Faith Received

Uh, Brother, here are some scriptures to "chew" on:

Mark 5:25 And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years,

26 And had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse,

27 When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment.

28 For she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.

29 And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.

34 And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.

Now, "her" faith, was given by God. She could not have known that this was Jesus by merely looking at Him, and even by seeing the miracles He had performed. Many others had seen His miracles, yet still did not believe. God did this(blind their eyes), so that Jesus would be crucifed, therefore, fulfilling the scriptures concerning His death, burial, and resurrection. After Jesus died, their eyes were opened to see. But, getting back to the OP, faith is a God given gift.

Mark 9:17 And one of the multitude answered and said, Master, I have brought unto thee my son, which hath a dumb spirit;

18 And wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him: and he foameth, and gnasheth with his teeth, and pineth away: and I spake to thy disciples that they should cast him out; and they could not.

19 He answereth him, and saith, O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him unto me.

20 And they brought him unto him: and when he saw him, straightway the spirit tare him; and he fell on the ground, and wallowed foaming.

21 And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came unto him? And he said, Of a child.

22 And ofttimes it hath cast him into the fire, and into the waters, to destroy him: but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us, and help us.

23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.[/U]

24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Rom. 12:3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.


Now, the times in the bible when it says "your faith", this is our faith after God gives it to us. Not all will take advantage of it though. Those who do take advantage of this gift of faith do so according to this passage:

2 Pet. 1:5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

8 For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Faith gets stronger through prayer, meditation, studying, seeking His face, etc. When God showed me that I was a sinner, He gave me the faith to believe what He was saying was true, but I didn't want to be saved at that time. That faith was still there, because He called me for years, but in my rebellion, I didn't want to serve Him. When I started listening to what He was saying, and then began calling out, that faith was there, and helped me to understand what He was saying in His Word was true.

Now, here is what happens when people "squander" their gift of faith:

9 But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins.

10 Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall:

So, according to what His Word has shown me, faith comes from God....or at least that is how I see it.

i am I AM's!!

Willis

 

(((((AMEN)))))!!! Concise, precise, and to the point!! :thumbs::thumbs::thumbs: Woot!!

 

Faith

Is the difference between non-cal and cal is how they see the faith given by God or that one thinks it comes from them and the other from God?

The faith I received was to trust, believe in Jesus and be saved or not and continue to condemnation. The offer was made many times.

Then the preacher went to great detail of what Jesus had to go through for my sins. The description of the cat and nine tails tearing flesh from His body knowing and visualizing what Jesus did for me and I cried and went to give my life to Jesus.

Isaiah 53:5
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

 

I agree Brother, but repentance, I kinda wonder about. All the others you mentioned here, I am in 100% agreement with. Jesus stated in Luke 13:3,5 "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish". So, I personally believe that when God shows us our lost state, that when we have the Godly sorrow set up, it leads us down the trail of repentance. Now, if we fail to believe what God is telling us, this Godly sorrow will not set up. If we fail to repent of being a sinner, we will die lost. So, part of me believes that repentance comes from us....but I could be wrong. Help a Brother out here, okay??

If this could cause a "derail", please start anutter thread about repentance, and where does it come from....I don't want to derail this one.

 

Here's another verse that I think will support that faith comes from God:

Isaiah 53:2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

Jesus, when He came in the flesh, looked just like any other human. There was nothing about His appearance that "gave off" that He was/is the Son of God. They had to see Him down on the inside, and this could not be "seen" with the natural eyes, but by God revealling Him to those people around Him.

 

I would love to hear myself more of this, but the last couple of threads got messy and closed

 

jbh, I learned several months back not to PM preacherfortruth, as almost immediately upon messaging him he was sharing it and whining about it in the open forum. So now when I respond to him, either intentionally "sniping" with him, or genuinely sharing, I do so in open forum. The concept of "private" message eludes him.

 

Certainly faith as well as repentance is part of the gift of God under God's grace, but not seperate from the one exercising it. God and man work together in this area and salvation is born. So we who are saved cannot claim it to be our faith alone nor can we claim that the faith unto salvation is simply and totally a work of God. God is not violating the volition of man to save him, but rather works within man's volition supplying him what he lacks so as it can be applied accoring to man's will.

 

Again you display your lack of social grace etc. YOU taught me nothing except, from that point forward, I do address you HERE and not in PM for the very that very reason.

 

I will say to you very much what I said you then, you are being disengenous here and speaking falsehoods. I am not different publicly or privately. That is utterly false. I have no "desire" to cause division, you do so much more in the manner of which you are patently disrespectful and dismissive. You go ahead and chime in the last word, for now, my last words. But I will continue to post when you disrespect someone for no good reason.

 

So you do affirm that ALL of us are unable to come to God "in ourselves" and that we are also born depraved, that unless God enables us to know Him in a saving sense, will stay spiritually deaf/dumb/blind?

 

Just a simple question...
IF we are born both unable to come to God in ourselves and are born spiritual dead in sins and trespasses...

just where did your faith actually come from as a basis then?

Were you "born" with it as part of being in image of God?
did you 'reason" your way to receiving jesus?
Where did you get it from, and when did you?

 

Spirit and life

The words of Jesus is Spirit and life and His words enables us to go in the direction by the faith God gives us provides. We can't go if we reject the very word that gives life, for then the life is no longer there. So then we are stuck in the other direction where we been headed destruction, provided by the word that also provides life.