ReFocus

This faith enables the believer to treat the future as the present, the impossible as the possible, and the invisible as the visible.—
—A life full of meaning and purpose must be built upon first salvation, then sanctification, and then faith.

But there is often a problem here. You see, James tells us that faith without works is dead. What James was really saying was that if there are not any works there just simply never was any faith.

The seven laws for liberation, for living a life of faith are as follows:
A vital Relationship-The First Law
A Maintained Fellowship-The Second Law
A Recognized Lordship-The Third Law
A Personalized Revelation-The Fourth Law
An Appropriated Faith-The Fifth Law
An Inevitable Warfare-The Sixth Law
An Abiding Nature-The Seventh Law.

FAITH is the key to moving God out of heaven and into earth.
It is the principle by which God operates. He operates on the basis of His children having faith in Him to do what He is already doing. So by faith we have the power to release the Spirit to move the works of God from the pages of scripture into our lives.

The volitional act of faith is acting as if a thing is so when it is not so, in order for it to be so because it is so. 

But faith is not just believing that God can do something, or desiring Him to do something. It is acting upon God’s Word as He reveals it to us, as if it is being done now.

Truth is not really truth to us until we convert it into reality in our lives through faith.

Truth only becomes truth and revelation only becomes revelation when we move it from God’s eternity into our present reality by an act of faith. It is the function of faith to convert truth into reality. Faith is an act that causes an eternal truth to become eternal fact. Faith must be tested in conflict to see if it is only head faith or heart faith which brings living reality.

When you could accept that and believe it and trust it, then you were able to receive Him and be born from above by the Spirit of faith, you accepted it. By that faith God transferred the truth out of the Bible into your heart personally.

God has set up His economy on the basis that you experience His reality according to your faith. Until you discover these facts and believe them, you will never convert the truth off the pages of scripture into the reality of your heart.

Paul knew that for one to have faith he had to be able to see the invisible. (2 Corinthians 4:18).

Faith is calling those things which are not as though they were. Whatever is not of faith is sin. Any walk that is less than the walk of faith is a sinful walk.

Faith does not always take you out of the storms and adversities of life. It calms you in the storms and adversities. The conclusion of my search has shown that there can be no spiritual reality in this life, apart from active faith in Christ. Therefore there can be no salvation, no holiness, no peace, no calmness, no power, no witness, and no victory apart from faith. So we must at all cost learn to trust Christ.

Faith enables the believing soul to treat the future as the present and the invisible as the visible. It is as much at home in the realm of the impossible as in the possible.

It is “by faith” that :
The just shall live. (Hebrews 10:38)
Your heart can be made pure. (Acts 15:9)
We are sanctified (Acts 26:18)
We are comforted. (Romans 1:12)
We are justified. (Galatians 2:16, 3:24)
We stand. (Romans 11:20, 2 Corinthians 1:24)
We walk. (2 Corinthians 5:7)
We live by the faith of the Son of God.
(Galatians 2:20)
We wait for the hope of righteousness (Galatians 5:5)
We have boldness and access with confidence.
(Eph. 3:12)
We are children of God. (Galatians 3:26)
We have the promise of eternal life. (Galatians 3:22)
Christ dwells in our hearts (Ephesians 3:17)

Faith is believing it is so when it is not so that it may be so.

Faith then is moving the realm of the scripture into the realm of the material.

When you believe it is so,  because God said it is,  then you are bringing heaven to earth. By your believing, you place yourself at the disposal of God, and He works through you to make that thing that you are believing, true in your personal life.

So it is the word of God that brings about the grace of faith. Faith is built upon the will of God.

God gives faith to whom He chooses and to him that asks believing. 

Faith is not an act of the will outside of the revealed truth of God.

As long as a person hopes rather than actively believes God he will never receive all that comes by faith.

The believers job is not to reason through his faith and question God’s motives, but rather to obey Him.

Sacrificing is something substituted for faith thus becoming an enemy of faith.

There is no other way to really please God then to trust Him in such a way that you can release Him in a given situation.

Every great man of faith has found the initial step of faith to be the doorway to trails, testings, temptations, tragedies, and triumphs.

