Tag Archives: temptation

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A Measure of Faith

sprout
What is a measure of faith? Paul tells us that every person has been given a measure of faith.

Rom 12:3
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 has dealt to every man the measure of faith.
MKJV

What is faith? Faith is an abstract English word that didn’t exist until the 1200’s. The Hebrew word for faith is emunah (אמונה) and aman (אמן). It is a verb that means ‘trust in a firm foundation of truth as a child trusts in a nursing father’. In Hebrew words have gender. Grammatically verbs take on the gender of the noun it is referring to. Aman (אמן) is the masculine form and emunah (אמונה) is the famine form. In English this word is translated into ‘trust, faith, faithful, believe, steady, establish, nurse and truth’.

Alef (א) is an ox and strength. It can also represent God (אל) pictographically meaning ‘strong leader’. This is why Israel made a golden calf at Mt. Sinai; it was logical though contrary to the Word of God which He spoke which they heard in Ex 20. Its English equivalent is Aa.

Mem (מ,ם) is a womb, water, chaos, and produce. One picture is of an open womb meaning ‘give birth’ and the other is a closed womb meaning ‘pregnant’. Its English equivalent is Mm.

Nun (נ,ן) is a seed, life, and continuance. Its English equivalent is Nn.

Vav (ו) is a tent stake, nail and secure. Its English equivalent is Vv, Ww, o, and oo.

Hay (ה) is a man looking at a great sight. It can mean behold, provide, worship, astonishment, and breath. Its English equivalent is Hh.

Aman (אמן) pictographically means ‘a strong womb produces life’. Emunah (אמונה) pictographically means ‘worshiping God produces a secure life’ or eternal life. The action is to ‘trust’, the concrete is ‘foundation’ and ‘nurse’, and the abstract is ‘believe’ and ‘truth’.

Faith requires actions. The apostle James, the brother of Jesus, writes a whole book about this. Faith without works is not faith; it is dead.

We are the bride of Messiah. How are we saved? By grace through faith; it is a gift from God. Paul tells us that God has given to every person a measure of faith; that is the gift. How does this work?

God embedded His word into His creation. When a man and a woman come together, how do they produce life? In modern English terms, they have sex. But what does the woman have that the man doesn’t have and what does the man have that the woman doesn’t have? The woman has an egg and a man has a seed. In order to produce life, the seed of the man must join itself with the egg of the woman. We, the Bride of Messiah, are given a measure of emunah (אמונח), faith, an egg. That should then beg the question, what is the seed?

Luke 8:11
11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
KJV

The seed is the Word of God; it is from the beginning and it is eternal. The Hebrew word often used for sex in the Bible is ‘yada’ (ידע) and it means ‘to know by experience’. However, yada means much more than sex; it is a term of intimacy that requires relationship. In other words, without a relationship with God, His seed, His Word cannot join itself with your egg, your faith. When His Word joins itself with your faith it produces life but not just life, life eternal. And what does Jesus say eternal life is?

John 17:3
3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
KJV

Eternal life is an intimate relationship with our Creator, our Husband. How does that relationship begin? In horticulture, what is required to pollinate most plants? A bee. And how does a bee tell his fellow bees where the food is at? It does the bee waggle dance. Now you’ll probably find this pretty interesting; the Hebrew word for bee is ‘deborah’ (דבורה). It is a feminine noun form of dabar (דבר) which concretely means ‘word’ or ‘thing’ with the action being ‘to speak’ or ‘to put in order’. The Hebrew word for this bee waggle dance is ‘basar’ (בשר) meaning ‘report’. The concrete word for basar is ‘flesh’ like on your arm and the abstract is ‘gospel’ or ‘good news’.

Do we understand what this is telling us? A bee goes out and looks for a flower. When it finds one it goes back the hive and tells the other bees where it is. The other bees go out to collect pollen and in the process pollinate plants so they can produce life. In other words it requires the good news of the Word of God for the Word of God to come into contact with a person’s faith to produce life. As Isaiah says:

Isa 52:7
7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that brings good tidings, that publishes peace; that brings good tidings of good, that publishes salvation; that says unto Zion, Your God reigns!
MKJV

The Hebrew word for salvation here is ‘y’shua’ (ישועה) which is Jesus’s Hebrew name. Let me read it again with this in mind:

7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that brings good tidings, that publishes peace; that brings good tidings of good, that publishes Jesus; that says unto Zion, Your God reigns!

Now that we understand how life is produced, what is the next step? I must grow! After the Word of God joins itself with our faith, how does our faith grow? What does Paul tell us?

Rom 10:17
17 So then faith comes by hearing, and obeying the word of God.
MKJV

The Hebrew word for hear is ‘shama’ (שמע) which is a verb meaning ‘hear and do’. The above should read . . . This is the concept that James is elaborating on in his letter because the Greek concept of ‘hear’ doesn’t include action. If a person does not obey the Word of God, they haven’t heard it. If a person doesn’t hear the Word of God, they can’t possibly obey it. This is what it means by, “Hearing they did not do and seeing they did not percieve,” and we are guilty of this very same thing today.

