BELIEF-FAITH

Throughout Jesus’ teachings, belief and faith are closely connected.  The people believed in God and in the message of God, and they believed in the prophets, the messengers of God.  Even so, faith in the new pronouncements of Jesus became the turning point for not only the people, but much more so the priestly heirarchy.*   In the end, when those priests finally took the stance of unbelief that Jesus was Messiah, all faith ended and they became the enemy of Jesus.  As it was then so it is today, belief and faith are never truly separate.

*See Pharisees

If someone believes, they will develop some measure of faith.  If they demonstrate faith then the foundation of belief is also revealed.  This is one reason James emphasized faith-actions, for the person becomes more fully revealed when the faith demonstration is established.  Their beliefs become clarified and their actions plant the standard.

In the ancient world various spells, incantations, and the works of man, became the methods by which man controled the gods.  Today some of these practices were sympathetic magic, sacrifice, various sorceries (pharmakia).  Other practices entailed building magnificent structures to the gods such as the ziggurat of Babylon.  These many configurations of men express man’s working-mind, the purely intellectual mind, but one that is sometimes not balanced by a spiritual foundation, and not always spirit directed.  For all of man’s earthly knowledge, a man may remain unenlightened, remain asleep.  

When men turn from the world’s dictate, he turns toward faith.  He seeks elsewhere.  Faith is the most basic and available conduit unto God.                                                                                                                     

In Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus explains that a person should start with faith and certain confidence as a foundation before starting his day, expressed in v. 32-34:
“For the pagans run after these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.  But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these will be given to you as well.  Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own” (niv).

In the above scripture, Jesus gives us basic steps concerning Walking in the Way.  God observes the pagans and knows how they pursue their lives.  Jesus separates the pagan life from a righteous life. “Seek ye first the kingdom and His righteousness,” Jesus asserts the supremacy of God.  Jesus establishes an order, God first, followed by, “do not worry about tomorrow.”  Even though this scripture does not directly mention faith, the underlying message propels the person toward faith and trust, and builds an active faith foundation.

A person can pray for more faith or speak the Word of faith into himself.  Both actions source from the spirit.  The praying part people understand, but the naming part, the use of the Word, is sometimes elusive.*  The difference between the two is that prayer supplicates by the word of God, and speaking pronounces by the word of God.  Jesus prays in faith but also pronounces faith, if even as small as a mustard seed.

*The Law of Unconscious Growth, video.

As to how we speak, common to almost all people, speech, or naming, rises and falls with every emotional reaction, that is, the person allows themselves to be controlled by their emotional reactions and their speech follows after.  Interestingly, this rollar coaster ride of speech is often directed at themselves—first positive about themselves, soon, they pronounce doubt or division.  This uneven speech is also directed at the world, leading them into an unpleasant worldliness, chaotic perhaps.  All of us have experienced this teetering effect.  By bouncing back and forth, however, the after effect is that the faith walk is diminished.  They neither name themselves into faith nor faith into themselves.  Not completing this process, the active faith message is reduced.

It is also true that belief in what you do as well as faith in its completion is a standard requirement of all serious endeavors.  Belief may motivate, but so often static faith keeps the person rooted in one place on the pathway.  They complete the steps of a faith message, as opposed to an active faith and one that seeks growth, and direct themselves to the same faith place on pathway.  Their faith no longer exhibits works within themselves.  Many people within orthodoxy espouse great faith but refuse to walk.  Complaints about this static condition are preached in hundreds of churches each week.

Sowing the seed of wholeness and speaking faith can change your life.

*

With the example of faith as small as the mustard seed, a person may remove mountains into the sea (Matt. 17:20), meaning essentially to accomplish great feats.  This scripture dipicts how a person removes spiritual obstruction, mountains, from his pathway.  These obstructions may be worry, guilt, or any number of other attributes, and this obstruction may include people who are unrighteously coming against you or those who hold you back.  Jesus teaches that if you have faith and do not doubt, that faith will remove the obstruction, “…whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive” (Mt. 21.21-22).

When the time of change comes the person must embrace the change.  Faith without actions is dead, so says James* in his epistle, and exposits a central theme of the Way—you must walk and in that certain manner embrace the pathway, the pathway the spirit reveals for you day by day, which will be guided by your words, your faith, and how you name the world around you.

*Epistle of James

It is natural that everyone is concerned about sowing seed into their circumstances, such as a lack of money or a spouse, that they forget to start with themselves—inspect yourself before sowing seed into anything else!  When you Walk in the Way, your soul nourishment is your priority.  Change comes from within, change comes by what you sow every day.  It is then the change will manifest in the world.  Get within yourself and speak from the kingdom within, and it is only then that the pathway is clarified.  Since most people are familiar with their speech causing them trouble, there is nothing wrong or embarrassing about using your speech to bring about rectification.

When Eve named Cain after ‘gain’ (Who Is Cain?), she talked about what she had gotten instead of what God had given her.  Gratitude was in second place.  Eve mentioned herself first instead of God, thus naming in reverse order.  Frankly, this is what most people do.  Remember, the naming you give and the Word you speak becomes the journey you travel.  There is an old saying, it goes like this, “Let me observe how a man speaks today, and I will tell you what his life will be like five years from now.”

Jesus tells the Roman Centurian that he has never seen such faith as his, and Jesus tells more than one person that their faith has made them whole.  The illumination provided by faith now gives rise within the soul—the city on the hill shines forth as love, compassion, charity, knowledge, and wisdom.  But without faith as a first step, none of the above may be revealed nor maintained.  Likewise, without faith, the Word or prayer you speak will remain lifeless and ineffective.

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JUDGMENT

Jesus addresses the subject of judging in Matt. 7.1:

“Pass no judgment, and you will not be judged.  For as you
judge others, so you will yourselves be judged, and whatever measures you deal out to others will be dealt back to you.  Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye, with never a thought for the great plank in your own.”

What is the spiritual problem with judging?  Why do all societies have warnings against judging others?  Jesus prescribes judging ourselves and infers we should do so before judging others.

Judging with discernment is what God wishes to develop in each person.*  In Ezekiel 7.3, Ezekiel speaks to judgment on Israel, “I will judge you according to your ways,” and in v. 27, “I will do to them according to their way, and according to what they deserve I will judge them.”  This kind of judgment is given within context and therefore is not meant to be critical, but fair.  “Whatever measure you deal out to others will be dealt back to you,” held as truth in the Hebrew Bible as well as in the new testimony Jesus gives us.

*discernment: Adam and Eve

You will be judged after your fashion of judgment, whether from vitriol or love or by personal standards.  This form of judgment will then be returned to you.  Thus the prohibition when Jesus says, “By with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged; and with the same measure (nature) you use, it will be measured back to you,” Matt. 7.2.  The approach Jesus recommends proceeds from the spirit within, not how you size up a person and then make a series of judgments, which would be based on personal attitudes or your own soul nature.

Matt. 7.2 tells us much about the nature of judging, for you may not know what the spirit is trying to work out in that person’s life, so by improperly judging you usurp another soul’s integrity.  Constantly judging others also leads a person to distraction from their individual soul progression, always pointing out the faults of others but  rarely seeing one’s own.  Judging may also lead to gossip and slander as one voices these opinions as if they are fact, and then others take them up as truth.

It is better to judge yourself, as this may counsel love toward others.  To judge righteously (carefully, after His values and the nature of His spirit) and to walk in faith are both important components of the Way.

Sow seed that personal judgments be laid aside for godly revelation.

God Bless!