The Way of Faith

(This is chapter 9 of the book The Way of Sonship: Anointed to Overcome)

Within ancient Hebrew culture, the words commonly translated “believe” or “faith” meant to establish something practically, the words did not mean any form of intellectual belief in something religious, imaginary, or conceptual, concept was not part of their culture or way of thinking. The Hebrews lived from their hearts and not from their heads. The same Hebrew word for “faith” is often translated “truth” and it means the same thing, something established and real like a pillar or support. Faith in God meant to respond in humility to the amazing grace of the unmerited favour of God by catching the breath of the word spoken personally by the life’s breath or Holy Spirit of God into their grace-humbled hearts. Faith meant being sovereignly inspired to establish the truth of that living word practically by being inspired to walk in humble obedience to the word that God had spoken. That is why Jesus said in John 6:63-65 “the Spirit [life’s breath or Holy Spirit of God] it is that is giving life; the flesh does not profit anything; the sayings [words] that I speak to you are spirit [breath], and they are life; but there are certain of you who do not believe;’ for Jesus had known from the beginning who they are who are not believing, and who is he who will deliver him up, and he said, ‘Because of this I have said to you—No one is able to come unto me, if it may not have been given him from my Father’”. God is love and everything that God says and does is an expression of that love. The only thing that really matters is the humility of faith expressing itself through love (see Galatians 5:6). Because of his pride, Judas did not establish or believe the words of the breath of the life of God’s love that Jesus so lovingly spoke. It was not sovereignly given to Judas by the Father to become a Son of God together with Jesus. Instead, Judas betrayed Jesus and kissed goodbye to the only one who could save him from the sins of his pride-poisoned heart. The pride of his heart eventually killed Judas; he condemned himself to death and hung himself on a tree.

Within ancient Hebrew culture the word “blessing” meant a gift brought upon bended knee. It had the same meaning as the word grace (in Greek “charis”). It has a similar meaning as the word “anointed” (in Greek “chrio”), Yehovah’s anointed or “Christ” or “Blessed One” was gifted by Yehovah God with the fragrance of the anointing oil which represented the life’s breath or Holy Spirit of God that gifted the anointed one to accomplish his or her purposes in God. In Luke 4, Jesus went to Nazareth where he was brought up, entered the synagogue and read out “The Spirit [breath or personality] of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the [living word] of the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised”. He then sat down in the synagogue and boldly declared “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears….”. Jesus had declared that he was ready and willing to accomplish His God-given purpose in bringing the blessing, grace, or anointing of “salvation” by healing the sick, raising the dead, bringing sight to the blind, releasing the captives, and binding the broken-hearted. This was the original meaning of “salvation” within ancient Hebrew culture, and this is why Jesus came. However, Jesus knew the pride that was in their hearts, and so he went on to say, “no prophet is received in his own country”. Jesus probably sat down in what could be called Moses’ seat, the judgement seat reserved for the judge or leader of the synagogue but also the Messiah or Prophet when He came. It says in Deuteronomy 18:15 (KJV) “The LORD [Yehovah] thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken”. Yeshua (Yehoshua, Yehovah-Yasha or Jesus) Himself was the Prophet that Moses predicted would come. As Jesus continued to speak, Jesus’ brothers or distant cousins who heard the words of Jesus with their natural ears were incensed in the pride of their self-admiring hearts. They already had a natural knowledge of Jesus and believed he was just an unimpressive carpenter. They did not believe or establish the supernatural power contained within the divine breath of those true words spoken centuries before by both Moses and Isaiah but were now inbreathed with resurrection (or upstanding) life. These people lost out because their heads were too big, their hearts were too puffed up, the whole thing was too natural, and God could not get His wonderful way through to them. This big-headed faithless and loveless religious community who claimed to be the Israel of God had established the devil’s lying breaths as if they were true within the breathings of their personality. In demon-inspired hatred they bore the image of the devil in their hearts. These would-be murderers and seed of the serpent pushed Jesus out of the town and intended to throw him off a cliff to kill him. His words of life changing power were actually the original gospel of the good news of the Kingdom of God, but they were not believed or established. In his natural hometown of Nazareth, just like the devil, the people decided for themselves what was good or evil, right or wrong, true or false. They had a natural knowledge of Jesus and so the supernatural knowledge of Jesus and His saving anointing or victorious revival power of the almighty word of God was rejected. Because they rejected the truth of the living word of God, they did not see the victory. In their puffed-up pride they remained imprisoned by the father of lies who continued to dwell within the breathings of their personality. Jesus simply walked right through these God-empty sons of Belial and went on his way. He went to Capernaum where the people said in amazement “for his word was with power”, and “what word is this! for with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out”.

