January 11, 2014

 

Lauren Jackson is the daughter of Lisa and Walter Jackson. Lisa, as many of you know, is our sister in the Lord who is a personal banker at Wells Fargo in Victoria, TX. Walter is a longtime pastor, minister of the Gospel, and childhood friend of Chuck Pierce.

 

Lisa called us a couple weeks back and told us that Lauren had been diagnosed with Leukemia and asked us to pray for her. The doctors were planning a series of tests on Lauren and preparing a treatment regimen. Lauren had an appointment this week for a review of the tests.

 

This past Sunday we lifted Lauren up before the Lord and decreed the cleansing of her blood and the removal of every trace of Leukemia. On Wednesday Lisa went with Lauren to see the doctor. He gave her a clean bill of health and told her there was not so much as a trace of Leukemia in her blood.

 

I absolutely love it when we get to see the Lord do this kind of healing! And, folks, we've only just begun!

 

Let's go a different direction today in this ongoing discussion of aphiémi healing and talk about just what it means to eat faith. OK, now! Don't look cross-eyed at me like that! I know that sounds weird but bear with me as we take a whole different track as we talk about healing.

 

Hebrews 10:38: Now the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.

 

Despite the fact that this command occurs four times in the Word, God’s people still have a tendency to struggle with it. For many, faith is an intangible. It isn’t something you can get a hold on. It’s almost mystical and ethereal.

The issue is that faith is inherent in Jesus’ character, makeup and personality. It goes with Him. No Word was ever spoken by Him that didn’t come forth out of faith.

 

Let’s take a minute to define just exactly what faith is and what it consists of.

 

“Faith is the material substance of those things expected and hoped for, being both title-deed and evidentiary proof of their reality — the absolute knowing that those things we expect exist, even if we can’t see them at the moment using our natural senses.” (Hebrews 11:1, RAC Translation and Amplification #1)

 

Let's try this one more way: "Now faith is the concrete foundation, the support, the evidentiary proof, the title deed of those things – those material objects – expected and trusted for, the convincing evidence of those things not previously seen in the natural realm." (Hebrews 11:1, RAC Translation and Amplification #2)

 

Of all the characteristics of the Lord Jesus Christ we’ve heard throughout the years, living and operating by faith is probably the most used, the most misused, the most misunderstood, and the simplest of all to function in – once the revelation of faith unfolds.

 

We just said that faith is inherent in Jesus' character, makeup and nature. Faith is the very essence of God. It is the very substance of His makeup. He cannot speak with uttering faith.

 

By the same token, if we are to be restored into His image and likeness that same character of faith must be operable in us.

 

As the apostle Paul noted, “I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ." (II Corinthians 11:3)

 

The body of Christ has suffered from the complicating of faith, and there is nothing complicated about it. Faith is rooted, grounded and substantiated in the very essence of God Himself.

 

1. Faith is both spirit and substance.

 

2. Faith is activated by the Word (rhema) of God.

 

3. Faith is the essence of God’s life (zoe).

 

4. Everything that God speaks comes out of His faith.

 

5. God cannot speak anything that does not come out of His being by faith.

 

6. The substance of faith manifests by the Spirit.

 

7. Paul tells us that Jesus is the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of His person; that as such He “upholds (phero > energko: energizes and sustains) all things by the Word of His power.” The power of His Word, therefore, is His faith!

 

8. Faith, therefore, is the substance resource. It is like a warehouse of substance material, existing in the dimension of the spirit, from which the “Word of faith” draws upon to create.

 

9. The Word of Faith can only activate and be put in force by a confession of our mouth spoken in agreement with what the Spirit is saying. Our mouths become the necessary activator — the creator — of that which we expect to see.

 

10. Faith calls those things into being — whether events, circumstances, material goods or spiritual conditions: whether, healing, deliverance, restoration, financial provision, etc. — that don’t yet appear in this natural realm, but exist as substance in the warehouse of the Spirit so that they move from the spirit-realm into the natural, visible realm. This requires the spoken word.

 

11. Everything that was ever created began its existence first in the warehouse of faith.

 

12. Everything that was ever created came into this realm by speaking.

 

13. In order for Jesus’ faith to be active and energized in us, we must first hear it from Him.

 

14. Having heard the Word spoken (the rhema) to us by the Lord, the energizing force of faith is now ready to flow through our mouths with the same creative power inherent in the Lord Jesus.

 

15. Faith pleases God when active in us because we are functioning in the way He created us.

 

16. Living by faith and speaking faith brings us back to the image and likeness of God in which we were created and permits us to resume our rightful role as co-creators of God’s Will and purposes in the earth.

 

17. The Kingdom of God enlarges its borders and increases its territory as we speak the Word of faith we’ve heard from the Lord.

 

Galatians 5:6: For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh (energeo: energized, empowered, made active and effective) by love.

 

We said a minute ago that the energizing power of God’s Word is faith. John tells us in his first epistle that God is love! He doesn’t just love, He IS love! That means that love and faith work together. No love: no faith. No faith: no love. They are inseparable from each other.

