God's Economy in Faith -2

Message Title: the Intrinsic Significance of Faith

Faith is not blind trust, not to just trust someone or trust God in a blind way. We do not just trust God because of tradition, without knowing God. 

Faith is not empty hope. to hope is refering to something in the futre, something yet to happen. though our Christian life do have a hope, the hope of glory. but to have faith is not to hope for something in the future, but to have faith in something that has been done. 

faith is not a mental agreement, or mental consent. 

I. Faith is the substantiation of God's facts.

the Bible tells us that God is sitting on the throne, and also many other facts. to have faith to have these facts written in the Bible subtantiate to us. 

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substantiation of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

thought these things are unseen, yet faith convicts us that these things are true. though we have the five sensary organs in our human life, enalbing us to substantiate the physical things in the physical world, yet in order for us to substantiate spiritual things in the spiritual realm, we need another organ, which is faith, to enable us to substantiate the things we hope for, the conviction of things not seen. 

Believing is exercising our spirit of faith to substantiate the divine facts; once we believe by saying Amen to God's word, we substantiate the divine facts, and we have them.  when we say Amen, we are touching the divine facts. 

II. Faith is the substantiation of the substance of the truth, which is the reality of the contents of God's New Testament economy. 

the contents of the New Testament economy includes all the divine facts, e.g. Christ's incarnation, death on the cross, resurrection and ascension. these divine contents should be more real to us even than our own existence. 

III. Faith means that we believe that God is and we are not. 

many are only concerned what God can do or provide for them. but our eyes need to be turned to see who God is. we cannot only know God based on what He does for us. when God does not answer our prayer, then we think God is not real. NO!!! whether God gives us something or not, whether God answers our prayer or not, God still is!!!!

Hebrews 11:5 By faith Enoch was translated so that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God had translated him. For before his translation he obtained the testimony that he had been well pleasing to God.

Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to Him, for he who comes forward to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

the best way to please God is to believe that He is. when a child of God believes God is, this makes God most happy. 

to believe that God is, is to believe that He is everyting to us and that we are nothing. To believe that God is implies that we are not; He must be the only One, the unique One, in everything, and we must be nothing in everything. 

Enoch is a good example for us, to show us that this is the way to be well pleasing to God, and the way to be raptured.

IV. Faith means that we believe that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him

Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to Him, for he who comes forward to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

faith also causes us to believe that God is a rewarder. but what does God reward us? not with silver or gold. but God rewards us with Himself. God told Abraham in Genesis 15, that He is Abraham's exceedingly great reward. 

V. Faith is rooted in God's great, eternal, and divine facts covenanted to us in His holy word; the believers' subjective faith is in their spirit, which makes their mingled spirit a spirit of faith

the word of God is the strong support of our faith. when we exercise our spirit to the word of God, we make our spirit the spirit of faith. doutbs are in our mind, but our spirit is the spirit of faith. 

VI. All our spiritual possessions in Christ are realized and actualized by faith. 

we have victory over the world through faith, by which we are enabled to overcome the Satan-organized and usurped world. we can overcome the evil one and the evil age by our spirit of faith, because the One in us is greater and stronger than the one in the world. 

VII. "Beaware, brothers, lest perhaps there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief in falling away from the living God. But exhort one another each day, as long as it is called "today", lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin..."Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts"

do not let our hearts be hardened. we are not those who are hardened by sins, but those who are coming forward to God, who are seeking God.