I have found that waiting ‘for’ God is much more difficult than waiting ‘on’ God. Faith is believing God for what He wants in our lives. Patience is waiting for that time God wants us to have it.
MANLEY BEASLEY

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This article was written by my friend Sylvia Gunter:

One problem with familiarity with the Scripture is that we easily miss the raw and painful edge of a familiar story. As we sit in comfortable surroundings, reading the Scripture on the elegantly-printed pages of our leather-bound Bibles, the deep reality of the situation can be lost. Things that should elicit a painful wince become just an interesting fact that we skim over.

We find such a verse in 1 Chronicles 4:9 “Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. His mother named him Jabez, saying, ‘I gave birth to him in pain.’ “

Pause and really think about that. Jabez literally means “sorrow-maker.” Anytime his mother called him to dinner, he heard “Sorrow-maker who caused me pain, come and eat.” Each time he introduced himself he was saying, “Hi, my name is Sorrow-maker. I cause pain.” Think of the jokes that were made at his expense. Jabez’s theme song could have been that B.B. King hit “Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jivin’ too.” (copyright Riley King 1993) Feel the shame he grew up with as he was constantly reminded that his birth brought pain and sorrow. Can you sense the heaviness of having to carry that around with you?

From this beginning point, verse 10 follows. “Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, ‘Oh, that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm, so that I will be free from pain.’ And God granted his request.”

1 Chronicles 4:10 is a familiar verse. I have seen it printed on everything, including hubcap covers… I wish I were  joking. But this is not just a nice-sounding prayer to put on a greeting card. In light of the weight that Jabez carried his whole life of being the one who causes pain and sorrow, hear this prayer rising from Jabez’s spirit, the way I believe it was intended.

“Jabez cried out for help in a loud voice and pleaded, ‘Please bless me, bless me! And multiply many times my territory. Give me your strength and keep me from the painful evil, so that it may not grieve me or vex me.” And God gathered and brought together what he sought and begged for.”

Jabez was not a hoarder who was trying to just get more stuff from God. He was an honorable man, crying out to his Father to restore the fullness of what He had made him to be that had been tainted by everyone around him, including his mother. Every time someone called his name, it chipped away at the core identity that God created in him. Jabez was crying out for what was rightfully his in God.

We may not have grown up in the circumstances that are as painful as Jabez, but our spirits share a similar longing for all that God has for us. Let’s not settle for less, but join Jabez in crying out, Lord, bless me, expand my territory, be with me, keep me from evil, and thank you, God, for granting my requests.

Prayer

Jabez, knowing his continuing need, kept calling on the name of God,

1. Bless me indeed. Do in my life unhindered everything You had in mind when You created me (Exo. 33:12b).

2. Enlarge my life. Accomplish Your perfect will, unobstructed by me. Make my character match my assignment, and show me Your glory (Exo. 33:12, 16-19).

3. Be with me. I must have the touch of Your gracious presence. Go before me, carry me through, come behind me, give me Your words, give me Your wisdom and power (Exo. 33:13-15).

4. Keep me from temptation, and deliver me from evil (Matt. 6:13). Direct my steps away from all that is not of You (Ps. 119:133). Keep me in the fear of the Lord (Deut. 10:12-13) and the righteousness of Jesus Christ, and let me stand in the gap for others (Eze. 22:30). Let me not hurt others, nor their reputations, and thereby temporarily separate myself from Your pleasure (Exo. 34:6-9). I don’t want to feel Your intervention against me on behalf of others when I am their accuser. All Your covenant intervention that I count on for me is available against me when I lift my hands or my words to attack others.

5. Open heaven’s storehouses because I am fervently seeking You, Your presence and Your glory (Ps. 104:28). In Jesus’ name, amen.

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Dale Carnegie was good but if you just live by Philippians 2, you would have the same results.

Philip. 2:1-11 (MsgB)
If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— [2] then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. [3] Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. [4] Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.
[5] Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. [6] He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. [7] Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! [8] Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.
[9] Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, [10] so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, [11] and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.

Look how Carnegie says it:

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

• Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.
• Give honest and sincere appreciation.
• Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Six Ways to Make People like You

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile
3. Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interests.
6. Make the other person feel important–and do it sincerely.

How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking

• The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
• Show respect for the other person’s opinions. Never say, “You’re wrong.”
• If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
• Begin in a friendly way.
• Get the other person saying “yes, yes” immediately.
• Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.

