what is faith

Living Stream Ministry Podcast ::

What is faith? Is it just to believe? Why do some have it and some do not? Does the Bible give us any direction on how to obtain more faith? Well, the questions concerning faith are virtually endless. Of course the Bible does have much to say about faith. Yet, in many ways it remains mysterious. One of the most mysterious references to faith is found in Philippians 2 where Paul talks about “the sacrifice and service of your faith.”

We want to get into this extraordinary expression today concerning the faith of the believers on this Life-Study from the book of Philippians. In the book of Philippians, the apostle Paul uses several remarkable or extraordinary expressions, and they’re not found any place else in the New Testament…not even in his other writings…in his epistles.

We spent quite a bit of time on at least two of them in previous programs…and those are “the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ” and the second one would be “holding forth the word of life.” This whole portion of the Bible…especially here in Philippians…really gives you more and more basic reasons for enjoying Christ in so many ways.

Philippians 2:17…”But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice, and I rejoice together with you all.” If you would pay some attention, you will see…in this one short book…three extraordinary expressions were used by Paul. In chapter 1, he used…”the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” Then in chapter 2 he used, “holding forth of the word of life.” You could never find such expressions in the Bible…even in other books by the apostle.

“The sacrifice of your faith.” Hard for us to get into this expression. The secret to experience Christ in such a book is just relying on these 3 things. The bountiful supply of the Spirit, the word of life, and the sacrifice of your faith. Now…what is faith that can constitute a sacrifice to God. As long as you are a believer, you have faith. But the question is this: could you consider your faith a sacrifice good for some other one to offer to God?

Paul was a New Testament priest. In Romans 15:16, Paul says I offered you gentile believers as a priest…all of you I offered to God. Paul was a gospel priest. He offered his converts all to God as a kind of sacrifice. Not only the persons…Romans 15 refers to the persons as sacrifice, but Philippians 2:17 refers to the believers faith as sacrifice. This is much deeper.

Three extraordinary expressions used by the apostle in this book…(1) the bountiful supply, (2) holding forth the word of life, and now (3) the sacrifice of your faith. This is not an easy passage to understand, but surely it’s worth our while to get into it to try to see the kind of faith that Paul was considering to be an offering…a sacrifice.

We have to spend some time to get the right understanding of the matter of faith. The faith here is a little different at least from the faith even in the Bible in other places. What is faith? Ephesians 1:13 gives us a very clear definition. You have heard the word of truth. Then you believed in Christ. The result was that you were sealed with the Spirit. The Word came and the Spirit was there. When you heard the Word and believed, you got the Spirit. The Word, faith and the Spirit…these three are one. The first function of the Word is to infuse you.

The Word infuses you with faith. Faith is the issue of the word and the function of the Spirit. Why? Because when the Word comes to you…when you touch it…the Spirit is there. Rather, I would say…the Word comes and you touch it…this Word becomes the Spirit. I must tell you…from my youth, I loved to have faith. So I tried my best. By that time I loved two things…faith and regeneration. I spent dollars to buy books…I couldn’t get any book to tell me what is faith. As it should be. Some books tell you what is faith…but not actually as faith should be.

Until in the recent years…mostly by my experiences…I realized what is faith. Faith is just the Word infusing the very element of the Word into you. And this very element is just the function of the Spirit. So faith is the issue of the Word and the function of the Spirit. So when you have faith, spontaneously you have the Word and the Spirit. And actually…dear saints…eventually when you have faith you have the three things. When you have faith, you have the Word. When you have faith, you have the Spirit.

You can pick up any portion of the Word and dwell on it for a while. Then something burning…something boiling…something rising up with power. What is that? This is the mingling of the Word and the Spirit with your faith. And this always issues in the full enjoyment of Christ.

Living Stream Ministry

eat the hidden manna

Living Stream Ministry Podcast ::

When Moses was leading the children of Israel through the wilderness, what they would have to eat became a major concern. To sustain and nourish them, God provided a mysterious food called manna. These small round wafers appeared on the ground every morning. And this was their sole diet for 40 years.

1600 years later God brings manna back to His people in the book of Revelation. But this rather than being out in the open as it was in Exodus is hidden in a golden pot within the ark in the holy of holies. What is this hidden manna?

Please don’t miss this classic presentation from the book of Exodus on our Life-study of the Bible with Witness Lee.

