Gifts Resurrected III - Faith, Healing & Righteousness

 
“But the righteous will live by his faith [faithfulness AMP]” Habakkuk 2:4

This is re-quoted by Paul in Romans 1:17 “The righteous will live by faith.” - and has been quoted verbatim and referred to, verbatim by those who have been taught by their teachers of the Word of Faith – where faith has become the key ingredient of life, for a Christian - when in truth it is not, and never was.

The full verse of what Paul wrote is – For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

Faith gives life if faith is applied to the righteousness that came from God as a gift through Jesus Christ; and righteousness as such, is also of itself a gift. The faith that gives rise to death is the faith that is based on righteousness that comes by works. A faith that tries to earn righteousness with God is a religious faith and will still kill you, but a faith that receives righteousness from God is the faith that is a gift from God. For man rarely has faith to receive righteousness from God but has always, since Eve first listened to the devil and replied in her own words – “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will surely die.” Gn 3:3

When God had placed two trees in the middle of the Garden and never said they may not touch of it; but said, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Gn 2:15 But when [Eve] the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. Gn 3:6

Deep within all of us, from Eve onwards, has been a desire to improve ourselves by our own works, when in truth – Adam and Eve were placed in the garden of Eden before they did a single work…. They had a righteousness with God that had nothing to do with what they had ever done – and in the same way, we are saved, placed back into the garden, if you like – not on the basis of anything we had ever done. Thus the righteous that lives by faith, are not the righteous whose faith seeks to earn righteousness with God, but the faith on which the righteous live is a gift, as is the righteousness which gives them faith. It is not even your faith that saved you, but the faith of God that saved you and in particular the faith of Jesus; and in the context of the gifts of the Holy Spirit – the faith of the Holy Spirit that keeps you saved.

As such, whatever faith you might have - consider it useless, because, rarely do you, the human, have a faith that works by love anyway. At best you have faith that works by greed, like Eve’s – desiring the fruit because it was pleasing to the eye and for gaining wisdom. Most human faith works on the basis of believing to gain more, not believing to love more or to give more.

In Galatians 5:6 The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. The only persons who possess faith that expresses itself through love are the Persons of God -> Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and it is expressedly their faith in each other that is born out of love for each other. And contrary to a teaching exposed by some, God does not have faith in His faith – He has faith in the Persons He knows – and He knows Who He is!

It is the Father’s faith in Jesus that Jesus would complete the work that caused the Father to send Him…. Likewise, it is the mutual faith of Father and Son in the Holy Spirit, that They sent the Holy Spirit to look after the Church until Jesus’ return – and it is the faith of the Holy Spirit in the Father and Son, that causes Him to…”not speak on His own; He will only speak what He hears…” John 16:13

The faith of the Holy Spirit is the faith that expresses itself in love for the Father and Son, by causing Him, the Spirit, to be silent and non-expressive of His will, but to be a complete channel and emissary of the will of the Father and Son in the first place. It is this type of faith that is the true gift of faith of the Holy Spirit – the faith to be silent and to listen first and the faith to always say and do things God’s way first.

The gift of faith is not the faith that allows to believe for great things from God and to do great things for God. It is not a faith that allows praying long and hard with words of your own … words without knowledge of their consequences – words that darken the counsel of God. It is a faith that allows you to be still before the Lord and know He is the Lord. It is a faith that allows you to wait until you see what the Lord has done and is doing. Above all else – it is a faith that stops you also from speaking of your own, but only to speak what you hear the Father and Son have and are saying. It is the type of faith that allows God to do great things through you and to believe for great things through you … and that by God.

So it is not a faith which causes you to work up a sweat, believing and confessing until you no longer doubt; that you might receive what you have asked. That type of faith is hard work, and wearies a person – it goes against what Jesus said – that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Matt 11:30 But it is the faith that you will need, if you want things done - your way.