Turning our attention back to agriculture: if we have a tomato garden, what must we do to help it grow successfully?

  • weed it
  • water it
  • guide it
  • prune it

Even so we must weed temptation out of our life. If allowed to grow it will stunt our faith choking it out and at the very extreme kill it. Living water, God’s Spirit must be working in and flowing out of our life. Our faith must be guided by the Word of God or we will be all over the place and unable to stand when burdened. At times we need to remove the things in our life that at one time appeared born of faith but are not. They are typically things we’ve inherited; no plant starts out full grown.

After a plant grows, what is the next step? It must produce fruit. What is this fruit? Again, I will refer to James:

James 2:21-22
21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
22 Do you see how faith is accompanied by works, and by works was faith made perfect?
MKJV

If there is an area in our life that does not produce good works, it is not born of faith and needs to be removed. Is the process complete after a plant produces fruit? No; what good is it if it rots on the vine? It must be harvested and it must be consumed. This cannot be done by us; we can only produce the fruit. We cannot force-feed the Word of God to anybody. They must take hold of it themselves and eat it.

Like I said before: our life is our ministry. As Jesus says:

Matt 5:16
16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
KJV

We are responsible to produce fruit. It is the responsibility of those around us to come up to us and pluck that fruit, inquire of us about the light that is inside of us and consume it. If they don’t, they are either not ready to receive the Word of God or they are not interested. Inquiry starts when you have their attention. When you have their attention, they have bitten into your fruit. After they have taken a bite, share the seed, the Word of God with them as the Spirit leads you.

This is still not the end or fulfillment of faith. Everything in life is cyclical. A plant goes through seasons of death, dormancy, and growth so it can produce fruit. There are times in our life when we may not feel as though we are producing fruit. Often it makes us wonder if we are out of relationship with God. But this is a season of death, dormancy and growth.

A couple more things I’d like to talk about if you’re still interested. Jesus said:

Matt 13:23
23 But he that received seed into the good ground is he that hears the word, and understands it; which also bears fruit, and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
MKJV

What does this mean? Who is the father of our faith? Abraham. How old was Abraham when Isaac was born? One hundred. How old was Isaac when Jacob and Esau were born? Sixty. How old was Joseph when he stood before Pharaoh? Thirty.

What is the faith of Abraham? Abraham left Babylon and his family to follow God. He was a first-generation believer. To him were given the covenants and promises and he gave birth to a nation.

What is the faith of Isaac? Isaac was a second generation believer, the son of promise. He remained faithful to the faith of his father Abraham. In the womb of Rebecca good and evil were separated. Both were born into the same family and grew up together. The evil seed continues to cause grief for the seed of promise today. It isn’t until the harvest that the tares are removed. Isaac continued the building of a nation.

What is the faith of Joseph? He was sold into captivity, was stripped of his identity and was tempted with greatest temptation a man can have yet he remained faithful and remembered who he was. His faith saved a nation and by extension the world.

What this is also saying is that Isaac, at sixty, had the faith of Abraham at a hundred. Joseph, at thirty, had the faith of Isaac at sixty. The reason Jesus presents in this order in Matthew is because this is the order that His Bride will follow through time. The apostles and first-generation believers after Jesus’s resurrection gave birth to a nation. Throughout history the Bride has continued building that nation and struggles with the evil seed in the physical Body of Messiah. In the last days we, the Bride must have the faith of Joseph to stand before Pharaoh, a picture of the antimessiah. We will be tempted with the greatest temptation yet must remain faithful, remember who we are and save a nation.

Jesus told Nicodemus, “If you don’t understand natural things when I talk to you about them, how will you ever understand spiritual things?” We’ve only really talked about earthy things thus far. I’d like to summarize all this from a more spiritual perspective.

We all have a measure of faith. God’s Word must join itself to our faith through the Good News and be planted in our heart. Our heart is where our faith grows. We must nourish our faith with the Word of God by reading it, hearing it, studying it, thinking about it all the time, and obeying it. The Spirit of God must be active in our life to cause our faith to grow. We must also weed out the seeds of temptation that plant themselves in our heart. Temptation is all around us sowed by our adversary; the less we can expose ourselves to this temptation the better. We will go through seasons when our faith is dying, dormant, growing and producing fruit. Throughout our life we’ll need to prune the dead things of our faith removing things we’ve inherited and learned that are not faith. Our faith should never stop growing. The life that we have is eternal because both the Word of God and our faith come from God who is eternal. Faith is all about relationship with our Beloved.

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Physics and Definition of Sin, Repentance and Forgiveness – Part 11: We Sin Less than we Think

 

Sin is a broad subject with a lot to talk about.  I don’t want to talk about sin without talking about repentance.  I don’t want to talk about repentance without talking about forgiveness.  The few things I want to cover are:

If you do not understand something I’m saying, please ask.  The concept may be hard to grasp at first but it will change how you see yourself and your life when you do.

