Faith, Hope and Love
The readings for today are to be found in 1 Corinthians 13:13. These three remain, Faith Hope and Love. Now two weeks ago, I spoke on Faith, and how faith was in reality a belief in Jesus Christ. In other words, Faith is simply believing in Jesus Christ. Can you say Amen?
I also went to explain that we can measure Faith, by the amount of word we have inside of us. So if we have a great deal of healing word, we will be in a better position to receive our healing than if we had a lot of the prosperity message. In other words, our understanding and ability to absorb new word is based on our previous teachings on that subject.
Now satan comes to steal your word. He does not want the word inside you, because the word inside you can start to grow. Once the word takes root and grows, then it becomes dangerous to satan. The last thing satan wants is for the word to come out of your mouth at any time. The word is a double edged sword, but it is no good inside the sheath. The sword is only dangerous once it leaves the sheath. Inside the sheath it is not dangerous to anyone, or anything. You cannot skin a deer with your knife inside its cover, now can you. You can’t shoot a deer with your rifle inside your truck. If you go hunting, you don’t leave the rifle inside the truck, now do you? The rifle has to come out and then its actually has to be fired. Now in the same way, you won’t shoot a deer with a shotgun, and you won’t shoot a turkey with a .22 caliber rifle, you need the correct rifle for the correct application. In other words, if you were to go fishing for a big old spoonbill fish you need a heavy fishing pole. Am I right? Can you say Amen?
Now in the same way, if there is a finger that has just been chopped of and your hand is bleeding, there is no point in saying...
:”Well, bless God, money cometh...” Yup, money cometh, and you are going to need it to pay for the medical bills to fix your finger, but if you had the right scripture for that old finger, you wouldn’t need the money to pay for the bills. So if your finger is chopped off, and you are bleeding all over your wife’s carpet, its better to claim, that I am the healed of the Lord, and By His Stripes I was healed. This way, you won’t need the money to pay the medical bills, nor will you need the pain killers. Can you say Amen?
Back to my hunting rifle, you can shoot a deer with a shotgun, but there may not be any meat left to eat afterwards...amen?
We also learnt, or rather I did, not sure if anyone remembers this but the word inside you needs to be spoken out. Then you need to act upon that word. In James we read that faith without actions is useless. Lets go back to our hunting scenario. Okay, you have the right caliber hunting rifle, and you have the rifle outside of the truck, now you need to actually fire it, in order to kill the deer. Pointing the rifle without firing it is not going to get you any meat. Ladies, if we had to look at this from your view point, having the credit card outside of the purse, does not get you the new outfit. You actually have to give it to the sales person before you can take the new outfit home with you. You actually have to say the word, the right word, and then you need to do something about it. In other words, saying the word, gets you no where, without actually doing something with the word. Faith without action is no good. Okay so what do I mean. Well, you have just chopped off your finger, you bleeding everywhere...so what do you do. Well, the first thing is to stop bleeding on your wife’s carpet. A mad wife is dangerous, especially if you cannot defend yourself. Amen? Now the next thing is to speak to that finger, in a commanding voice, that you are the healed of the LORD. You also have to remind your body to come under subjection of the word of God. Now your body is probably going to fight this for a while, in other words, you may carry on bleeding for a while. Sometimes when you shoot a deer, it carries on running for a while, depending on where you shoot him.
When you catch a fish, sometimes, it runs for a while, before you can bring him in to the boat. Amen?
Men when you get married, your wife agrees to obey you, and we all know that doesn’t actually work after the first year...smile. Amen...hahahaha.
Okay seriously now your finger will carry on bleeding for a while, and then perhaps not depending on your word level. If your word level is really high, the bleeding will stop right away. Either way, once you have bandaged it all up, and the bleeding is under control, then you have to deal with the pain. Thats where your faith really starts to step in. Do you have the faith to command the pain to begone, or are you going to take the easy way out, garb the pain killers, sleeping tablets, and sleep on it? This is where you have to act upon your faith...depending on the faith level you have. Amen?
Now that about sums up the faith word. Lets look at the Hope word. Hope comes from having a hope in the future, or some unforseen event. Hope in the Greek is delphis and means something more than what we know it to be. Hope refers to a favorable expectation of a future event. In other words, you expect something to happen, something good for you. Not painful, but rather good. This expectation leads to what we define as hope.
Okay, lest take the hunting scenario. You expect that once you have shot the deer, you will have some good eating for the pot soon. This is based on paste experience of previous hunting expeditions. In the past, you have shot a deer, and the meat tasted mighty good. In other words, the past led you to a future expectation. This is what we call learnt behavior. Joshua has elarnt that if I say no in a loud voice, and he continues doing what I told him to stop, his hand will suddenly sting. Thats learnt behavior. Now we as Christians have learnt certain things that lead to expectations We expect certain things based on previous events, this leads to hope. To give you another example, lets say that you are used to 3 fast songs, 3 slow songs, and then we have brother Ray speaking in tongues, we start to expect that every Sunday. We get upset when that doesn’t happen in the right order. Now, if you are like Ashley and know from past experience when I pray for you, and you are feeling yucky, you get better right away. then you expect this to happen every time. This leads you to form an expectation, a hope that if you are sick and Tim prays for you, you get better. This hope is a learnt exercise.