When Jesus taught the disciples in Mark 11:22 about asking in faith, He said, “Have faith in God” and if you have faith in God, - it is because the truth is: - “I tell you the truth, if anyone says…. And does not doubt in his heart but believes what he says will happen, it will be done for him.” – It was a 2-edged sword that He was pointing out to us. Yes, through faith in God, we would have what we ask for if we believed and did not doubt – but the other edge of the sword was also this -> because the truth is that a person who does not doubt will receive what they say – then by our own loose words, we are going to receive all sorts of things, that we say without a doubt, things that come out of the heart of a man – and because of what is in man’s hearts – we will need faith in God to deliver us from the things we say.

Thus the gift of faith from the Holy Spirit is, in fact, a gift that takes care of the problem of faith. It is not about having faith, but having faith that you can live by. There is faith that you can live by and faith that you cannot live by and the Holy Spirit gives us His faith, a faith that gives us life and helps us to live.

Thus it is important to realise there are two types of faith. Faith that comes from you, that is rarely expressed through love, but almost always through fear and greed. This type of faith can get you what you ask for – like moving a mountain and it is not a type of faith that Jesus said you shouldn’t have; for it is also the faith that can get you saved for it comes from you to believe in God. However, of this type of faith, Jesus said, “Because you have so little faith,” Matt 17:20 when the Apostles could not drive out the demon. Little – not necessary in quantity, but in worthwhile-ness, for when they couldn’t drive out the demon, the disciples started arguing with the teachers of the law. Mark 8:14 When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them.

Faith that comes from you is argumentative, rude, impatient, keeps records of wrong, for out of you and me rarely comes faith that works by love, because you cannot love until you know, and unless your knowledge is perfect, your love is not perfect and your faith is not perfect.

Whereas the faith that is the gift of God, the gift of the Holy Spirit, is based on perfect knowledge and perfect love of those He has placed His faith in – that is the Father and the Son – and paradoxically, since the Holy Spirit’s faith is based on perfect knowledge, it is not faith as we know it. The gift of faith is not of the believing kind, but of the knowing and therefore loving kind – and this type of faith produces patient endurance and long suffering, politeness, kindness, gentleness and so on – even to our enemies, for “Love your enemies” Lk 6:27 is the command Jesus gave, that we might be perfect as our Father is perfect, complete as our Father is complete.

It is this type of faith that is the gift – given so that we no longer need to use our faith, but rather we use the Holy Spirit’s faith and indeed the faith of Jesus … as Peter said in Acts 3:16 By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through Him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.

The faith in Jesus’ name was exercised by one who had been with Jesus for 3 years – had seen Him and heard Him and had witnessed Him. So then the faith, in the Name of Jesus that Peter speaks of is not the faith of those who have not seen or heard Jesus or have been discipled by Jesus – it is not a believer’s faith – but it is the faith of a witness. – The faith of one who knows what he is talking about because he was there to see it, to hear it, to touch it, to taste it and to smell it. It is the faith of the testimony. A person who speaks of what he has not seen but believes, not heard but believes, not felt but believes, not tasted but believes and not smelt but believes – hopes what he says will happen, but does not know if it will happen. Thus the faith of a witness is a faith that is backed by the miraculous power of God – because the witnesses are those who have received power – and as such it is a faith that makes things happen – not hopes that it happens.

The Holy Spirit knows that when He speaks not on His own, but only says what He has heard the Lord and what the Father has said – He is releasing on earth what has been released in Heaven and it will be done – because Jesus said; “I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Mt 18:18 The best way to make things happen the way Jesus and the Father wants them to happen is to repeat what they have agreed to, on earth and have it agreed to on earth – as – thus the AMP says “Truly I tell you, whatever you forbid and declare to be proper and unlawful on earth must be what is already forbidden in heaven, and whatever you permit and declare proper and lawful on earth must be what is already permitted in heaven.”

