who you are in the Lord with your heart, and be who you are in the Lord with all your might and will.
Spiritual Alignment.
This following triad of personal actions has a scriptural basis. First, it includes the knowledge of our mind. Second, it includes the passions and feelings of our heart. Third, it includes holy choices we make with our will. For example, Jesus said: I am the way, and the truth, and life; no one comes to the father but through me. “I am the way” requires a choice on our part, an exercise of our will. “I am the Truth” requires knowledge and discerning exercise of our mind. “I am the Life” requires the passion to exercise the heart. How about this one: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind”. Take a careful look at another one: “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Ponder this one from Romans: “even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin (will and knowledge), but alive to God in Christ Jesus, (will and knowledge ). Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body (will and knowledge) that you should obey its lusts” (will and heart). This last one brings to our attention balance or wholeness in this process. This triad model shows us how to identify our spiritual alignment so we can walk in God’s scriptural reality. Know yourself, accept yourself and be as God intended you to be!
Where Is Your Faith?
Defer a moment to Lloyd-Jones’s guidance concerning the Lord’s lesson to the disciples in Luke 8:22-35. This passage concerns their boat trip across the sea of Galilee. A furious storm was swamping their boat while Jesus was content with sleeping. One of His disciples wakes Jesus and pleas for His help after some concern about their safety. Exhausted and without resources they turned to their last resort, Jesus. Waking up the Lord of the universe was an act of desperation. Jesus made it clear this was a faith issue. His response? Where is your faith? Notice this was a group decision!
These disciples had witnessed Jesus make “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them”. They had seen miraculous events and yet were amazed He could calm the storm. They knew these facts in their mind but the full force of them had not penetrated their hearts. The disciples had previously witnessed the feeding of the 5,000, they observed Peter’s walked on the water. Jesus also walked on the water, got into the boat and the wind stopped; “they were greatly astonished”. It is hard to believe this is the same group of guys that had already experienced the “Where is your faith?” event in Luke 8 and here they are again in the same state of unbelief.
This is an apt starting point for our faith-walk in Christ. This is where we all start, in our flesh. We are unaware of what riches of grace are available to us in Christ Jesus. A great miracle has occurred within us which we treat with such casual candor. It is a spiritual birth, silent and unseen but it equips us with Jesus Christ Himself. His is our grace culture. He is life radically new and totally different than the temporal culture of our habit. The disciples had knowledge but it had not yet gripped their hearts. They knew without knowing. They had not accepted in their heart what they knew in their mind. This is where they started and this is where we start also. But let’s look further.
But as they were sailing along He fell asleep; and a fierce gale of wind descended upon the lake, and they began to be swamped and to be in danger.
The first two things we notice in this passage is the contrast between Jesus and the disciples. He was asleep and they were in danger. Jesus is the logos (λόγος) of God, the physical manifestation of the divine being who is alive in us. He is the model of how we are provisioned to live on earth. He is God, you may argue, it is impossible for us to live like Him. Yes, so true. In fact, that is exactly the whole point. We are in Christ and He is in us. It is His life in us. He is Spirit and Truth and has birthed in us a spiritual babe from His incorruptible seed of Spirit and Truth. We are now a spiritual living being but wrapped in the same old flesh. We have been joined with Him and are partakers of His divine nature. This is the life He has provided for us to live while we are yet in our mortality, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him. He was also a man who needed sleep. The scripture says He was tempted in all ways just like us, yet without sin. So we, like Him, in the flesh, are to allow the λόγος of God to be manifested in our mortal flesh.
While Jesus is sleeping the disciples are in danger. The reality for the disciples was two fold. First their boat was vulnerable. Not only were fierce winds blowing but water was filling up the boat. Second, Jesus was not concerned about their fate, do you not care that we are perishing? The physical circumstances of life for the disciples are intolerable and, if that wasn’t enough, the man whom they had committed their life, seems unconcerned.
Regardless of our station in life, we are much like the disciples. The two things often accompany each other. First, we look at those things oppressing us and causing stress and hardship. We see them as unnecessary obstacles. The wind and storm is preventing us from getting to the other side of the lake. We blame sin, education, circumstances, money or anything within easy reach. We even create obstacles that do not exist just so we can blame them. Then there is the frustration of not seeing God create a solution for our dilemma. God promised to care for us, protect us and keep us in His love, yet in our time of need, He is sleeping.
It is easy to judge the disciples safely separated by 2000 years? Jesus was shaking their world. He was not what their Jewish fathers were teaching. He was outside of their culture and was introducing something new which they wouldn’t really understand until after Paul shared a new message of grace years later. Given how hard it is for us today to live a life of faith, we can’t judge the disciples too harshly without indicting ourselves. God’s culture of grace has been with us over 2000 years. How well do we thrive in it? Or, how well do we even understand it?
I received a phone a call from a lady whom I dearly love the other day. She was one of several people involved in a small project. She had performed her task with dispatch and on schedule. The project did not complete as intended. The time and energy invested by this lady was compromised because somebody else dropped the ball. She experienced anger and frustration because her boat got blown off course. I don’t think the waves were actually sinking her boat but she became a victim of the circumstances. The storm controlled her. She was living in the reality of her circumstances.
The disciples in Mark 6 and Luke 8 were reacting to their circumstances. Their circumstances defined reality. The disciples believed in the wind and water more than the Man who was sleeping in the back of the boat on a cushion. Faith is reacting to our apparent reality. This is the reality where we live not the reality where we are in Christ. This is the difference between man’s truth and God’s Truth. The lady who called me was reacting to her apparent reality.
