STEP 18 - The Just Shall Live by Faith.

The Just shall live by faith?

Psalms 37 says the Lord loves the Just and will not forsake His faithful ones. Wrongdoers will be completely destroyed; the offspring of the wicked will perish. The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever.

Who are the “Just?”

 

The Just shall live by faith.

Let’s talk about faith, especially “Now faith,” not tomorrow or yesterday’s faith but now, this moment, today.

 

Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

 

We’ve given our life to Christ by faith and took on the role of servanthood by faith, giving to others without looking for a return because once we received Christ all chains that kept us bound were broken and we are freely giving by faith to those the Lord places in our path, we seek no return.

 

We are not moved by what we see, hear, feel or even think about life. We don’t allow the darkness or gloom to kill steal or destroy our faith in Him. We’ve learned that the cares of this world will consume us and take away all joy, peace, love and various treasures the Lord has given that the world could never provide.

 

We are imperfect beings, the children of Christ. Once our eyes were opened to the truths, we became responsible to grow and act according to what the bible instructs, and the Holy Spirit imparts.

 

It’s by faith that we believe the scriptures, it’s by faith that we don’t allow fear, worry, stress or any negative components to overwhelm us to an unbalanced state of mind, body and soul.

There will be times we may fall but once we stand back up, we strive to do better.

 

One of our biggest hurdles as Children of God is to make sure we live “in” the world but don’t let the cares of the world cause us to be “of” the world, we must hold tight the treasures given by our Heavenly Father.

 

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying, yes, we will have concerns but when they start to overtake our decisions, discussions and directions that don’t include our heavenly father’s advice and wisdom, nor keep us on the path He created for us, then we have become as those that don’t have Christ, we are “of” the world. We are no longer heeding to the Spirit of God who knows all things, we are no longer trusting the word of God.

 

It takes time to evolve, transform and become more like Him but daily and intentionally we stay in the word, pray, communicate and seek for continual guidance from the Holy Spirit; our comforter, whom the Lord left to ensure we succeed as He planned.

 

If you are a believer, do you think He died for nothing? What was His death about?

 

When He left, He didn’t leave us comfortless. We put ourselves in isolated positions to where not even God’s word, His spirit or His children have access to our hearts let alone the fact that the separation from Christ increases as we feel lost, alone and stuck.

 

It’s amazing that we seek truths in Him and at the same time believe in things of this world that have no substance to support it.

In order to believe in our faith, we look for tangible things to hold, something that helps us to make sense of what we are believing.

 

His death and resurrection opened doors no one can shut and that is a foundational piece for faith.

 

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

As our faith matures, our hope increases and becomes evident over those things which we see, touch, think and feel.

Once we decrease the amount of time we spend with the Lord, our vision becomes unclear and our belief diminishes slowly, we start to think as the world and fear creeps in.

 

How is it so easy to believe and trust in the tangible things?

 

Let’s think about the tangible freeway that every city, state, country has access to. We’re coming from work, having to cross over a bridge that we’ve driven across often.

 

We don’t really focus on its stability but internally we have faith and believe it will remain stable even during times the traffic has stopped, and several tons of cars, trucks and diesels are just sitting and waiting for the flow of traffic to proceed.

That’s tons of weight on that bridge.

 

Do we know for a fact it was built for the weight it currently holds when traffic is stopped?

 

No, and we put 100% of our trust in something we have no evidence to believe, it’s rare anyone would even think about the dependability of the bridge. We don’t know when the last time they checked the structure or maintained it as years go by? We don’t know.

 

Here's another example of tangible things. Consider when you’re driving at night, on the various unfamiliar roads. We believe everything about those roads are fine, we have no concrete evidence.

 

Especially during a storm, we continue to drive and not think twice that the road may end due to unforeseen construction; sometimes we blindly keep driving regardless of the storm’s visibilities with no worries or at least not enough to cause us to pullover and stop until visibility comes back.

 

We have confidence the roads have been maintained for safety purposes. There are many times in traveling we are unfamiliar with certain parts of the roads and night driving is the most dangerous but that doesn’t limit our travels.

 

No matter what the scenario, we must trust in the Lord who has orchestrated our life from start to the very last moment we take our last breath, reminding us we’ve won!

 

In Christ, as a child of God, you clearly see His power and creation each time you look in the mirror. We are created so similar to the earth, so many beautiful parts and functions.

 

How do you explain it all away when you look up at the stars, touch the oceans that obey the moon and don’t cross past the invisible faith line that prevents floods or even a spinning earth that contains an exact speed that prevents us from falling into the universe and what about those planets in outer space; we’ve not even come close to understanding their purpose?

 

Bottom line, we must be believers in the unbelievable until the day we leave this earth. As we follow His words, we become better humans and the quality of our life increases.

 

We no longer walk by negative feelings, emotions or what we see because our faith story ends in Victory.

 

As Children of God, we must put all of the “un” everything in its rightful place and that would be the trash bin of remembrance no more.

 

We must focus more on what God has done, will do and remind ourselves that we have the power of God living inside of us and no weapon “formed” against us “shall” prosper.

 

We do not have to bow down to anyone or anything that doesn’t line up with God’s words. His word is our safety net, our boundaries, our protection against those things of the world, our fear crushers and love creators…His word is true!

 

Romans 1:16 for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.

STEP 17 - Our Fingerprints

Disclaimer - I do not own the rights to this song; music is a form of worship that brings unity, peace and unconditional love.

If you are not a Christian, consider giving your life to Christ today; don’t let another day go by, we are not promised tomorrow.

SALVATION - Click