Now our faith in Jesus Christ leads us to expect certain things every time. This is Hope. However, you cannot expect certain things if you have no word base. You need to have experience with Christ before you can begin to expect certain things. For example, I know that where I am living right now is NOT where Jesus wants me to be. You see, I know what Jesus has in mind for me and my family. I know how much HE loves me, and second best will never be good enough for HIM> I know this based on fellowship with Jesus. Let me tell you about a vision I had. Joshua was coughing badly, and had been for weeks. Every night he coughs. The doctors say, there is nothing they can do, just keep him on his medicine, and it will clear up. Now we had been praying for him, every night, and I Had been standing in faith, very night. Friday evening, I finally had enough. I went to Jesus in the spirit in prayer. I asked HIM to help me out here. I saw HIM stretch out HIS hand and straggle a little demon by the throat until his head popped off. Suddenly, Joshua stopped coughing, right there and then. No delay. It was immediate. Praise God. You see, I knew that Jesus loved me and my family so much, that HE would not tolerate this cough forever. I had faith, I walked in the faith for weeks, then I developed Hope. I stood on this faith, and with my expectation (HOPE), I received my blessing. Demons NIL< Jesus 1!
Kick some demon butt again...Praise God. Now, if I had faith, but no hope, I would not have expected anything, and thus nothing would have happened. Can you say amen? Well, brother Tim, give me a scripture for this. Okay, go to Acts 3:1-5. In verse 5 we see that the lame man had hope. He expected to receive something. That word expected is Hope. Can you say amen? The word in Greek is prosdokaō? It comes from the word to Hope. In other words, he hoped to expect something, and he did. You see here the lame man had no faith. He did not know to expect a healing, he expected something else, yet he had hope of expecting something. So often we pray the prayer of faith, but we do not expect to receive anything, so guess what we get what we expect. If you expect nothing, thats exactly what you get. Amen. Faith without hope gets you what you expect, not much. Amen.
Now hope is in reality an expectation of a better position than what you are in right now...in other words, you need to know Jesus, and what HE wants for you, to be in a position to receive. Lets say, you don’t believe in healing, well then you won’t be healed. Simple, you don’t have the hope of being healed, so you won’t be. Hope comes from fellow shipping with Jesus. You start to grow in your expectations of what HE wants for you, and how much you can expect to get. You start to grow in your understanding of what HE wants to give you, so you expect more. This is why Hope is so important.
Do you know without hope, you have despair, and this leads to depression, and ultimately suicide. Satan does not want you to have hope. He will attack you understanding of the word, to get your word level down so far, that you have no hope. This despair, leads to depression, and ultimately, you just want to give up. The best way to defeat any army is top take away their hope. Christians without hope have never fully understood Romans 15:13. God is a God of Hope. Satan is a god of despair. Direct opposites. Satan thrives on fear, despair, and hopeless situations. God brings hope, and Love.
Okay lets move right along then and have a look at LOVE. What is Love. The word used in this context, 1 Corinthians 13:13 is agape Love. This is the love the defies understanding in the world. I don’t really have the time to examine this word in more detail today, but this will be the topic for next week. I will go into more detail next week. Right now, I want to say that Love is in Fact Jesus Christ. HE IS LOVE. If you have Christ within, then Love will show without. Love will shine forth in your life. You see, it all boils down to Jesus Christ. You need to develop an all consuming love for Him. When you first fall into the worldly love for another person, hopefully of the opposite sex, amen, then you want to spend all the time with that person. You never want to leave their company. You are on the telephone for hours on end. I know when I got born again, I started on a quest to get to know Jesus as well as I could. It was a driving obsession with me. I was and still am driven beyond belief to get to know Him as well as I could. I wanted all of Him. I still do. I study for hours and hours, spend hours in His Company. I cannot get enough of His company. It drives me like a new teenager who has fallen in love for the first time. When I first got saved, I would call up pastors from all denominations and make appointments to go and see them. I would literally suck them dry. I wanted to know everything possible. I searched out the word, commentaries. I eventually went to various schools to get more. I wanted to know HIM like I did my very first girlfriend. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I first fell in love, if my girlfriend wanted a new car, I bought her one. In fact, I even bought her a new business, when she was fired at her old company, as well as a new car and a house. There was nothing too big. If she wanted anything, I would go and get it. Thats the deep obsession I had for Christ. Only difference is that the roles were reversed. I know that what ever I want HE will get me. But, you see, this comes from learning about how much HE loves me. I needed to get to know HIM and HIS nature. I needed to get to know HIS personality.
When I was taking bibles and tracts into a refugee camp, every one was telling me that if you get caught, you were going to jail. The world was saying, well Christ would not want you to risk your life,. There must be another way. Why would HE tell you to smuggle tracts, knowing t hat if you get caught you would go to jail. Amen? But< I Knew beyond any doubt, that I was told to do just that. I did get caught...and all the while satan is saying, you see, now you are going to jail. I told you so. Well, guess what. I said, no I am not. I am the redeemed of the Lord. If HE sent me , then HE will take care of me. Guess what? I did not go to jail. In fact, I was escorted out of there, and through the border rapidly too. Praise God. Don’t mess with His man. You will not like the outcome. Amen. He loves me, and he Loves you. If satan messes with you, remind him that Jesus is LORD of ALL< including him. Now when the little demon started messing with Joshua, I know what happened to him. He got strangled. Don’t mess with the loved of the Lord, cos HE is not going to like it one bit. Amen. Jesus loves you...thats your righteousness...now thats another topic all together...praise God. I need to preach on that too one day...hahaha.
Love is Jesus Christ. Love and understanding of Love leads to a greater understanding of Hope. You can’t have love without hope and faith. But, love leads to Hope, and Faith. Jesus is Love. Thats why you need more word inside of you. This word level is your Love level amen?
