Imrah Ministries

By Titto Thomas

Nathan did a terrific job of what faith was in the previous article. We have seen that the object of faith is GOD! And God wants us to use the faith He gives us to touch Him. Now we all know what happens to people who are touched by God!
 
Faith or to be specific, what the bible calls faith, comes from God. God is at the heart of it and we have heard of people who have met with this faith. People gave up their lives, got eaten by lions, and turned this world upside down. In the Fox’s Book of Martyrs there is a particular story that touched me. It tells of a young woman whose baby was held out to her as she was about to be thrown to the lions. Her father holding the baby pleaded with her to renounce Jesus for the baby’s sake. This woman kissed the baby and walked to arena to be torn apart by lions. All these people did these things because they had a confidence in God that came from God.
 
Therefore let us look at how this kind of faith comes to us.
 
Romans 10:17 –”Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God”.
 
The Greek term used for ”word” in the above verse is not ‘logos’ but ‘rhema‘. Rhema means THE SPOKEN WORD. Another way to put it: it is the word which speaks to you. Now refer Hebrews 1:1 & 2 “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through prophets at many different times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son”. Faith begins with the fact that GOD has spoken. Faith for receiving that word comes riding on the Word!
 
To put it plainly, you don’t get faith by sitting in a church on a Sunday, faith comes out of a revelation of the Word of God. You MUST HEAR FROM GOD HIMSELF ON WHO HE IS AND WHO YOU ARE IN HIM!  
 
When you were saved, there was a question that you knowingly or unknowingly answered. It is the same question that Jesus asked Peter: Who do you say that I am? If we look we can first see that there was revelation first – God showed you/God opened your eyes. What happened to you after this? Romans 10:10 expounds on it - “That if you confess with your mouth That Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him up from the dead, you will be saved.” This was how faith worked in our lives when we got saved. God by the Holy spirit helped us through faith to believe that God raised Jesus from  the dead and faith always carrying actions with it made us declare by confession that HE INDEED IS LORD! Now take a look at Colossians 2:6-7 Just as you received Christ, continue to live in him…strengthened in faith as you were taught. So you see, the key to walking in him starts with learning how you received Him.
 
Faith always carries with it actions…mind you not viceversa! Faith caused us to speak out once we had believed. There is no speaking out (confession) without believing! (Matthew 12:34 and 2 Corinthians 4:13). We are deceived if we think that somehow speaking out will cause us to believe. If that were true, confession would become the object of faith, but as we have seen before Jesus is the object. Thus we first see Jesus as Lord over every situation and thing and once we believe that, we speak out!
 
Faith centers around a revelation of Jesus. And faith in action sees us constantly declaring His Deity and the great works He has done! So faith comes by hearing from God about Him, not from God about the weather!
 
To make the above points clearer let me take you to the Old Testament where this same pattern is laid out. Isaiah 53 & 54. To put it in context, the end of Isaiah 52 is talking about the suffering of Jesus and Chapter 53 comes along and makes this proclamation “WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT?” and the rest of the chapter expounds on this. This comes as a precursor to Chapter 54. “Shout for joy Oh barren woman” is how this chapter starts. See, the same pattern… You first believe and then out of a belief comes a confession. Isaiah 54 clearly explains the nature of that confession. It is not a mumble that goes “Yeah yeah, I know Jesus is LORD” but the first sign of true faith is a shout of joy. That confession which comes out of a belief in God cannot be smothered…IT ERUPTS!  
 
To conclude, true faith in God has to do with WHO HE IS and how it comes is only by Him out of revelation of the word of GOD. God has spoken and you have heard, now speak out that which God has spoken as that is pattern of the working of faith. It started with your salvation experience and that pattern continues on in this journey of faith. In the next post Nathan will talk about your walk of faith in a very practical way, showing faith as a way of life!

By Titto Thomas

Sidharth and Justin did a terrific job of explaining “Repentance from dead works” as part of our foundational series. In his last post Sidharth explained how the foundation of repentance translates into practical everyday living in God. If you can agree with me that all these topics are fundamental cogs in our walk with God, we can move on to lesson number two- FAITH TOWARDS GOD.

Like Sidharth explained repentance is not an end in itself, rather it moves us out of the negative and faith moves us into the positive. The Bible teaches this very clearly. What do I do after I repent? Believe in GOD! In Mark 1:15 Jesus tells to repent and believe. So the first thing I want you to understand as we move to our second lesson is that we are not starting a new topic, rather we are continuing the first lesson!