We Sin Less than we Think

This is kind of a hard point to address.  Sin has become such an abstract word that it means different things to different people.  If sin is a physical condition, like we have discussed, what must be done for something to be constituted as sin?  An action must take place.  James the brother of Jesus sums it up like this:

James 1:15
15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.

This is why Jesus spends so much time talking about our thoughts.  Our thoughts are where our spirit battles with our flesh.  It goes back to the principle of the seed.  Temptation is a seed and our mind the field where it is planted.  When that seed is planted, like a weed, it doesn’t take much care to grow.  Once it is grown, it produces fruit.  Fruit is action.  When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, corruption entered their body.  That corruption gives birth to desire which gives birth to sin which will eventually bring death.

This is why Jesus makes statements like, ‘If a man looks upon a woman and lusts after her he commits adultery with her in his heart.’ (Matt 5:28).  Number one, he is referring back to David and Bathsheba but more importantly he’s addressing the weight of our thoughts.  We need to weed our thoughts and think on things that are good (Phil 4:8).  Our thoughts are where we chop a tree down to the root (Matt 3:10).  Its best to do this before it has a chance to bear its bad fruit which is the sin.

We can’t avoid temptation, especially in our day and age; its everywhere.  Temptation comes from anything we see and/ or hear.  Temptation is not sin.  Jesus was tempted yet did not sin (Heb 4:15).  Dwelling on temptation is not sin.  But if we entertain it until it becomes a desire or lust, it is like Eve holding the fruit in her hand drooling over it.  She hadn’t sinned yet but was imminently about to.  She believed the lie that she couldn’t touch the fruit.  When she touched it and did not die, she reasoned that she could eat it and not die.  You know what its like to be starving and walking into a kitchen with the sweet smell of food.  All your senses, your entire focus turns to food.  You’re stomach begins to scream in a gravely voice, “Feed me!”  Any other fleshly appetite is no different.  If we believe that these appetites are sinful when they are not, we will eventually reason that there is likewise no penalty when we feed them.

You can think about donuts all you want, but is that going to make you fat?  No.  You can think about sex all you want, but is that going to make anyone pregnant?  No.  Does that mean we should necessarily think about these things?  No.  Most of us get upset and repent for our thoughts.  We are not commanded to repent for our thoughts because they are not sin.  This is a problem because we usually end up tearing ourselves down for what we think about.  I used to do this a lot but no so much any more because of a question Paul Nordvik asked me; thanks Paul.  In your life, you need to discern what is temptation and what is sin.  You may find that you don’t sin as often as you think you do.  When you do sin, you should be able to be specific in confessing that sin.  If you can’t, then either you haven’t sinned, or if you have, that sin hasn’t been revealed to you yet (Lev 4:27-28).

It is said that our sin separates us from God, but does it (Is 59:2)?  When Adam and Eve sinned, who did the separating?  Adam and Eve.  Who hid?  Adam and Eve.  When we sin, we tend to think that it is God who separates from us which is backwards.  We think he moves far off but we are the ones who distance ourselves because we are ashamed.  Our mentality is the same as the younger brother in the story of the Prodigal Son.  “I’m not worthy because . . . .”  We think God can’t be in the presence of sin yet God is omnipresent (Ps 139).  Think about that for a moment and let it sink in.  We think all these things because this is what we’ve been taught (by doctrine) most our lives and it hinders our relationship with our Creator.

Stop looking at yourself as a sinner; it puts the focus on you and your sin.  Thinking you are a sinner while knowing you’ve repented and that works don’t justify or condemn you is an oxymoron.  A sinner is someone who continues to walks in sin and does not repent.  You have repented and are striving towards home.  That means you are on the path of righteousness.  Someone who walks the path of righteousness pressing towards home is righteous.  Our Father looks at us as righteous.  Just like in the story of the Prodigal Son, we are part of God’s family, clothed with his robe of righteousness.  This should not fill us with pride but humble us.  How we see ourselves makes a huge difference in our relationship with God.  When we see ourselves the way God see us, it allows his Spirit which dwells inside of us to be greater just as John says (1 John 4:4).  It will change your whole perspective on life, strengthen your relationship with God, reflect in your actions and make you closer to our Messiah which is our goal.

References

*all scripture is from the NKJV unless otherwise noted.

  • A Concordance to the Septuagint – Edwin Hatch & Henry A. Redpath
  • Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds:  2012 Pure Seed Book! – rareseeds.com
  • God’s Key to Health and Happiness – Elmer A. Josephson
  • King James Version of the Bible
  • New King James Version of the Bible
  • Strong’s Concordance to the Bible
  • The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible – Jeff A. Benner – August 29, 2005
  • Wildbranch Ministries – Brad Scott – wildbranch.org