Rev 2:17…”He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give of the hidden manna, and to him I will give a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written, which no one knows except him who receives it.” So the promise in Rev 2:17 to the overcoming believers is that they would enjoy Christ as the hidden manna. In the Old Testament, what the children of Israel were charged to do was to take a portion of that manna…put it in a golden pot…and put that golden pot within the ark in the holy of holies…which is the very center of the entire tabernacle. So that is the hidden manna.

What is the significance of this hidden manna? We’ve seen on previous programs in John 6 that Christ Himself is the very bread who came down out of heaven for us to feed on. In other words, Christ is our spiritual food that we need to enjoy day by day. But when we talk about the hidden manna, we’re talking about enjoying Christ as our spiritual food to bring us into the closest, most intimate, hidden, secret contact with Him. This is our enjoyment of Christ as the hidden manna.

So we need to take the way…day by day…to go into the holy of holies through prayer to enter into our spirit where Christ as the Spirit lives and to enjoy Him as our spiritual food and assimilate Him into our whole being. So that we can enjoy Him in the closest, most intimate, deepest, hidden and even secret way as the hidden manna for His purpose.

This is a great miracle! What a miracle that centuries and centuries ago the children of Israel enjoyed manna sent by God from heaven…in a physical sense. But today, we can enjoy Christ as our manna…as our spiritual food…even as our hidden manna. What a great miracle this is…and what a mystery this is. When that bread came down from heaven, the children of Israel said “What is this? What is it?” And actually that’s the meaning of the Hebrew word “manna.” Manna means “what is it?” Well that’s what Christ is. Who is Christ? Christ is “What is this?”

Christ is a mystery. He’s inexplicable to the people who don’t know Him…the nations. And when we enjoy Him, we become “What is this?” People look at us and they say…”I can’t figure that person out. He’s got the same pressures as me…the same kind of problems. Even I know he’s passing through some suffering right now. But there’s a joy with him; there’s a peace about him. There’s something about him that makes him different. What is this?”

Why do we become like that? We become a testimony…a mysterious testimony of Christ to the people around us by enjoying Christ as manna. By enjoying Christ as…”What is this?” And we become a testimony of the marvelous, wonderful, beautiful, mysterious Christ in this universe.

In John 6:35, the Lord told us “I am the bread of life. I am that bread that came down out of heaven.” We need to realize Christ is the reality of that manna, and in verse 57 He said “He who eats me shall live because of me.” That means we need to eat Christ day by day. And He was not talking about something in the physical realm. Because in 6:63 He said “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

So the way to eat Christ as our spiritual food is to enjoy Him in His words. His words that He speaks to us…they are spirit and they are life. It comes back to this. We christians need to be in the word every day. We need to eat Christ as our spiritual food by eating His word every day. We need to begin the day by having a spiritual breakfast. Some men of God in the past…they had a saying, “No Bible, no breakfast.” This means we need to have our spiritual breakfast before we have our physical breakfast. I would encourage all of you…consecrate yourself to give that first time in the morning to the Lord where you read the word with prayer, in prayer and in a spirit of prayer so that you can enjoy Him as your spiritual food. And as…during the day…you keep your heart turned to the Lord, you will become a mysterious wonderful testimony of Christ to all the people around you, and you will become a factor in their salvation.

Living Stream Ministry

living by the principle of faith

Living Stream Ministry Podcast ::

In the Old Testament you had to keep the law then you can have a good fellowship with God. But today, you need to have the Faith, then you can get into the fellowship with God. Today, God’s dealing with His people is based upon the principle of faith.

If you look into God’s dealing with Abraham, you could see God’s dealing with him was based upon God’s promise. God didn’t give Abraham any commandments. God only gave Abraham the promise. So God’s dealing with Abraham was according to God’s promise. So the promise given by God to Abraham became the principle upon which God dealt with Abraham.

Then later on Moses came and God gave the law through Moses to the children of Israel. Then that law given at Mount Sinai became the principle according to which God dealt with the children of Israel. In the New Testament, you could see that today God deals with the believers in Christ not according to the law…but according to the Faith.

So Abraham’s entire relationship with God was based on God’s promise.

If the children of Israel kept the law, then they were able to have a good relationship with God. If they broke the law, however, then they were in trouble in terms of their relationship with God. We see in the Old Testament many times the children of Israel had a big problem with God because they did not keep the law, and God had to come in and deal with them and judge them based upon the principle of the law.