You and I have soulish flesh. God created a new life source replacing self dominated flesh-power. This new nature is spiritual and not of the flesh. Our new nature is not tainted by the soul. This is why Christ is referred to as the “second Adam.” The first Adam became a living “soul” and the second Adam, “Christ in us,” is a life giving Spirit. It is His Spirit that brings life back into our mortal, soulish flesh. Jesus made the distinction clear while talking to Nicodemus:
“That which is flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
Our new life in Christ is external to our soulish flesh. Paul speaks of the death of the flesh, not because it has been extinguished, but because Paul is no longer controlled by it. He is in the Spirit with a re-birthed life in Christ. The flesh is dead in the sense it no longer controls Paul’s life. We have a new nature joined to Jesus Christ Himself. We are one with Him, one Spirit, one spiritual body. This is absolute reality for anyone in Christ.
Our body is still subject to temporal laws. We have a mind, heart and will which are soulish. The laws governing the mind and heart conjures to us an apparent reality. We are the same person in terms of cultural habits, desires and the things defining us before we received our new nature in Christ. Our life source is now changed to Jesus Christ, He is our reality. We are transmuted from are natural culture of habits and desires to God’s eternal culture of grace. Now we are called to live His life in our soulish body with our new nature. We do not get a new personality, we add life and joy to it. Our habits and desire change to reflect who we have become in Christ.
Psychology comes from the Greek word psuche, ψυχή, for mind. The word “mind” in the New Testament is generally not ψυχή. Psychology originally dealt with the mind but in time expanded the meaning to include states and processes contributing to human behavior. We are summarizing its usage in our biblical model of mind, heart and will. This is generally understood to be the “soul” of man but sometimes includes the spirit of man. Psuche, ψυχή, is often translated soul in the New Testament. Perhaps we should have made this a footnote but we need to distinguish our “spirit” from usage for the word “soul”. Our spirit is redeemed but our soul-body is not until it is resurrected. Faith is the conduit feeding life from our spirit-Spirit nature in Christ into our soul or body system. When we choose to walk in faith we increase the flow of Jesus’ life into the natural habits and culture of our old “soul” life. Our essence in Christ is spiritual, not temporal.
We are not spiritual birthed into spiritual adulthood. Our reference passage for this discussion instructs us that God birthed us with His sperma seed. Our life in Christ has to go through a development process from seed to adulthood. Jesus was nurtured in the womb of Mary and became a baby. He grew up as a man learning the skills of carpentry. In the same way, we grow into spiritual maturity. Speaking to the Christians at Corinth Paul says: “and I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to babes in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not able to receive it, indeed, even now you are not yet able”.
It always comes back to knowing the Truth. The scripture itself affirms Truth. The law was given by Moses, but grace and Truth are through Jesus Christ, God is Spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth, If you abide in my word ... you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free, But when He the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the Truth, Sanctify them in the Truth, Thy word is Truth, Be diligent ... handling accurately the word of truth, .. for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth..,
I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.
Paul writes to the Ephesians “and you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience”. When God made Adam and Eve He breathed into them the breath of life and they became a living being. When God departed from Adam and Eve, Satan was on the scene to provide the life force to sustain their life in the flesh. Their soulish flesh was alive in terms of their mind, heart and will but they became spiritually dead to God Himself. God’s absolute Truth was removed from them leaving them to their own way and the relative truth they could find.
Paul explains in chapter 4 of Ephesians that we, being in Christ, no longer walk in the futility of a soulish mind as do those who are excluded from the life of God. This soulish type of life style leads to a hardness of heart and a self serving will that portends evil practices.
But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as the truth is in Jesus.
We are also instructed in this passage to be renewed in the spirit of our mind. Another translation of this text is that we restore the mind to its original state. We now have access to absolute Truth as it is in Jesus. This is part of the washing of regeneration, by His mercy, through the renewing of the Holy Spirit. God does the work but gives us options of choice.
Our mind, heart and will are integrated into our whole body system. We create frustration for ourselves when our will has to chose between the competing interests of our mind and our heart. We know that we should do one thing in our mind but the desire of our heart may urge us in a different direction. These common conflicts overlap into areas of spiritual conflict and can lead to spiritual depression. Self integrity can be an issue and we often fall into the trap of self
deception. All of these self issues are addressed as a by-product of growing in faith. God is the solution but it starts with getting to know Him spiritually. If we exercise our will to make Him our choice, our heart will follow and He will give us grace to be whole in Him by aligning our mind, heart and will.
Our subjective choices vary from person to person. Some of us have wills of iron but may not study out a matter as much as person who relies more upon their mind. Others rely instinctively upon their heart and how they feel about a matter. One person will perceive Truth a little differently according to their needs. In spite of these soul differences, we have been given unity with the Father through Jesus and with each other in Him. If 100 pianos are all tuned to the same tuning fork then we are all tuned to each other. There is one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, who is the source for our one Truth.
By His grace and mercy, He has enabled us to choose Him. He stands at the door of our Christian heart in Revelation 3:20, asking us to wine and dine with Him. When we make this choice He provides Truth to our mind which produces love in our heart allowing Him to be seen in us by others. Faith is the sequential accumulation of choices. If our choices are based upon self, that becomes the reality where we live. If our choices are in Christ then the reality where we are becomes the reality where we live. We are in Christ!
As Paul writes to the saints at Ephesus: I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know (with your mind) what is the hope of His calling, what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.
Now thanks be unto God, who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. -2Corinthians 2:14.