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The following was taken from the personal diary of George Washington:

Almighty God, and most merciful father, who didst command the children of Israel to offer a daily sacrifice to thee, that thereby they might glorify and praise thee for thy protection both night and day, receive, O Lord, my morning sacrifice which I now offer up to thee; I yield thee humble and hearty thanks that thou has preserved me from the danger of the night past, and brought me to the light of the day, and the comforts thereof, a day which is consecrated ot thine own service and for thine own honor. Let my heart, therefore, Gracious God, be so affected with the glory and majesty of it, that I may not do mine own works, but wait on thee, and discharge those weighty duties thou requirest of me, and since thou art a God of pure eyes, and wilt be sanctified in all who draw near unto thee, who doest not regard the sacrifice of fools, nor hear sinners who tread in thy courts, pardon, I beseech thee, my sins, remove them from thy presence, as far as the east is from the west, and accept of me for the merits of thy son Jesus Christ, that when I come into thy temple, and compass thine altar, my prayers may come before thee as incense; and as thou wouldst hear me calling upon thee in my prayers, so give me grace to hear thee calling on me in thy word, that it may be wisdom, righteousness, reconciliation and peace to the saving of the soul in the day of the Lord Jesus. Grant that I may hear it with reverence, receive it with meekness, mingle it with faith, and that it may accomplish in me, Gracious God, the good work for which thou has sent it. Bless my family, kindred, friends and country, be our God & guide this day and for ever for his sake, who lay down in the Grave and arose again for us, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

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This article was written by my friend, Sylvia Gunter.

Every year I ask God, “What are You saying to me for the new year? What are You doing in my life? Give me a verse or a prayer for the year.” At times God has been amazingly succinct. “Pray, ‘Lord, teach me to pray.’ ” or “Pray, ‘Show me Your glory.’ ” As I have prayed those prayers, God has outdone Himself, doing amazing things to answer them.

One year God answered me with “The prayer of Jabez.” The story can be found in 1 Chronicles 4:9-10. “Jabez was more honorable than his brothers… Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, ‘Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.’ And God granted his request.”

That remarkable prayer lit the fire of my heart for God’s possibilities in five short phrases. Be extravagantly blessed as God expands your borders through praying this prayer with us for the next three weeks. Journal your own Jabez evidences of God at work in your life and write more Jabez prayers in your own words. God delights to hear and answer this prayer.

Prayer

1. Bless me indeed. You are the blesser from whose hand every good thing comes. I want a front-row seat on a life of Your miracles (Mark 16:20).

2. Enlarge my territory. I boldly ask that You expand Your kingdom through me. Thrust me into the mainstream of Your plans, way beyond my ability, and accomplish them by the exhaustless energy of Your Holy Spirit and in the freshness of Your holy Word (Acts 1:8). Make my prayer life and my life in Your Spirit match my assignment.

3. Be with me. I am totally dependent on seeing Your strong hand on everything that touches me. I see before me human impossibilities, which is the realm of incredible blessing that You specialize in (Matt. 19:26).

4. Keep evil far from me. Help me stand confidently against the enemy when I have stirred up the hosts of darkness with Kingdom invasion. Keep me relying on the sharp weapons of Your warfare (Eph. 6:12-18). Help me give no quarter to the enemy. Free me from ground I have given him. It is said that one love will quench another. With passion for Jesus, quench my pet sins of pride, judgment, anger, and impatience. Spirit of the living God, cleanse me of insensitivity, hardness, indifference, ignorance, and shallowness.

5. God, answer my request. Live in me a life that is totally explainable only that it’s You, God (Isa. 65:24). In Jesus’ name, amen.

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IT’S SUNDAY MORNING!

“Low in the grave He lay, Jesus my Savior,
waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord!
Vainly they watch his bed, Jesus my Savior,
vainly they seal the dead, Jesus my Lord!
Death cannot keep its prey, Jesus my Savior;
He tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord!”
Up from the grave He arose;
with a mighty triumph o’er his foes;
He arose a victor from the dark domain,
and He lives forever, with His saints to reign.
He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ arose!”

1 Cor. 15:3-4
I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me—that Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, as the Scriptures said.

Rejoice for this validates everything that Jesus did and said! It also grants us a confirmed hope! We who are alive in Christ will one day be reunited with those who are asleep in Christ!

Romans 5:17
The sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over us, but all who receive God’s wonderful, gracious gift of righteousness will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.

HAPPY RESURRECTION DAY!

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Think on these things today.

The followers of Jesus were devastated. All their hopes and dreams were gone. Jesus’ body lay wrapped in the grave clothes soaked with the spices and preserving materials. But Jesus was not in the grave. He was very busy on this important day.

