Building up believers and the New Testament church

To Live Is Christ

Living by Faith

"So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:17).

Faith comes as the Spirit makes His word alive to us, individually. Faith does not come just by hearing the scriptures; faith comes by hearing God. Man has taken God out of the "equation." But if we're going to move on in faith, knowing God, experiencing Him and walking in union with Him, God must be put back into the "equation."

In Hebrews 11, the account of those who had faith, every one heard God in a personal way. This word from God is what their faith was based upon. Faith comes by hearing God. It does not come just by hearing the scriptures. If we are going to have this relationship with God that He has designed, we must know the indwelling of the Spirit that has been given so that we can know and experience God.

We must continue to walk in Him, experiencing Him, and growing in the knowledge of Him. If we only have knowledge about Him, we have no more than a mind religion. When we say that so much of the so-called Christianity around us is no more than a mind religion, this is not to criticize, but to give direction, so that we might experience what God has for us--Himself. Man has held the scriptures up so high that the scriptures have become his god, and he ministers "truths" without the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Paul tells us in the third chapter of II Corinthians that what God is doing in this hour is more glorious than what He did in the beginning. In verses 9-11 we read, "For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious."

Here Paul is showing us that the old was glorious, but the new exceeds the old. The glory of the New Covenant, the new working of God, so far exceeds the old that it is as if the old had no glory. He is talking about the ministration of the Spirit, God actually coming to indwell His people.