At the time of Jesus, the Jews hated the Romans who amongst other things forced them to pay taxes and carry their bags which made them feel small, and full of resentment. However, the Romans represented outwardly the slavery of being imprisoned by pride and selfishness that, apart from the sovereign blessing of Abraham, naturally subjected them to the curse of being enslaved by the father of lies. In Luke 7, there was a Roman centurion who, although he was a gentile, loved the Jews and showed it practically by establishing or building their synagogue. The centurion did not suddenly say in his heart one day “I am going to love the Jews, I will build their synagogue, I have got great faith”. God had sovereignly chosen the centurion by the election of grace to receive the blessing of Abraham, the life’s breath, or Holy Spirit of God’s fatherhood. Within ancient Hebrew culture, sons are the reflection of the behaviour or name of their father. As a Son of God, the centurion loved the Jews because God loves them. He wanted to be a blessing to the Jews because God wanted to bless them, and in Genesis 12:3 God promised to bless those who blessed Abraham. God chose the centurion to be a blessing to the Jews but also to stand as a testimony against those who imagined that God considered them righteous. This was because they were descendants of Abraham and because they believed that they kept the Law of Moses. They considered themselves in covenant with God, God’s “special”, holy, or favoured people, and therefore superior to everyone else. The centurion had received the blessing of a grace-humbled heart. Although in the natural world he was someone important, he knew by supernatural revelation the truth that in reality he was nothing in himself and that all of his power and authority came from above and not from him. His servant who was possibly a Jew, whom he loved, was sick and at the point of death. In humility he sent the elders of the people, who had to humble themselves, to ask Jesus to come and heal his servant. It says in Luke 7: 6-10 (KJV) “Then Jesus went with them. And when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself: for I am not worthy that thou should enter under my roof: Wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee: but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he does it. When Jesus heard these things, he marvelled at him, and turned him about, and said unto the people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And they that were sent, returning to the house, found the servant whole that had been sick”. Hebraically, the “faith” that Jesus found within the centurion could be better described as a “believing response to grace”. The centurion’s faith was a response to the amazing grace of God and not the cause of it. It was truly remarkable, but what was really significant was the work of the amazing grace of God in the centurion’s heart. The centurion’s faith was not a “work” because a “work” of faith that merits the gift of grace cannot receive it because it is no longer a gift but an obligation. He did not work up a religious “I believe” sweat that obliged Jesus to heal his servant. His faith was the blessing of grace, and he simply responded to Jesus with a grace-humbled heart. The centurion knew how faith in grace really worked. Natural words are spoken with natural breath, but natural words even scriptural words, have little effect without the personal manifestation of the breath or Holy Spirit of God’s life. The centurion was a man who by God-given grace lived in obedient submission to authority and as such knew by revelation that Jesus was a man who lived by faith in submission and perfect obedience to the truth of the living word of the supernatural authority of God. He also knew that unless Jesus spoke the word of grace, a man under authority like himself, a man of truth who spoke living words with the divine power of supernatural breath, a man within whom by faith (or establishing) the word of God and the life’s breath, personality or Spirit of God were one and the same, nothing would happen. Within ancient Hebrew culture, to believe or to have faith meant to establish. The time to believe was when Jesus spoke the unmerited grace-inspired living words of God for him personally. That is why it says in Hebrews 11:6 that without faith it is impossible to please God. Real faith is an obedient response to the amazing life-changing grace-filled blessing of the God-inbreathed immediate present tense living word of God. Real faith is not an intellectual agreement with religious tradition, dogma or creed. Real faith is not something that “merits” a miracle or earns a work of grace. It is not a “believing” stick used to prod God out of a presumed persistent vegetative state. When Jesus freely spoke the word of unmerited grace, as a man under authority with a divine mandate to release the power of God’s grace, that was the time that by faith everything changed. The centurion’s servant was of course healed the moment Jesus spoke the word of truth. For the centurion, his “after the fact of grace” faith was the victory.