1 Peter 3:18-22
For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also–not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand–with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

What does this mean? It means that right after Christ died, between the Cross and His Resurrection, He went before the spirits in prison, that is Hell, and proclaimed that God’s promise of salvation was fulfilled in Him, the Savior of the world. But who are the spirits to whom He preached? Scripture says that they were the disobedient toward God who were living upon earth while Noah was preparing the Ark and who were not saved during the flood.

Does this mean that Christ gave them a second chance to be saved? No! It means that Jesus Christ went before them and proclaimed His triumph; He went to vindicate the way of faith, to proclaim that the faith of Noah was victorious. Noah’s life and his proclamation of faith in God were never vindicated in his day; therefore, Christ Himself went before the spirits of unbelievers and personally proclaimed the victory.

Jesus also was collecting keys. He picked up the keys to death, hell, and the grave.

This was a busy day for the Savior. His followers were in despair and did not have a clue as to what He was doing . They were in the dark and they wondered where was God. All the time God was moving in the most triumphant way, in the dark, to work the greatest miracle of all time. Wow, were they surprised the following morning. “. . . Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5)

Remember when you are in your dark times . . . God did His best work in the dark!!!!!

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Think on these things today, Friday.

Jesus was in Gethsemane between 9 pm and midnight on Thursday night.  The arrest took place after this.  Then the trial was between 3 am and 6 am Friday morning.

The death of Jesus on the Cross is the most crucial focal point in history.  Eternal salvation was secured for man in the death of Jesus upon the Cross.  Because Jesus died, man can live forevermore.  Therefore, the events of the Cross are all important.  They hold lesson after lesson for the person who seeks the truth of God’s Son.

Jesus was crucified at 9 am (the third hour), and darkness swept the land from 12 noon until 3 pm (the sixth hour to the ninth hour).  During the course of events Jesus uttered seven sayings from the cross:

• Father, forgive them . . . (Luke 23:34)
• This day you will be with me in paradise (Luke 23:43)
• Woman, behold your son . . (John 19:26-27)
• My God, my God . . . (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34)
• I thirst.  (John 19:28)
• It is finished! (John 19:30)
• Father into your hands . . . (Luke 23:46)

Around 2 pm God the Father could not stand to look upon the hideous sight of Jesus on the Cross,  bearing all the sins of the world.  The Father turned from His only Son . . . the first and only time that ever occurred.  Jesus felt the agony of separation from His Father and responded, “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Around 3 pm He said, “It is finished!”  Notice that He did not say, “I am finished.”  It was His mission that was finished as He took on Himself the wrath and judgment of all men’s sins.   Jesus said, “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit”  and the ordeal was over.  The world had a Savior .

Why did all this happen?  Every step Jesus took in His earthly life was leading Him to the place the Hebrews called “Golgotha” and the Romans called “Calvary”.  It was known to all as “The Place of the Skull”.  All through the Gospels, Jesus had said this was His destiny (Matt. 16:21; 17:22-23; 20:28; 26:2). The very morning of His death, He told Pontius Pilate that Calvary was the place He was going, “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world . . .” John 18:37.  He came to set men free from the penalty of sin.  Jesus secured a choice for us.  We can live with the penalty of sin and be forever separated from God the Father . . . or we can choose to accept what Jesus did on the cross as full payment for our sin debt and experience an eternal relationship with the Creator of the universe.

So what was going on with the disciples during all of this?  All their hopes and dreams were gone.    Hope deferred makes the heart sick (Proverbs 13:12).  When all is failing and every ounce of hope is gone, there is an empty, sick feeling that takes over.  The emotional well being of every person runs on an adequate amount of hope.

The disciples waited through the night hours and watched during the day. They thought that Jesus would do something.  Hope was being depleted with every waiting minute as they saw the very life drain out of Jesus.  They sought to understand and they invented a thousand ways this was going to be answered and rectified.  They just knew that some great thing was going to happen to stop all this.  But eventually all hope was gone.

This sounds a lot like when we are asked to wait, wait, and wait.  Hope diminishes, despair sets in, and ultimately, we utter these words, “God where are you?”  Just as the disciples didn’t believe that Sunday was coming and all would be rectified, we fail to factor in God’s plan that He is working all things for our good in His time.   “But these things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed.” (Habakkuk 2:3)

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Think on these things today.

