MISPLACED FAITH
Out of Pentecost came a movement calling itself Non-denominational. In the early nineteen seventies it birthed a son known as “The Faith Movement”. Perhaps I should give the whole lineage of religion here for your consideration.
Now these are the Generations of Religion:
Rome beget The Roman Catholic Church;
Catholicism beget Fundamentalism;
Fundamentalism beget Pentecostalism;
Pentecostalism beget Non-Denominationalism;
Non-Denominationalism had many children: Faith Movement, Prosperity,
Sensationalism, Emotionalism and many others.
Famous TV evangelist has come out of the “Faith Movement” speaking great and swelling words. They are teaching how by your faith you can get gain, you can save the world, how you can be healed, happy and have peace, and how you can get from Yah, for without faith it is impossible to pleases Yah.
In every religious movement there is a measure of truth, and it is that truth that keeps the whole thing intact. While it is true that without faith it is impossible to please Yah, it is where your faith is centered, and in whom it is placed. However, this is not the faith that this movement teaches. The emphasis is not on Yah, but upon your faith. It in effect make your faith a god unto itself, and in doing so sets up an idol in your life that actually separates you from Yah.
I heard on television the other day, as I was flipping through the channels, that it is our faith that delivers us, our faith that restores us, and it is our faith that saves the world. Humm! I thought it was the Lord that does all of that. Faith like this is misplaced. These people will tell you it is faith in Yah with their mouth, but if you watch their lives for a while, how they apply faith, and listen carefully to the way they word things you will see faith used as a force like gravity. The “faith” teachers will even tell you it is a spiritual law, and just as valid as a physical law set in motion in the universe.
When I get up in the morning to go to work, and I put my key in the ignition of my car I do it out of faith that the car will start and run. My faith is in the car. When I write a check for an item at the store I do it out of faith that the bank will honor that check because I have funds in their institution. My faith is in the bank. This is having faith in something or someone and this is the kind of faith the Bible talks about.
Now, however, in this movement the emphasis has move off of Yah and on to our faith, faith in, faith in essence. This makes we ourselves the answer to our own dilemmas by having faith it will all be taken care of.
They quote, “If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.” This sounds good and there is a truth here, but they never finish the Lord’s discord on the subject. The rest says, “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” His emphasis is on whom will do the moving, not on the fact that faith is the motivating factor. It is faith in, not faith for that is at work here.
About Faith
Paul complained in his day, " In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of Yah's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!" NIV Why would something so vital to your spiritual life as faith, be called elementary? And why are you encouraged to leave it behind and go on? "Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings, ...and go on to maturity." (Heb. 6: 1) "The righteous shall live by faith,"(Rom. 1: 17) "…be justified through faith,"(Rom. 5: 1) "…walk by faith."(2 Cor. 5: 7) and "…saved by faith."(Eph. 2: 8) "Without faith it is impossible to please Yah."(Heb. 11: 6)
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of thing not seen." That is, "…being sure of what we hope for."(NIV) Faith is “…the conformation, title deed of the things we hope for, being the proof of things we “do not see” and the conviction of their reality.”(TAB) Wooo! What did that just say? Let's get this right, faith is reaching out for what you HOPE to receive. Faith is the evidence, “proof of”, or the “guarantee”, of things not yet seen? Have we been reading, and taught faith wrong all these years? What this is saying is that you can be sure to receive what you hope for. That you have the deed or contract, but you have not taken possession yet. If you hope to be righteous, faith only assures that you can be even though you do not see it yet. You want to be justified before Yah, faith tells us that it is obtainable, but not seen now. Keys are the evidence that I have a car, but they are not the car. A title deed to my property is in my hand, but until I move into the house all I have is the evidence, but have not taken possession.
There is some mystery here about faith. We are promised by faith we WILL walk with Yah because it is our hope to do so, however, it does not appear that we are? Paul said, "We live by faith, not by sight." Faith is a vision of things, but not the thing we visualize. This does not hold much satisfaction, and is pretty empty! Faith only assures us that we can have the things of Yah, but it does not give it to us. YahShua came to give us what we are having faith for. I want to experience and have the things I hope for. Faith then is only a foundation principle, and something to build upon. Faith only keeps you by hope, or vision, until the experience comes.
