Obedience IX - Faith

So, HOW can we live an obedient life with Christ?
How can we succeed with this Christian life?

Here is the good news, and the bad news, (in reverse order.)

The Bad News:
You can’t.

The Good News:
You CAN’T! He can! He did!

Pointe blank, you and I have no way to live totally obedient lives.

Oh yeah, we can come close.

Yes, we can affect a lot of our living victoriously here and how. But, ultimately, it will depend on His grace to come through; the grace that He has already paid for.

How to tap that grace? Faith.

The only way to live this life of obedience is Faith.
We have to have faith that we are hearing from Him.
We have to have faith to heed what we are hearing.
We have to have faith to observe what we are hearing with care.

And Paul says this to some people who had stopped living by faith, and started living as if they could be obedient to God in their flesh. If you don’t know who I am talking about, it was those silly Galatians.

Paul stated some words to them that we need to hear. If you know this one, sing along:

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” - Galatians 2:20

Now, we could spend an entire 12 other books, blogs and chapters about ‘faith.’ I will let you do that on your own time.

But, to summarize, faith in something will produce a fruit relating to the thing you are having faith in.

From Faith to Fruit, I would say.

If you have faith in the chair (that it will hold), then you will sit in it! It doesn’t mean that the chair will hold you! You will still try to sit in it.

If you have faith that chocolate raspberry cheesecake tastes good, you will bite. Whether or not it has a foul worm in the middle of it or not is irrelevant! You will bite because you believe.

Faith in something produces an action. Likewise, if we have faith in God, we will act on it. It doesn’t matter whether or not we will receive positive or negative repercussions. If we have faith in it we will act.

That is why so many seers today claim that the majority of Christians do not believe, or have faith, in God; there are so few actions happening to obey what God is calling us to do.

That being said, we need to constantly cultivate our faith in Him. The more we believe the more we will act on (being obedient to) the Word that the Lord is speaking to us daily.

And, unlike the Galatians, let it be spirit-started and spirit-finished. Start your walk with God in faith; faith that He will move, that He has called you, that He will lead your way. Along with that, END your walk with faith in God; faith that He has put you here, faith that everything you are going through was known by Him when He called you. And let that push you to act on what you know you should do next.

One step at a time is what will bring us into obedience. Heeding His word, through faith in the Son of God to deliver, is the thing that will cause us to continuously draw closer to God through obedience!

Rinse and repeat!