This week Michelle concludes her new series called Faith & Power: Understanding the Power of Who Christ Is In You reading Hebrews 11 about those who lived by faith in The Passion Translation.
Show Transcript:
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Introduction
Good Morning! This is Michelle Bentham, host of Blooming Inspired Podcast. We are in the last week of the series “Faith & Power: Discovering the Power of Who Christ is in You!” Our reading last week came from Matthew 13:31-32 as we talked about how Christ living in us is the hope of glory revealed to us and those around us. Today, our reading will be primarily found in Hebrews 11 of The Passion Translation. So, Grab your Bible and get ready to dig into today’s reading as we continue to consider the power of who Christ is in us!
Review
As you do let’s just review a few take-aways from last week’s reading:
We compared sins that take root in our lives to that of a tree stump that will resprout over and over again until the tree is taken up by its roots. So it is with sin, evidences of sin will continually represent in our lives until we deal with the roots of sin, whether the sins are our own willful decision or generational sin patterns we’ve picked up in life.
A Mustard Seed sized faith can speak to the roots of sin and life patterns that have been blocking your growth and sucking the life out of you for years and tell it to be removed from your life.
Whether you have walked long in faith, or your faith is new and small like the mustard seed - we must remember we can do powerful things when we believe that the source of our mustard seed faith is Jesus.
We can be saved, and still lack faith and power in our lives because of doubt.
We must hold onto faith, even when the answers to our prayers look different than we prayed, and be willing to lose a battle but still vigorously contend for the reality in other’s lives as well. This is how we stand by faith - even when our circumstances and reality look wholly different than what our faith can see.
This Week’s Reading
Let’s Pray, Father God, I ask that you would give each person within the sound of my voice eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart to know you more. I pray that every person would encounter your living presence and power through the Scriptures today and that as we do we would be changed by them. Let our hearts be inspired to believe for more, to live for more and to experience more so your glory may be known upon the earth. Give us eyes to see, ears to hear and a heart to know! I ask these things in Jesus’ Precious Name, AMEN.
The title for this episode is “Living By Faith” It comes from Romans 1:17 (ESV) “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Today we’re going to look at Hebrews 11 and what it means to live by faith. This passage of Scripture is often called the Hall of Faith, because it lists the people of God who by faith lived their entire lives without fully receiving the promise. Today we will read the entire chapter as we look for inspiration to carry us as we walk and live by faith. Let’s begin:
Verse 1-3: Now faith brings our hopes into reality and becomes the foundation needed to acquire the things we long for. It is all the evidence required to prove what is still unseen. This testimony of faith is what previous generations were commended for. Faith empowers us to see that the universe was created and beautifully coordinated by the power of God’s words! He spoke and the invisible realm gave birth to all that is seen.
The writer of Hebrews begins with defining faith for us. In the NKJV, Hebrews 11:1 reads: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
As I re-read verse 1 in the NKJV my mind begs the question, “What is the substance of the things I hope for?”
I mean, is it just wishful thinking, which requires not faith, or is it something I hope for that I can accomplish in my own power - things that I can accomplish within my own strength don’t require much faith after all. If faith is the substance of things hoped for then what qualifies as hope… And that is what we see in the last part of the verse. Faith is not just the substance of things we hope for, but it is also the evidence of things not yet seen.
I love the way that the Passion Translation says the exact same thing… “Now faith brings our hopes into reality and becomes the foundation needed to acquire the things we long for. It is all the evidence required to prove what is still unseen.
And this same faith is the foundation of our testimony - we have no testimony without faith. It empowers us to see that it was God, through His Word, that created and beautifully coordinated the entire universe as He spoke into existence every realm that now exists. It was the unseen spiritual realm that gave birth to all that we are able to now see.
As a matter of fact in Romans 4 Paul writes that Abraham believed by faith and it was credited to Him as righteousness. It also says that this kind of faith - the faith Abraham carried that was credited as righteousness - called things that were not yet as though they already are. Get this… Faith and Power walk hand in hand in our lives if we believe as Jesus commanded us that everything we ask in His Name will be done for us.
When Jesus manifests (The Word Speaks) - the invisible realm (what we do not see) - the Spiritual Realm - brings what is unseen into our reality. .
Verses 4-5: Faith moved Abel to choose a more acceptable sacrifice to offer God than his brother Cain, and God declared him righteous because of his offering of faith. By his faith, Abel still speaks instruction to us today, even though he is long dead. Faith lifted Enoch from this life and he was taken up into heaven! He never had to experience death; he just disappeared from this world because God promoted him. For before he was translated to the heavenly realm his life had become a pleasure to God.