You are to leave behind the elementary teachings of faith in Yah, and come to the experience of them. You are to know Yah, by revelation knowledge, and understand His ways. It is said of Israel, and can be said today of the people of Yah, that they knew Him in His works, what He does, gifts, miracles and blessings. On the other hand, like Moses, some have had an experience with Him. They have been on the mountain of Yah, and communed with Him. These are the “called out” mature ones who know Him in His ways and attributes. They speak to Him as their Father Yah, are being conformed into His likeness, and coming to understand His plan.
You no longer need faith for salvation, righteousness, justification, and your walk. If you have been born again you ARE saved, righteous and justified. You only need to mature, and learn how to walk in the Spirit. "…For we live, move and have our being in him". Faith only holds you up until you come into the EXPERIENCE of what is hoped for. Faith is good, for it is counted for righteousness, but the experience of spiritual birth is better for it gives you what you have had faith for.
If you are saved by faith, it is no wonder you need to get saved each Sunday night. Faith is fickle and subject to change. Some shrink back and are destroyed after having faith,(Heb. 10: 38) while others will turn back from the faith and will betray and hate each other.(Mt. 2: 10) Some will loose their faith, and become wishy-washy.(Lk. 8: 24-25) Then it is possible for your faith to fail.(Lk. 22: 32) Furthermore there is degrees of faith: No faith;(Mk. 4: 40) Lack of faith;(Mk. 6: 6) Small faith;(Mt. 17: 20) Little faith;(Mt. 6: 30) Great faith;(Mt. 8: 10)
Faith assured the Roman soldier that his servant would be healed if YahShua just said so. It kept the woman with an issue of blood crawling through the crowd until she touched him. YahShua said, "I felt virtue, power, go out of me". Faith is only the motivating factor that brings us to the source of healing. I do not recall any place where someone said, "I have faith and I am healed." Faith moves you, but it is Yah who gives the experience.
Faith is not a force like gravity or electricity that can be manipulated by man at his will. Faith is a heart matter, and a gift of the Spirit. Faith moves you, but it is Yah who gives the experience. If you say otherwise, you are giving glory where it does not belong, and making another god.
Paul tells us that faith says, "…if you confess with your mouth, YahShua is Lord, and believe in your heart that Yah raised him from the dead, you WILL BE saved.” This is the sinner's prayer of Faith. But, YahShua said, "No one can see the kingdom of Yah unless he IS born again."
I am not saying that the people who go forward in mass meetings are not saved, only that they are saved by faith, and faith is the substance of thing hoped for. "But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has".
Being saved from your sins is not the same as a spiritual birth. One is a looking forward to, and the other is an experience. Faith is what the Old Testament people had. Ours is a much better Covenant.
New Covenant
“By faith Abel offered to Yah a better sacrifice, ...By faith Enoch, ...did not experience death,” and “By faith Noah when warned about things not yet seen... built an ark.” We see that by faith, “Abraham believed Yah and it was accounted to him for righteousness”, ...by faith, ...by faith... Then it goes on to say, “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised, they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance”. And again, “These were all commended for their faith yet none of them received what had been promised”.
However, Yah has a better way, and it is the New Covenant in His blood. “Yah had planned something better for us, so that only together with us would they be made perfect.” Through the new birth we can now experience what the Old Testament people hoped to receive, and thus they will see their hope fulfilled through us. “…We are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses.”
You may say, "But what about them? Will they know salvation?" They will partake with us in it, but they will come under their own order. "But every man in his own order: Messiyah the firstfruits; afterward they that are Messiyah's at His coming." Now, I would like to say here that if you have received salvation by faith, as the "faith teachers" preach, you will also stand with the Old Testament people in the Kingdom of Yah. Yours will be everlasting life as is granted in John 3:16. It is for whosoever that believes. However, those who have been born again, AND who follow on into the full experience of the Spirit will be changed from mortal to immortal, as was the pattern Son.
We no longer have to live by faith, for there is a better way. Keep in mind that the New Testament Gospels are a record of things before the cross, and the rest was written to the early church, which was immature, and still being taught the foundation truths. The Holy Spirit came so that we can live in the experience of what faith holds out to us.