You cannot put your faith in God when you are turned away from Him! You have to first turn to Him! The interesting thing about both these aspects of coming to God is that God is responsible for both- our repentance (caused by Godly sorrow) and Faith (His Gift to us). Say this to yourself- “It is His work in me as I yield!

In this first part of Lesson Number 2 I will deal with some aspects of the foundation of faith 

1.      THE ORIGIN OF FAITH – Hebrews 12:2 says that Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. The verse begins with “Fix your eyes on Jesus”. Before we can start on the foundation called faith, your eyes should not be on faith. Your eyes should be on Jesus! Also refer to Ephesians 2:8 where it says Faith is a Gift, implying that Faith can neither be manufactured nor produced. It is a GIFT!

2.      THE IMPORTANCE OF FAITH -  Hebrews 11:6 “Without faith it is impossible to please God…”. Now if there is anything that pleases God it’s faith, so faith is no small matter.

3.      THE NECESSITY OF FAITH- Why does God use this instrument called faith? We need to realize that GOD is Spirit and all our dealings with Him must be in the spirit! We cannot touch God with our emotions or with our eyes or ears. God uses this instrument called faith which makes the spiritual a reality! So you see there is no substitute to faith.

4.       THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH – To put faith plainly, it is a journey. So if faith is a journey what is its objective? A journey in faith has to with your eyes being opened to the fact of how much you can trust GOD. It is a growth in confidence primarily. If we haven’t clearly understood faith, our growth in faith will be a different journey! Paul explains this very clearly in Romans 1:17 where he tells us that this journey is from faith to faith. Beginning with faith and ending with it!

5.      THE ESSENCE OF FAITH – The essence of our faith is a commitment with God. This commitment is the beginning of a relationship with God. According to Ephesians 2:8, at the time of our salvation God gave us a gift of faith to accept Him and put our trust on Him. Now this was the beginning of a relationship with Him. This was the starting point of faith. The working of faith comes into place only when we understand this fact.

6.      THE WORKING OF FAITH – The working of faith has to do with receiving of God. Now this topic has been really misused, but let us not forget that this is a crucial part of our Christian walk. 

Faith is such a distorted topic in the body of Christ today, but I hope you have come to a point where you understand that faith has nothing to do with denominations and your ideology or belief. Faith is a Gift from God and that is the first and foremost thing you and I need to learn before we can truly comprehend faith. In the coming post Nathan will explain in detail about faith and how it differs from hope.  

By Sidharth Mohandas

When your eyes are good, your WHOLE body also is full of light.[Luke 11:34]

Jesus tells us here of something that can affect our WHOLE body. It is “when our eyes are good”. The Greek word used for “good” is “aplouv” and it can also be translated as either “single” or “simple”. One of the marvelous things about human eyes unlike many animals is that we have two eyes but by focusing we can form one image. I believe , first and foremost, this verse deals with having a single image. That is, our eyes can be focused to make a single and clear image. I believe many Christians suffer from lack of focus. That is why the spiritual world seems kind of misty, half real to them. 

Team member Jonathan was speaking to me the other day about the importance of carrying a vision for Imrah Ministries, and that without a clear vision we’d get no where in fulfilling what God had called us to do. In fact, Scripture goes onto tell us that “where there is no vision, people perish”. Singleness of vision is very important. How focused are you about God’s plan for your family, your city, your nation and the world? What is your vision of your role in these?

However, it’s not enough to just have a vision, we need to act on it. How do we act on it?

Scripture tells us that God had created man in His likeness [Genesis 1:26]. This does not simply mean that God created man to look like Him, but much more that man was created to function like God. How did God function? Through faith. He calls things that are not as though they were. Most of us associate faith with “having faith in some one”. But no, faith is much more than just that, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Before something comes into being, God knows it will be. That’s just how God operates!

That brings us to another part that affects the course of our WHOLE body: the tongue

If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his WHOLE body in check. [James 3:2]

God not only carries a clear vision for His plans, but He also uses His mouth to speak them into existence. When God brought Ezekiel before a valley of dry bones, He had a clear vision of what He wanted…an army out of those dry bones. And then He commands Ezekiel, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!…”

As children of God, we are to operate like our Abba, and that is in faith. We must have eyes with single vision and a tongue that speaks the vision into existence.

For example, a while back some of us gathered together to pray for the unsaved ones in our families. We started by gathering all of God’s promises for our families, and after we developed a clear vision of what God purposed to do in our families, we started speaking those words over our families. Have we seen any change? Very little. However, we are assured that we will see the vision come to pass.

Have a single vision, speak the vision and see it come to pass.