Increase our faith
- On 2024-09-18
Do we really need to possess a greater faith?
Rather than asking God to increase our human capacities in all areas of our life, shouldn’t' we rather ask Him, that He, Christ Jesus, become in us, more and more the driving strength of all our actions and motives so we can enter wholly into our satiating destiny. And believe that only His Spirit in us can create the will that we so barely have and the natural and supernatural work that we never have proportionally to real needs.
Hebrews, 13:20 - 21 Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an eternal covenant, our Lord Jesus, make you complete in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Jesus is our perfect Savior. He saves us from our misery, rebellion, incapacity, failures, inaccuracies, inequity, and limitations. He becomes everything, in us, as far as we let Him and ask Him to. And a grain of mustard seed is enough to get aware He lives in us and that we can trust His Spirit to guide and inspire us in the walk, at every moment, every day.
Philippians, 3:3 For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh (human capacities)
He is the grain of mustard seed. He can become everything in us and through us. The heavenly Father wants His Son to become everything in us above our highest hopes. If we only renounce to please him by tapping into our own resources. If we rather humble at the hardness of our heart and beg the power of His life in us, and prefer when we see our coldness, to lament, mourn and weep, feeling our misery and claiming and confidently expecting the effects of His Covenant in us in order that He exalts us. Rather than trying, moved by our natural man pride, to search within us some pathetic energies and win fugitives small victories. Jesus saves us perfectly. He wants us to expect everything from Him (in us) and overall expect from Him (in us) what he demands us. And if our faith is not steady enough to believe such wonderful news, He will still be here to save us from our weak faith and grant us with His.
Hebrews, 12:2 - looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith...
All is a matter of look. Let's tell Him : enlighten my eyes so I understand You are fully enough, every day, for me to become, by your Spirit who lives in me, all what I am destined to become of You, through You and to You.
Romans, 11:36 - For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.
And even if I can't yet see how this will practically happen in my daily life, never mind! You promised. This is the new covenant that you sealed with your precious blood. (Hebrews 8:10 to 13 - Ezechiel 36:25), you will do what you committed to do and I ask it to You, my Savior.
1 John, 5:14 - This is the boldness which we have toward him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he listens to us. And if we know that he listens to us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him.
Jesus is the absolute Savior and the whole plan and work of the Father are that we believe in and expect everything from Christ in us as the branch awaits everything from the tree that holds it. Jesus is the tree of life and we have been grafted in Him.
John 6:27 : Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."
We have been cut off from the tree of knowledge of good and evil that generates natural mankind, proud, auto sufficient, doing much, even deeds that are spiritual in appearance but are actually performed by the strength of arms (of Him, by me, to him). We have become Christ branches when we are born again. We are part of His life. Our vocation is thus to bear fruit not do works to become righteous. Justice is a fruit! Our terrestrial and celestial vocation is that we may be filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Philippians, 1:11
Ephesians, 3:14 - For this cause, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that you may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith
Triumph, triumphant life in all areas of our existence starts and continues when Christ dwells in our hearts through faith. This is the highest miracle that can happen in a human life. Clever strategy consists thus in searching this in priority as the rest, that we so earnestly desire, totally depends on it. Notice that this is the action of the Holy spirit in our inward man that, in response to prayer, creates this position of triumph. Our sanctification efforts (that are actually only vain tentative of improvement) will not change us. He, the Holy Spirit, in response to the prayer of a heart that humbles before Him and expects only from Him, He, the Holy Spirit of God makes this miracle possible : Christ dwells in us through faith, constantly, naturally. He makes us dwell in Christ. And if we dwell in Christ, what opens before us is the infinite, supernatural, superabundant horizon of all divine blessings:
John, 15:7 If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you will ask whatever you desire, and it will be done for you
To anyone who, like me, wants to grow in faith and Christ resemblance, let me share a very simple principle:
You will never fully submit joyfully to Christ the Lord until you have fully grasped how greatly He is your Savior. Only, Jesus the Savior can lead you to Jesus the Lord and make you willing to please Him in everything. And Jesus the Lord will constantly lead you toward Jesus the Saviour.
Jesus has not come to abolish the law. His commands (remain in me, love one another just like I have loved you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you…) and the commands of the Holy Spirit (pray without ceasing, have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus, rejoice without ceasing) are far, very further above our natural capacities of obedience. We have to re-learn to read the Bible in the spirit of a new covenant and joyfully enter in God's rest.
Hebrews, 4:10-11 There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For he who has entered into his rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from his.
Commands have now become promises. They are offered to our faith and their accomplishment is guaranteed by the welling power of the new covenant, a much better covenant (Hebrews 7:21) canceling the Mount Sinai’s one, a covenant sealed by the blood of the Lamb and made operational in us by the Spirit of Christ. The law was just a pedagogue to lead us to Christ and it still is. (Galatians 3:24). "A voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him...." In you! Test your own selves, whether you are in the faith. Test your own selves. Or don't you know as to your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you?
2 Corinthians, 13:6
Let us pray every day, our SAVIOR, to be found in him, not having a righteousness of our own, that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. Philippians 3:9
Let us pray every day, our HEAVENLY FATHER that he would grant us, according to the riches of his glory, that we may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. Ephesians, 3:14
And let peace and true joy then flood out of our hearts into the world in quenching streams and welling and inexhaustible rivers for the Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
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