Faith pleases Yah, and it is accounted to us for righteousness, while being born again puts us in His realm, and establishes a relationship with Him. Salvation saves you from sin, but being born again places you in the family of Yah. It takes you from being saved to being the people of Yah born in the "King's" house of an incorruptible seed. So, we are told to leave faith behind and embrace maturity by experiencing what we were having faith for. If you remain immature you will also remain in the saved servant realm. "Now I say, that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world." Let us mature in the Spirit that we might be moved from the element realm, the earth realm, to the spiritual realm.
Knowledge
Misplaced faith is doubly insecure. First, your faith is subject to change, because circumstances affect your faith. Secondly, your faith rests upon your own ability to have faith, and not upon He who never fails. Faith placed upon faith itself is no stronger, or no more secure, than the individual having it. In other words, misplaced faith depends upon us, and that is depending upon what is bound to fail.
If you have lost faith in Yah, it is because you never had your faith anchored in Him to begin with. It was misplaced! Or, if you did have you faith in Yah, it never came to maturity in you. Faith comes to maturity by exercising it. You can rest assured that the Lord will bring your faith into divine knowledge if you do not let it be moved off of Him.
Many times your faith starts out in Yah, but because you are immature it moves off of Yah, and becomes placed upon something or some desire. Then, you begin to think you can have whatever you desire if you can just believe for it. This is misplacing our faith. This happens when you begin to seek things to gratify your desires, and not His desires.
I have seen that, even when you desire to see Yah do something that you are sure is His will to do, and nothing comes of it you become disappointed in Yah. You are unwilling just to trust in His wisdom to handle the situation. You forget that He knows the circumstances better than you do. One of the flaws of human nature is the inability to just walk away from something, and leave it with Yah once you have prayed.
This is especially true if you can find a scripture in the Bible to base your faith on. Your faith is misplaced, because it is on a word written in the Book, and not upon Yah, Himself. The written Word is not Yah, it is just a letter from Him. Why would you go drag out a letter He has written in the past, for an answer in the present? He wants us to run to Him, not a letter He wrote many years age. When faith based upon the written Word fails, you blame it upon some circumstance concerning the situation. Sometimes you even blame it upon Yah in your heart, if not in words. Your faith was in something, not someone. Disappointment will uproot your faith. You either have misplaced it, or you do not fully understand what Yah is doing, and what he wants. This is where trust comes in. You must put your faith in Yah, and trust that Father is doing His will, even if what you are having faith for does not become evident.
Trust
Here we discover the frailty of man, his inherent distrust for anything he can not control. The nature of a man envisions that he, himself, is the center of the universe and all thing revolve around him. Misplaced faith never matures beyond human reasoning. It will always and forever depend upon self, and eventually become such a disappointment that many will lose all hope. Fear then take its place and hell, or torment, follows. They will begin to think Yah does not hear them and does not care about them. Human reasoning! Yah cares more than you do. It is just that you have not gone to HIM, you have gone to another source, the god of this world. The secret of faith is faith "IN HIM". How can Yah move for you if you do not have faith, trust and confidence "in Him"? Take your eyes off of everything else, and put them "upon Him". Trust that once you have brought it "to Him", it is His to do with. Do not look at the thing again, but know, “All is well in my Father’s house”.
True faith depends upon Yah’s ability, and Yah never fails. For those born of Yah, with the new nature implanted in them, the center of our universe is Yah. When this kind of faith matures in a believer it becomes trust. Trust rests upon the ability of someone outside our selves. This is the very law of trust. Trust is an unshakable knowledge. You just know, that you know that you know. And, when trust becomes mature it then becomes confidence. It is no longer faith, because we can be moved off of faith, as we discovered above, however, once it becomes an experience, it becomes a part of the structure of the inner man, and that can not be moved. Thus our new nature begins to become dominate in us.
It is now “a new and living way, walk ye in it.”
I am always available to answer the questions of a hungry heart. It is Yah's will that we help one another up the hill to transfiguration. However, keep in mind that it is not revelation knowledge that we should seek, but "HIM". Spiritual understand will automatically come as we become more aware of "HIM" and become more like "HIM". Many fall short of full sonship by becoming too caught up in the revelation, and not caught up "IN HIM". "HE" must have preeminence in our life even in our getting of revelation knowledge. I can not stress this enough.
MY HOMEPAGE