Faith

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Faith that works!

"That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of
every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus". - Philemon 1:6

"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must
believe that he is...." - Hebrews 11:6

It is interesting that the Bible expressly says that without faith it is impossible to
please God. This means that no matter what else an individual does, if faith is neither
present nor active, it is impossible to please God. Understandably, any one who loves
God and desires to please him strives for this faith. But interestingly, for many of
God's people, having faith is not the problem. The challenge is to make our faith
work and produce results!

The sixth verse of Philemon chapter one tells us just how to approach the challenge of
making our faith work. The word 'communication' in this verse is the Greek word
'koinonia', which also variously means participation, fellowship, flow, activity,
exchange. In other words, the flow or activity of our faith is made effective by the
acknowledging of every good thing in us in Christ. To acknowledge, in this context,
means to live in the present moment consciousness of a truth and demonstrate this
consciousness in words or actions.

This means that my faith works as I acknowledge every good thing in me in Christ
Jesus, giving expression to these good things by my words or deeds. But how do I
know these good things? What are they?

"Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that
we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we
speak........comparing spiritual things with spiritual". - 1 Corinthians 2:12-13.

Amazing truth! Here God tells us that the way we know the good things which He has
freely graced us with is by connecting to the person of the Holy Ghost in our hearts.
From this, we know that God did not give us the Holy Ghost for fancy. He gave us
His Spirit so that we might become conscious of the good things He has freely given
us.

But an even more interesting thing follows that statement -

'Which things also we speak......'.

Here we see that God expects us to speak the things he has freely given us. That was
what Paul meant when he wrote in Philemon that we should acknowledge the good
things. We acknowledge primarily by speaking. But when we speak, a more amazing
thing happens. When we speak these things God has freely given us, He says we are
'comparing spiritual things with spiritual. To 'compare' is derived from the Greek
word 'sugkrino' which means 'to link'. In other words, when we continually confess
or speak the word of God, we link spiritual truth with spiritual truth and create
intelligent spiritual structure, fostering spiritual understanding.

So clearly, the benefit of declaring or confessing God's word is the fact that our faith
becomes effectual (produces results) and we increase in spiritual intelligence and
understanding of God's word. When we speak the word of God, there is an activity of
the Holy Ghost in our hearts, giving us a spiritual understanding of the things God has
freely graced us with.

So confession is the key to faith that works as well as the secret of spiritual
intelligence in the Word of God!

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