 

Because God is Love, and Jesus came from the Father, He is Love. For us to eat at the Table of the Lord of Jesus’ flesh, therefore, is to eat of His love.

 

I John 4:7-13: Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation (hilasmos: reconciler, to cause to expire, expiator, to substitute for) for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.

 

We can say then that the energizing force of faith is love. This is why the apostle James made the following statement in his letter to the body of Christ:

 

James 2:14-18: What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works.

 

The works that faith produces are the evidence, therefore, of love — agape love. James could easily have said, “I will show you my love by my works.”

 

If Holy Spirit is the force by which love and faith come into being, it follows that we must be filled to overflowing with Holy Spirit and become channels for Holy Spirit to flow through us with the Love of God.

 

Ephesians 5:17-20: Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be (being) filled (continually) with the Spirit; Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;

 

Are you seeing the Table of the Lord in this? The instruction is for us to drink of Holy Spirit continually to the point where we are drunk — where we have too much Holy Spirit. When we have too much Holy Spirit, it has to go somewhere; and that means it bubbles out in the form of demonstrating love.

 

John 3:34-35: For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God: for He does not give the Spirit by measure (metron: limited degree or measured portion). The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into his hand. (NASB)

 

The Table of the Lord has not been set before us so that we just barely get enough of the Word, and a little of Holy Spirit to go along with it: it has been spread so that we eat and eat and eat of the Word, so that we eat and eat and eat of the Love of God, so that we eat and eat and eat — and hear in our spirits that rhema that generates the Jesus faith in us to go forth empowered by the Holy Spirit.

 

The Table of the Lord is the abundant life that Jesus came to give. Jesus said it like this: John 10:10: The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

 

Everything about the Table of the Lord is abundance. Everything about Jesus is abundance.

 

1. Jesus love is so abundant that He gave Himself for us.

 

2. Jesus’ faith is so abundant that He has given us a storehouse of its substance.

 

3. Holy Spirit has been given to us to facilitate that abundance and to provide us with a means to draw upon the warehouse of faith in Heaven.

 

Each time we eat at the Table of the Lord we eat the Bread of Life, the Bread of Love, the Bread of Faith, and the Bread of Blessing. Each time we drink of the Cup, we drink to ourselves the empowerment of the Word; and with it, the empowerment of agape Love, and with that, the empowerment of Faith. Holy Spirit is the energizer, the force-employer, the power behind the Word. Thus, Jesus said:

 

John 6:53 (NASB): Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.

 

Matthew 26:26-28: And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the new testament, (diatheke: devisory will, covenant) which is shed for many for the remission (aphesis-aphiemi: total pardon, complete deliverance, freedom [from]) of sins.

 

Ephesians 3:17-21 (Amp): May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell — settle down, abide, make His permanent home — in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love, That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints (God’s devoted people, the experience of that love) what is the breadth and length and height and depth of it: [That you may really come] to know — practically, through experience for yourselves — the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge (without experience); that you may be filled (through all your being) unto all the fullness of God — [that is] may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself! Now to Him Who, by {in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think — infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes or dreams — To Him be glory in the church and in Jesus Christ throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen — so be it.

 

Jesus’ faith — operating in and through us — is the substance by which love is measured. Since faith works by love — and without love our faith is nothing more than a religious word — it therefore follows that the works of which James speaks are the substantive proof, the evidence of Jesus’ love working and operating in us. James might just as easily have written, “Even so faith, if it hath not love, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have love: show me thy faith without thy love, and I will show thee my faith by my love.”

 

Jesus’ faith always produces substance and evidentiary proofs that everyone could see. Jesus’ faith isn’t something He has to wind up His willpower screw in order to activate. It is inherent in His very nature and makeup. It simply is not possible for Him to function in anything other than faith.

 

He constantly admonished the disciples — as well as those whom He taught — to “have God’s faith.” It was the Father’s working in Him that clearly proved it. The following example is the clearest demonstration of it.

 

Mark 11:12-14: And on the morrow, when they were come from Bethany, he was hungry: And seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereon: and when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter forever. And his disciples heard it.

 

Jesus didn’t have to stop and think about whether He was talking to an “it” or not. It mattered not that He was speaking to a tree and not some person. He knew that the tree must obey Him because it was a created thing which existed only because He first spoke it.

 

Mark 11:20-24: And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter calling to remembrance saith unto him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is withered away. And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. (Have God’s faith!) For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

 

Jesus couldn’t have been clearer. 30 times in the four gospels, Jesus either commanded faith, commended people for their operation of God’s faith, or rebuked people for their lack of faith.

 

There is no excuse for us as believers who sit and eat at the Table of the Lord to live and demonstrate anything but the faith of God. Every time we eat of the bread, we are eating of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself — and His faith! Every time we drink of the cup, we are drinking of the very life-flow of Holy Spirit — and Holy Spirit ONLY functions and flows with faith — God’s faith!

 

Healing conference calls have resumed with our normal schedule. If you are in need of healing please join our prayer conference calls on either Monday, Wednesday or Friday of each week at 7:00 PM Eastern. Once again, the number to call is (805) 399-1000. Then enter the access code: 124763#.

 

Happy New Year and Blessings on you!