The purpose of the gift of faith then, is to bring you to the place of fellowship with the Holy Spirit to help you to be like Him – not speaking on your own but speaking what you hear – it is the gift to bring you to the place of becoming the great agreer of God … one who constantly agrees with God, so that whatsoever is spoken by God – loosed and bound by God is done in heaven and on earth, because there is a second and a third and perhaps more, who have agreed with Him on earth. - As it is written: “Again I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by My Father in Heaven.” Mt 18:19

This is the faith that leads you to quietness and stillness so that you can wait and listen and hear. Wait for when God speaks and to hear when He does. It is a quiet faith of the confidante of God – that one in whom God has confidence. It is the faith of the Holy Spirit, it is the faith of the Lord and it is the faith of God and it is a gift. A gift that is given so that God can dispense healing – healing for those who believe Him – healing of their spirit, soul, body and their lives – healing so that they can live life, and life abundantly now – so that through that life they can come to know -- God.

The gift of healing operates at 2 levels also – and in most cases, it is used only to operate at the immature level – the child level – where it is used to heal you. We are like children who stub their toes and require the comfort of our parents and their knowledge to make us better. This is the level at which this gift operates when it accompanies the preaching of the Gospel that Jesus spoke of, and at this level it is designed to help convince people that they should believe in God … a form of believing that will save them from destruction, but not from judgement … For when you believe in the message of Christ because of the miracles, signs and wonders – you may not repent. There are many today who believe without repentance – and believing without repentance for salvation will be the hallmark of the prostitute church – because such a message builds the church but does nothing to healing the wounds of Jesus.

The child who hurts himself will rarely think of the pain and trauma they have inflicted on the heart of the parent as they themselves feel the pain of their child’s injuries. So likewise – without repentance, healing does not begin for God. A child who is sorry for hurting himself – but will not repent, will go out to do the same thing again that led to his injury in the first place – and leaves his parents worried and grieving, waiting for the next injury. In the same way, those who come to Jesus because He heals them to confirm His gospel – but will not repent, are like children who return to the danger that hurt them in the first place. They are healed, they were sorry but they do not repent – and their parents remain unhealed.

In the same way, the operation of the gift of healing – at the immature level – heals us of our sicknesses and there is much to benefit from it for us and does help us to receive God’s love – for healing is an expression of God’s love – but unless the person who is healed changes and does not return to his/her old ways – God Himself has not received any healing, but has only placed Himself into a position to be hurt and pained even more.

The Apostles saw His wounds and one even put his hand into his wounds, (Thomas), but no where is it written that they bound His wounds or covered His wounds – no one ministered to Him after He rose from the dead.

There is this awful presumption we have of God that God, being God, does not need healing or comfort – like a child who presumes that the parents need no comforting as well, even as they are nursing the child through its sickness.

We crave for God’s healing and we dispense it – selfishly – selfishly to save ourselves and to heal ourselves, to comfort ourselves, never realising how hard won it was – for it was the stripes of Jesus that healed us – never considering how much pain it caused Him and how it still left Him scarred – even after His resurrection.

If we are blind to the wounds of Jesus and we leave them open, unbound, un-anointed, uncared for – then we will never see the wounds of the Father’s heart and soul – the anguish of His mind. And we will never see that the gift of healing of the Holy Spirit has been given to us so that – not only might we be healed, but that we would learn to heal, as He heals and in so doing, might just realise - the hand that is healing us – still has a nail hole in it – undressed, - unattended. - Now is the time for the Holy Spirit to reap the gifts of faith and healing that He has been pouring out freely – reaping through people like you who have learned to look beyond themselves and demanding things for themselves like a screaming child in distress. But people who want to repent, and change - not go back to childish ways – but to grow up and to receive the faith of the Holy Spirit, and the gift of the Holy Spirit -> so that the Father and the Son may be healed.

For who knows to heal the body of Christ of its deep tears and rips and exposed sinews and bones – except the Holy Spirit and who has the power and the love to heal them, except the Holy Spirit – who makes them known to us? -- Yes, Jesus said - the Holy Spirit – “He will take from what is Mine and make it known to you” Jn 16:15

To those who can be trusted by the Holy Spirit – He will make known to you the pains and wounds of God that you may join in with Him – the Holy Spirit – and heal with Him – the Ones He loves the most >>> the Father and the Son.

AMEN

God is raising up for Himself Experts in HIS healing – to minister to HIM