God needs faith? Hard to believe!

Let us all accept the fact that faith properly begins from God if it has to be faith that saves. It is equally true that people are going into destruction because they refuse to believe. Man has no excuse to claim that he was not given faith to believe. Faith seems to be the vital link between man and God. All the more reason for us to have a well rounded picture of faith. It is not uncommon in the churches to have different views on this most important virtue, especially the origins of faith. One of the views I find being preached is that we need to have the faith of God. I hope what they mean is the faith that Jesus had when He was here on earth. Because it is absurd to think of God having faith. I have even heard messages that said God believed that His Word would perform its work when He spoke the world into existence. And that is why it happened! We are placing faith above God.
       Another disturbing trend I have noticed is for believers to claim that everything they have is from God, even their faith. Nothing wrong at first until we follow their line of thinking. Somehow faith becomes less of an activity because I can have it, only if God gives it to me. A kind of passivity can creep in and I do not pay much attention to building up my faith because it is not mine! Can you see how we can be deceived if we are not careful. Some of us look at the word of God and expect some magic thing to happen because we have read that faith comes by hearing the word of God. For them, the necessity of prayer and crying out to God seems less important because I only have to believe. Believe. I have heard believers say flippantly, "I'm believing God for this. I'm believing God for that". God help us all in this journey of faith.

Promises! Promises?

All of God’s word contains promises for us. These promises can be direct or indirect. Some of these are clearly conditional and some seem not to have any conditions. To live long on earth, one of the conditions is to honor our father and mother (Eph 6:2). Some people seem to think this is the only condition to live long! Can we just look at a promise in the Bible and say, “Ah, God will do this in my life?” Now we do not have space to look at the differences between the O.T and N.T promises but we need to answer this question – are all of God’s promises conditional or are there some with no conditions at all?

One of the assumptions we make is this – all of God’s promises are yes in Christ. We are in Christ. So all of the promises are yes for us.What we fail to realize is that it is the Holy Spirit who guides us into all the truth. This means that no matter how much we believe in a particular promise, we have to be led into its reality by Holy Spirit. No spiritual quickening can take place without Holy Spirit. Every word has to be confirmed. We think that for a truth to become a reality, all we need is to believe. 2 Thess 2:13 makes it clear that we are saved through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. One cannot be without the other.

The devil still roars!

I have seen so much of confusion regarding our understanding of the devil and the way he functions today. Some of us believe that he is declawed and defanged till we come across a verse in 1 John that says 'the whole world lies (present tense, not past) in the power of the evil one. Then we rework our theology all over again! Let me put it this way before you in poetic form:
He is defeated but not destroyed yet.
He is conquered but not crushed yet.
He is vanquished but has not vanished yet.
What do we have to see here? Well, the devil is a defeated foe but let us understand that he was defeated by Jesus not in mortal combat. He is not chained or bound yet. His power has not lessened but his authority through which he worked that power on earth was brought low. This means that he can still go around like a roaring lion but he has to submit or flee from anyone who wields the authority that Jesus has purchased. In other words, the battle that Jesus won was in the heavenly places. It has to be enforced here on earth or else the devil will act as if nothing has happened at the cross. Yes the Holy Spirit is enforcing that victory here on earth. But realize that He is doing it through the church through prepared vessels. 
An example would help. A manager just lost his job. His duty was to collect money from people and hand it over to his boss. He could still do his rounds and take the collection. His boss has not put him away yet. He will go away empty-handed from a house only someone confronts him and tells him that he has lost his job. Only those who are in Jesus can confront the devil. Let me stress on the word 'can'. Many of us still do not. We have to become a proxy for Jesus.