By implication, we understand that Abel’s offering pleased God because Abel gave God his very best. He trusted that if he gave God his very best - even though it cost him much - that God as Abel’s provision would sustain him. The writer of Hebrews tells us that Abel’s sacrifice still offers us instruction for today.
In what areas do we withhold ourselves, our offerings and our lives from God? When we trust God as our source, we learn that through intimacy with Him we can give ourselves, our lives and our sacrifices to Him because He provides well for His children. He is trustworthy and true - there is nothing good that He will withhold from His children. If we will believe.
It is faith that leads us in a life that is pleasing to God. Not works, not lofty words and prayers, not even the finances we give out of compulsion or obligation… Because these things without faith are nothing to God, but with Faith everything we do becomes a pleasing aroma to Him. Think of Enoch. Many generations after Adam and Eve’s fall living a life that pleased God so much that God promoted Enoch from earth to heaven without requiring him to pass through death. Enoch walked with God by faith. Genesis tells us that Enoch walked with God and then he was no more. The only reason we know he went to heaven is because God reveals it to us in the book of Hebrews. But Enoch, his faith carried him home.
Verse 6: And without faith living within us it would be impossible to please God. For we come to God in faith knowing that he is real and that he rewards the faith of those who give all their passion and strength into seeking him.
What do you believe about God? That is what you have faith in… Faith is expressed through belief that guides our motivations, passions and our actions. The words we speak and the things we do come from the heart of what we believe.
What faith is expressed in your everyday lives?
I’m preparing to serve at a retreat in June and a friend of mine is leading worship, but she doesn’t play an instrument. Over the last few weeks we have talked about this concern for the worship sessions. This weekend, as she and I spent time together at a conference, I felt like God said, “Learn to play guitar.”
So before the event was over I told one of the guitar players on the worship team I needed to learn to play guitar by June. His eyes grew wide, and he laughed. He said, “I learned to play guitar quickly but I practiced like 3 hours a day.”
I smiled wide. “I can do that.”
Later, I told my husband I need to buy a guitar because I’m going to learn to play the guitar. #TheFisherman, standing with a few of his friends from the church response team, chuckled and said, “Good luck with that.”
My response was, “I don’t need luck. God says nothing is impossible for those who believe.”
I believe by faith that I am going to learn to play guitar well enough to lead worship at the retreat I’m servine at in Mid-June. This while I have speaking engagements, a non-profit to legalize and several trips planned in the midst of it all. But, my God is big enough to handle all of that and my desire is to live a life pleasing to Him. To lay my life down in His service, to help others worship Him and believe Him for something as complex as learning to play guitar and as simple as to take the next step of obedience to what He is calling them to.
Verse 7: Faith opened Noah’s heart to receive revelation and warnings from God about what was coming, even things that had never been seen. But he stepped out in reverent obedience to God and built an ark that would save him and his family. By his faith the world was condemned, but Noah received God’s gift of righteousness that comes by believing.
Here again, our righteousness comes from believing - from faith in Christ and His Gospel. To understand that I don’t get to heaven because I prayed a prayer to receive Christ, but because I believed in my heart by faith that what the Bible says about Him is true and that He is my Lord. The faith in this invisible reality alone attributes to me all of the righteousness of Christ.
Noah had faith to do something God called him to do because Noah believed what God said was true. He saved not only himself, but also his family by acting in obedience to God by faith. Imagine, what would be possible if only we believed. When my actions follow my faith in God victory is assured. Faith expresses itself through what we are motivated to do in response to it.
As we continue to read through the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob watch for how their faith motivated their actions to obey God and how God brought about the impossible through their steps of obedient faith - even when they did not know what the outcome would be.
Verse 8-10: Faith motivated Abraham to obey God’s call and leave the familiar to discover the territory he was destined to inherit from God. So he left with only a promise and without even knowing ahead of time where he was going, Abraham stepped out in faith. He lived by faith as an immigrant in his promised land as though it belonged to someone else. He journeyed through the land living in tents with Isaac and Jacob who were persuaded that they were also co-heirs of the same promise.His eyes of faith were set on the city with unshakable foundations, whose architect and builder is God himself.
I have been heard to say that I believe God doesn’t give us a road map to our destiny ahead of time because He knows that the knowledge of good and evil would cause us to hinder His work in our lives.