This will be a full day for Jesus . . . much will be accomplished.

Mark 14:1-2 begins the final stage of Jesus’ life before He was killed. In dramatic fashion Mark sets the stage for what is coming. In two short verses he mentions the Passover and then he mentions the religionists plot to kill Jesus.

In the midst of the Passover meal, there is strife among the disciples.  Jesus shows them His true heart.  The disciples had been arguing over who would hold the leading positions in the government Jesus was about to set up.  The discussion was heated.  They were caught up in the ambition for position, power, and authority.  How the heart of Jesus must have been grieved.  He had so little time left for them to learn that the way to glory is through service and not through position or authority.  How could He get the message across forcibly enough so that they would never forget the truth? It was this that led Jesus to get a towel and a bowl of water and wash the feet of the disciples.  What a picture of service!

In the next few hours, Jesus transformed the Passover into the Lord’s Supper, identified the traitor, gave His parting words, gave the great discourse of John 15 on the True Vine, promised the Holy Spirit to return after He is gone . . . then He went to pray that magnificent prayer in John 17.  And then there was the agony of the garden.  Jesus bore the weight of His own cup of suffering.  He said, “Let this cup pass from me:  nevertheless . . .”  The first act, the first impulse and struggle of His will had come from His flesh; to escape the cup of separation from God.  But immediately, the second act, the second impulse and struggle of His will, came from His Godly nature: not to do as He willed, but as God the Father willed.

Jesus’ surrender to do God the Father’s will in the Garden of Gethsemane was critical.  It was in this decision that He was made perfect and was able to stand before God as the Ideal, Perfect Man.  His righteousness was able to stand for every man.  He was able to bear the cup of God’ wrath against sin.

And then the betrayal took place . . . Jesus was arrested . . . Peter tried to defend and  kill one of the guards, but missed and cut the man’s ear off . . . Jesus, being Himself, in compassion picked up the ear and put it back on, healing him.

It had started – there was no turning back.  The worst day of agony  in the history of the world was coming when the best of heaven met the worst of earth.

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Think on these things today.

Again it was a busy day.  On Tuesday, Jesus had been challenged by several different opponents.  He had met each group head on by turning the questions around to teach much needed truth.  Jesus had silenced those who opposed His claim to be the Messiah.

Now it is His turn to question His opponents in Mark 12.   However, Jesus did not stand against them as an opponent; He questioned them as men who were in error and needed to see the truth.  He was reaching out to them in the hope that some would receive the truth of His Messiahship and accept Him as the Son of God.  He asked them this question, “What think ye of Christ, the Messiah?”  Jesus took them from the idea that He is a descendant of David, a mere man,  to the idea that He is the Lord of David as God Himself.

In this, His last week before His Crucifixion, it is amazing to see Jesus continue to teach.  He knew that men needed to be warned of  the terrible judgment to come if they didn’t change their ways. In Mark 12 Jesus discussed some of the things that especially will result in God’s wrath and judgment.  They all have to do with pride.

• vs. 38 dressing to draw attention
• vs. 38 exalting man
• vs. 38 being seen of man
• vs. 39 seeking front seats to be admired and honored
• vs. 40 devouring widows for gain
• vs. 40 praying long prayers to show piety

After He finished this teaching, Jesus walked over by the treasury.  The treasury was an area in which there were thirteen trumpet shaped collection boxes where the worshippers dropped their offerings.  He sat down all alone to get some relief and rest from the tension of the past hours.

While resting, He was deliberately observing and discerning the motives of the people as they made their offerings.  He saw many walk by and drop in sizeable gifts.  He could see the large amount of coins and hear them clang against the sides as they slid down the funnel shaped trumpets.  But none of these impressed Him.  Finally a poor widow came along and threw in two mites, which are coins of very little value.

He called his disciples to Him and said, “I assure you, this poor widow has given more than all the others have given. For they gave a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has.” (Mark 12:43-44) Christ took what He saw and taught what true giving really is:

• vs. 42 Real giving is sacrificial giving
• vs. 43 Real giving is measured by how much a person has left not by how much a person gives
• vs. 44 Real giving is giving all a person has

By the end of the day, Jesus had given a discourse on unbelief, a discourse on the end times, a discourse on the judgment day, and He taught the Parable of 10 virgins and 10 talents.  Jesus, in His consistent selflessness, did not let His impending pain stop Him from considering those who needed His teachings.

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