To Walk By Faith You Need To Answer These Three Questions.

Welcome to episode 322. I'm gonna jump right into this episode and I want to tell you the 3 questions that each one of us need to answer to learn to walk by faith and not by sight. I think these are critical questions that need to be answered and we're gonna jump right into this. But first, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I'm continuing on my topic on how to walk by faith and not by sight, and that's found in 2 Corinthians 5:7. We We are learning how to walk by faith and not by sight, and there's some ground rules that go with this. And the first one is found in Romans 8:1, "There is therefore now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." So we have— there's no rules, there's no condemnation. We are doing the best that we can do, and God is not counting how many times we mess up. In fact, he sent his son Jesus Christ to die a death that you and I deserve. We're not going to go over that in this episode, but I want you to understand that sin, messing up, falling down is not the issue. That is not even part of the problem anymore. Now, all have sinned. We're all messing up. We're all in different areas. We're not going to go through all of that. I'm not going to chase that rabbit. But we are all in this together. We had one perfect example, and that's who we're following after. God does not expect you and I to be perfect. We will one day be just like Jesus in heaven, but until that day, we are to not be conformed to this world, but we're to be transformed by the renewing of our mind so that we could prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. We are to get into this word of God, allow the word of God to get into us, and that's what we're doing. But we've got to answer these 3 questions. The first, and I think the most important question, is who is Father God? Who is God? If we balk on that answer, then we are not going to get any of the other tests right. We have got to understand who Father God is. In this episode, I'm going to answer that, but I'm going to give you the other 2 questions that we're going to answer in the next episodes. And who am I in the body of Christ? Who am I in Christ? That's another question that you have to answer. The Bible says to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. You have to answer that question for yourself. You need to figure out who you are in Christ. We're going to answer that in the next episode. And the final question is, how can I bring glory to God? People walk around through life, what is the meaning of life and what does life mean? We're going We're going to answer the meaning of life in probably 2 episodes from now, and I know we shouldn't do math in public. There's power in a made-up mind. If we do not give Father God the credit, if we do not understand who Father God is, then none of the other questions matter, and none of the other things that you do in your life really matter if we get the God question wrong. So we have got to answer Who is God and what does that mean to you and I? And I've got to go to scripture because that's what we do here. And the first scripture I'm going to talk about is 1 John 4:8. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. So there's a quick definition of who God is. God is love. If you're a frequent flyer here, you've heard this multiple times, but God had me memorize 1 Corinthians 13:4 through I think it was 7. God is patient. God is kind. God does not envy. God does not parade himself. He is not puffed up. He does not behave rudely, does not seek his own, is not provoked. God thinks no evil. He does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth. He bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. God never fails. So that's the definition of love. But if God is love, then we need to know what love is. So that's why God had me memorize this definition, maybe just for this episode. But I want you to just think about all of the things that God is. God is patient. God is kind. But if your definition of God is not patient and kind, and if you go to 1 Corinthians 13, that's called the love chapter, and I want to encourage you— I know I can't give homework, but I do it all the time. Go to 1 Corinthians 13 and just read that and reread that and ask the Holy Spirit, God, help me with this. But God is love. Father God is perfect. God loves you. God's not mad at you. God is madly in love with you. He is the perfect Father. Father God is perfect. We got to get this right. We've got to get this right in our head. And remember, there's power in a made-up mind. That is why I'm here. That's why every Tuesday and Thursday I release another episode, and I just am constant, I'm consistent, and I think this is what God has made me to do. I may never be the biggest, baddest Bible teacher. I'm fine with that. But if you're listening, if it encourages you to open up your Bible and to get in the Word of God, I've done my job. I'm not God's superstar. That's Jesus. That's his job. The Word of God is what we're here to do. We're here to glorify and magnify the Word of God. That's all I want to do. I want to encourage you to get into God's word and allow the word of God to get into you. And with that in mind, we're going to go back to the word of God, and we're going to go to John 14, and we're going to start in 6. Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. And from now on, you know him and have seen him. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us. Jesus said to him, Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. So how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Did you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does the works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me, or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. That's John 14:6-11. And I know we get to John 14:12, that's one of those scriptures that's changed my life. I want to illustrate what Jesus is saying. We know that Jesus was God. We know that Jesus was the Word, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We know that because we are Jesus Mighty Men. We are here to abide in the Word of God. That's why you're here. I hope that's why you're here. It's just to be encouraged, empowered, and inspired to get in the word of God. Jesus is saying right here to Philip— now these are his disciples. I want to remind you that these are the men that God chose to follow him and to start this church. And some of these guys, you know, they're not the sharpest tools in the shed. These guys right here are just common everyday folk. That's why God encourages me, is that, look, you don't have to be great You just got to be committed, and you got to make up your mind, and you got to plant your flag. And that's what I'm here to do. Father God is the one true God. He was God from the beginning. He created all this, and he loves us so much that he gave us his Son, that we can accept his Son and have everlasting life and spend eternity finding out all of the different facets of God, his Son, Father God, the Holy Spirit, his world that he's going to create. We're going to get into all of this, but we've got to learn to walk by faith and not by sight. We have to anchor on Father God. We have got to know without a shadow of a doubt. We have just got to know in our knower that God is who he says he is and he will do what he says he's going to do. And that is found in the word of God And it is so encouraging that all we've got to do is pick up this word. Now, it's not going to come without a fight. We know that Satan is a punk. We talk about him too much, probably. But I just want to remind you that he comes against the word of God. That's his main job. He does not want you in it. He does not want you fighting with the word of God. And if you've listened to the previous episodes and stuff, I want to show you my arms again. I told you about my story about how I was kind of struggling through the poison ivy or poison oak or whatever. But I just want to give you a quick look. I mean, I'm telling you, God is so cool. And this body, you know, once you make up your mind and once you use the word of God, your body— and I don't know how it all works, but it starts working and it starts healing itself. It starts using the word of God. I, again, I'm not here to tell you exactly how all this happens. I'm just telling you our job is just to believe and receive. Or we doubt and do without. And we're going to talk about that. We got to learn how to walk by faith. But the first thing we have got to do is we have to give God his proper place in our life, and that is at the top. And that is just to give him all the glory, all the honor, all the praise. Father God is who we are worshiping. Our job is to give him glory and to bring him glory and to build his kingdom. But we're not going to teach that on this episode. We're going to keep this one a little bit short, and I just want to encourage you, get in the word of God. Make up your mind that Father God is the one true God. We have got to start there. If we can't start there, then there's really no reason for you to continue on in this series because you are not going to be able to walk by faith. You're always going to be blaming God, or you're going to be thinking that he's mean, or he's angry, or he hit you upside the head and made you fall. Look, our job is to trust in the word. We're to be people of the word. We're to abide in the word. That means we live by the word of God. That means that's where we live. That's not where we visit. We abide in the word. We're his disciples. We abide. We stay here. We figure it out. Again, one more thing before I close. Proverbs 25:2. We love that Bible verse. That is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but it is the glory of kings to search out the matter. And that's what we're doing here. We are kings to the King. Jesus is the King of Kings. That makes us a king. I don't care who you are, if you are in Christ, you are a king. So let's start taking over our kingdom. We need to figure that out. We're going to talk about that in the next episode. But let's pray real quick. God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for this listener, this viewer here And I want to pray in Jesus' name that you would encourage them to get into your word and to understand that you love them, that you are the perfect Father, and everything that you do is to build them up and help them to take another step of faith. Lord, if they've never taken a step of faith, help them to see the first step. God, we thank you, we love you, we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.