I can tell you that if God would have given me a grand vision of my life, and I could’ve seen that my son was going to die on August 23, 2005, I would have done everything in my power to stop that from happening. But, I would have missed the glorious comfort of a God who captures my heart-broken tears in a bottle and heals my heart through His beautiful love, joy and peace. A God who is big enough to carry me and hurt with me at the same time. My faith grew exponentially as I learned to walk by faith through the valley of the shadow of death.
Verse 11-12: Sarah’s faith embraced the miracle power to conceive even though she was barren and was past the age of childbearing, for the authority of her faith rested in the One who made the promise, and she tapped into his faithfulness. In fact, so many children were subsequently fathered by this aged man of faith—one who was as good as dead, that he now has offspring as innumerable as the sand on the seashore and as the stars in the sky!
We often focus on Sarah’s lack of faith when she gave her handmaid, Hagar, to Abraham which brought forth Ishmael, or how she laughed at Abraham when he told her that she would bear him a son. But, even after Ishmael’s birth when Sarah, past the age of childbearing years, could’ve left her husband to her handmaid, no… Sarah, believing the One who promised gave herself to her husband and they bore a son, Isaac, who was the child God had promised them. And Abraham became the father of many nations - not just one nation through Jacob/Israel, but many nations as Ishmael and Isaac’s seed went forth. Think of this, Abraham and Sarah had one son while Rebekah and Isaac had two sons, but Jacob through Leah and Rachel had 12 sons and those 12 sons would become the nation of Israel, while Ishmael’s would go on to marry both Esau and his sons. And so many nations came from two sons of one man.
Verse 13-16: These heroes all died still clinging to their faith, not even receiving all that had been promised them. But they saw beyond the horizon the fulfillment of their promises and gladly embraced it from afar. They all lived their lives on earth as those who belonged to another realm. For clearly, those who live this way are longing for the appearing of a heavenly city. And if their hearts were still remembering what they left behind, they would have found an opportunity to go back. But they couldn’t turn back for their hearts were fixed on what was far greater, that is, the heavenly realm! So because of this God is not ashamed in any way to be called their God, for he has prepared a heavenly city for them.
Think about your life - the place where you found God, and the life you’ve lived between here and there. We hear it said a lot, “If I had it to do over again, I would do it differently.” We mean to say we’ve learned some things from our experience that would help us if we had these things to do over again, but think of all you would have missed with God if you would have looked backward and gone back to something old the first time something you believed God for didn’t come fully into your reality.
These heroes of the faith lived their lives 1) not fully realizing the promise, and 2) as if they belonged to another realm - because they did. God’s Heavenly Realm is as real as this earthly one we set our feet down in every single day of our lives. It is real, and the promises of God exist there without repentance. It our lives of faith, steps of obedience and declaration of belief that bring that heavenly reality into our earthly one. We walk by faith in the unseen, not by the things we can readily see with our natural eyes.
Verses 17-22: Faith operated powerfully in Abraham for when he was put to the test he offered up Isaac. Even though he received God’s promises of descendants, he was willing to offer up his only son! For God had promised, “Through your son Isaac your lineage will carry on your name.” Abraham’s faith made it logical to him that God could raise Isaac from the dead, and symbolically, that’s exactly what happened. The power of faith prompted Isaac to impart a blessing to his sons, Jacob and Esau, concerning their prophetic destinies. Jacob worshiped in faith’s reality at the end of his life, and leaning upon his staff he imparted a prophetic blessing upon each of Joseph’s sons. Faith inspired Joseph and opened his eyes to see into the future, for as he was dying he prophesied about the exodus of Israel out of Egypt, and gave instructions that his bones were to be taken from Egypt with them.
And as each of the patriarchs of the nation of Israel walked in obedience to God, declaring and bestowing upon the next generation their faith and the promises/prophecies of God - they birthed a faith so great that it made the way for Moses to come and deliver the people of Israel from the bondage of Egypt.
Verse 23-31: Faith prompted the parents of Moses at his birth to hide him for three months, because they realized their child was exceptional and they refused to be afraid of the king’s edict. Faith enabled Moses to choose God’s will, for although he was raised as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, he refused to make that his identity, choosing instead to suffer mistreatment with the people of God. Moses preferred faith’s certainty above the momentary enjoyment of sin’s pleasures. He found his true wealth in suffering abuse for being anointed, more than in anything the world could offer him, for his eyes looked with wonder not on the immediate, but on the ultimate—faith’s great reward! Holding faith’s promise Moses abandoned Egypt and had no fear of Pharaoh’s rage because he persisted in faith as if he had seen God who is unseen. Faith stirred Moses to perform the rite of Passover and sprinkle lamb’s blood, to prevent the destroyer from harming their firstborn. Faith opened the way for the Hebrews to cross the Red Sea as if on dry land, but when the Egyptians tried to cross they were swallowed up and drowned! Faith pulled down Jericho’s walls after the people marched around them for seven days! Faith provided a way of escape for Rahab the prostitute, avoiding the destruction of the unbelievers, because she received the Hebrew spies in peace.