God has spoken many times and made many promises but so often the promises are left unfulfilled. The word or promises of God are like a shadow, mold or cup that God is longing to fill by speaking upstanding or resurrection life into those words to rock them within people’s hearts with the breath of supernatural or divine life but people first must meet the conditions. In Psalm 103 King David said “Bless, O my soul, Yehovah, And all my inward parts—His Holy Name. Bless, O my soul, Yehovah, And forget not all His benefits, Who is forgiving all thine iniquities, Who is healing all thy diseases, Who is redeeming from destruction thy life, Who is crowning thee—kindness and mercies, Who is satisfying with good thy desire, Renew itself as an eagle does thy youth”. David had received an incredible life-changing anointing and he was a man under humble and obedient submission to God’s authority just like the centurion, and of course Jesus, the Son of David. For David, these living words of Yehovah God were true in his experience. The same can be true of all who are inspired by the sovereign unmerited grace of God to respond by faith to live in submission to the Pentecostal power of that same anointing. However, there must be no pride, self-admiration or thought of advantage that puffs up egocentric hearts. God offers unlimited revival power. He is willing to open the floodgates of heaven and pour himself out upon hungry hearts but so often the grace of God is hindered because people are already filled with the unbelieving words of natural breath, religious tradition or doctrine no matter how noble or sincere. So often, people put their natural trust in the religion of tradition in the place of grace-inspired faith in the living God. Religion teaches people to believe; people can believe until the cows come home, but the cows never will. When the amazing and unmerited grace of God sends the cows home, faith simply responds to the unmerited grace of God by opening the door to welcome them. Grace is not God’s response to faith but faith is the heart’s response to grace. Grace activates faith, faith does not merit grace. That is why Paul says in Romans 10:17 “… faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the [living, inbreathed, active] Word of God”. Within ancient Hebrew culture, to hear meant to “see the name”, to establish or obey, the disobedient were too proud to listen. True faith has got nothing to do with the affirmation of the tradition of religion. The goodness and unmerited grace of God activates faith, a limitless faith that responds to grace. As such, true faith is the effect of grace, not its cause. True faith is the establishment of the incredible life-changing, heart-changing and name-changing inflow or inspiration of divine resurrection life spoken by Almighty God by the election of grace on a personal basis to those he has chosen, anointed, and recognised by Him as the person of His Son. True faith is an inspired response to the dynamite of the almighty power of the living word of God that surges through the hearts and personalities of God’s Sons. True faith is the restoration of the absolute sovereign authority and power of the word of God lost by Adam and Eve at the Fall.

Faith without grace is presumption. Grace without faith is the arrogant rebellious unbelief of disobedience. God is not a faith puppet, hanging by the strings of religion, dancing in time to the tune of the religion that sweats to pull His heartstrings. Religion pipes up but God will not dance, religion murmurs a mournful song, but God will not weep. God will not allow his unmerited sovereign grace to be shackled by the sweaty work of so-called faith, the religious tradition and natural reasonings of the pride-poisoned fallen human heart. God longs to bring resurrection life into the words he has spoken but he cannot bless people who are like loose cannons with religious pride-filled hearts that are not in obedient submission to authority. Such people immediately take the “faith” credit; they attribute to themselves something remarkable that obliges God to act on their behalf. So often people want to be seen and want the miracle to confirm the superiority of the messenger rather than confirming the message of God’s absolute sovereign, unmerited, unearned, and unlimited grace. For those with grace-humbled hearts who are absolutely convinced that they are nobodies and nothing without the divine life or personality of God surging through their bodies and persona, God sovereignly lifts them into the paradise of wonderment and unleashes the resurrection power of Jesus within and through them. What God has joined together, let not the natural religious tradition of man separate. Resurrection power is where the living word of God is sovereignly reunited with the breath, Holy Spirit, or personality of divine life within the heart of the believer.

In says in 2 Corinthians 3:17 “And the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” and in Mark 16:19-20 “The Lord, then, indeed, after speaking to them, was received up to the heaven, and sat on the right hand of God; and they, having gone forth, did preach everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word, through the signs following. Amen”. God always confirms the living word of God spoken with the supernatural breath or personality or Holy Spirit of God with signs following. Like a ship on the high seas, the Sons of God are divinely inspired to hoist the sails of their grace-humbled hearts to catch the breath of the truth of divine life that exists within the living and God inbreathed words that God speaks. God’s unmerited grace brings them to a place of extraordinary faith, where in the heavenly realms they are firmly seated, together with Jesus, on King David’s throne of undeniable victory and all things are done in the power of the Spirit. The signs follow because, under their inspired obedient submission to the victorious crown of their anointing, their responsive faith and practical knowledge of God’s sovereign grace demolishes strongholds, dislodges the lying reality of demon power, heals the sick, raises the dead and crushes the head of their lying demonic enemies under their feet. Being nothing in themselves, in the power of the anointing they are emptied of the pride of self-will. They know that when they are sovereignly inspired by the amazing grace of God to be in the right place with God, God has the freedom do anything through them. In the complete freedom of the grace of unmerited favour, God Himself speaks the absolute truth of His living word by the almighty power of the supernatural breath or Holy Spirit of His divine life on their behalf. Through this they are brought to a place of great reinforcement and continual success. This is the way of faith.

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