Over and over again, FAITH is the answer to seeing the promises of God manifest in your lives with power. Moses’ parents put him in the river as an infant by faith, Moses’ Egyptian mother raised Moses as her own son, as a son of Pharaoh. And when Moses’ heart was moved by God, the anointing for deliverance would come to Moses that would ultimately lead him to forsake the life he knew, to live in the desert, encounter God and deliver the people of Israel as God commanded him to do. Moses’ life changed the lives of many - both the nation of Israel, and the lives of Rahab, a prostitute in a pagan land who helped the Israelite spies as they sought to take the promised land God had brought them into. Rahab’s life was not only spared, but is memorialized in the genealogies of Jesus in the New Testament Gospels. Faith makes a way of escape if only we will believe God is a God of His Word who keeps His promises.
Verses 32:40: And what more could I say to convince you? For there is not enough time to tell you of the faith of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets. Through faith’s power they conquered kingdoms and established true justice. Their faith fastened onto their promises and pulled them into reality! It was faith that shut the mouth of lions, put out the power of raging fire, and caused many to escape certain death by the sword. In their weakness their faith imparted power to make them strong! Faith sparked courage within them and they became mighty warriors in battle, pulling armies from another realm into battle array. Faith-filled women saw their dead children raised in resurrection power. Yet it was faith that enabled others to endure great atrocities. They were stretched out on the wheel and tortured, and didn’t deny their faith in order to be freed, because they longed for a more honorable and glorious resurrection! Others were mocked and experienced the most severe beating with whips; they were in chains and imprisoned. Some of these faith champions were brutally killed by stoning, being sawn in two or slaughtered by the sword. These lived in faith as they went about wearing goatskins and sheepskins for clothing. They lost everything they possessed, they endured great afflictions, and they were cruelly mistreated. They wandered the earth living in the desert wilderness, in caves, on barren mountains and in holes in the earth. Truly, the world was not even worthy of them, not realizing who they were. These were the true heroes, commended for their faith, yet they lived in hope without receiving the fullness of what was promised them. But now God has invited us to live in something better than what they had—faith’s fullness! This is so that they could be brought to finished perfection alongside of us.
They died not seeing the fulfillment of all God had promised them because they looked forward to a BETTER promise. One that includes all of us. Each generation who dies in faith, leaves both a higher foundation and a legacy of belief for the next generation to step out onto. Let’s live declaring, believing and fastening our faith to the promises of God so we can see His Kingdom truly come and His will being done on earth as it is in heaven right now - in our lifetimes. Amen?
Poppa God, we come today humbled by your words of exhortation and the lives of the faithful who have gone before us preparing the way. Help us to believe bigger, live stronger and faithfully walk out the steps of obedience you call us to so that we may see your Kingdom reality come to earth as it now exists in Heaven. Keep us steadfast and fruitful Lord as we look forward to that better promise and that heavenly city that only you can build. IN Jesus’ name I pray, AMen.
Closing Remarks
Thank you for tuning in with us. Next week I will begin a conversation with my friend, and upcoming author Karen DeArmond Gardener who has overcome lifelong abuse and lives to help others, especially women in similar situations find freedom as the break the bonds of abuse and walk into God’s loving arms of protection and healing. Join us next week for this powerful testimony of God’s redemptive power and healing.
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Join Us Through Facebook Live for Bible Study on Saturday at 10am (CT)! We’ll continue reading Luke 9 this week and digging into the life of Christ Verse-By-Verse considering what we would believe if reading the Scriptures was the primary way we inform our faith! You can learn more and catch up on last week’s study by visiting facebook.com/bloominginspired.
Once again, I’d like to remind you that I will be speaking at a women’s conference (R.E.A.L. Women Conference) at (The Ranch Cowboy Country Church South) in Edna, TX. Registration is available for $40 through January 10th, and will be $45 after the 10th through the day before the conference. Tickets at the door will be $60. This one day conference is February 22 this year and includes a continental style breakfast, full lunch and dinner provided. I’d love to see some familiar faces attending. If you’d like to register please email or DM at the email listed above or through our FB page for details or visit theranchsouth.org for more information!
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