Well this principle didn’t work well in the Old Testament so in the New Testament God brought in a new principle and that is the principle of Faith. So today, our relationship with God is not based upon our keeping of the law of the Old Testament, but it’s based upon our faith in Christ. Actually, this Faith is not just a kind of a mental agreement with the gospel or the teachings of the Bible. This Faith is a living Faith in a living person that joins us to that Person and that causes that Person to enter into us and to become one with us.

So now we have a relationship with God in the principle of Faith which makes us one with Christ and makes Christ one with us. God wants us to live our Christian life based upon this principle. Not on the principle of trying to keep the law by the strength and the effort of our natural life. God wants us to be joined to Christ by Faith and to live by the principle of Faith.

The standard of the kingdom of the heavens is to have no anger toward our brother and no lust. Who can keep such a standard? Actually, only one person in the entire universe is able to keep this standard and that is Christ Himself. And this is precisely the key thing here. What this shows us is that if we’re going to live in the kingdom and meet the requirements of the kingdom, we cannot rely on our own natural life. Because our life is not capable of living to such a high standard. This means that we must join ourselves to Christ every day and every moment of every day by Faith.

Christ today…He’s the life-giving Spirit, and He dwells in our spirit. If we are one with Him, then spontaneously we will live a life that keeps not only the requirement of the Old Testament law, but that also satisfies the requirement of the higher law of the kingdom of the heavens. This is a life that is just the living of Christ in us.

After we have been saved according to the principle of faith, we need to live a higher life. …You are qualified to be judged at the judgement seat of Christ. And that judgement at the judgement seat of Christ is described here three times by three (3) kinds of judgement.. All 3 levels of judgement refer to that one judgement, the judgment at the judgement seat of Christ. We Christians…we the saved ones according to the principle of faith will be judged…not at the white throne recorded in Revelation chapter 20…but will be judged at the judgement seat of Christ, and this will be 1000 years earlier than the white throne.

Yes to be saved it is absolutely by Faith through Grace…that is right. But after you have been saved, be careful. You need to live a life that is higher than what the old law requires. It not only touches the outward doing…but it touches the inward moving. Such a high standard. What should we do then? The Lord’s word warns us, if you would not be serious, you’ll be put into the fire. Don’t think this is to be lost. We have to be fearful and trembling.

I must keep myself to the resurrected Christ. I must be one with Him. I must trust in Him. I must rely upon Him. I must stay in Him. I must remain with Him because the standard of morality of the kingdom of the heavens is too high for me. And this is too serious. We have to flee your temper…flee your lust. This not a small thing to lose your temper. This serious word may force us to keep ourselves to Christ.

Living Stream Ministry

There’s something in us that makes us passive and weak to the things of God

Living Stream Ministry Podcast ::

Today in Romans chapter 8, we’re going to talk about being free from sin and death.

Romans 8 is a chapter of experience, and the death here is NOT the physical death to which we are subject in the old creation. So when we talk about being freed from death, we’re not talking about some kind of miraculous cure for our mortality. Or some premature deliverance from the power of death in a physical way.

Death in Romans 8 is a terrifying and powerful spiritual source and force that has its source in Satan, the origin of death. In Hebrews 2, Paul talks about the Devil…the one who has the might of death. The death in Romans 7 and 8 is that issue of sin in the flesh which weighs upon us and weakens us and darkens us and eventually deadens us…especially as we endeavor to pursue the Lord.

Sin with its law incites us in the flesh to do things contrary to God. But death works to weaken us when we are interested or burdened in carrying out something in the Lord and for the Lord.

There’s something in us that makes us passive and weak to the things of God. We need to call it by its right name; it’s death, and God and His organic salvation has a way of deliverance from it…a way to overcome it…in Christ as our resurrection life. So we need to pay attention to this. It has a lot to do with our daily experience of Christ in Spirit.

Living Stream Ministry

The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life

Living Stream Ministry Podcast ::

Human history has witnessed many great moral and ethical teachers…Plato, Socrates, Confucius…just to name a few. The Bible also contains wonderful teachings of morality and ethical behavior, but no one save the Lord Jesus Christ Himself ever claimed…as He did in John 6…that the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.

We all need to ask ourselves this fundamental question: Is God’s word to us just a book of ethical and moral teachings, or is it a book that brings us to spirit and Life?

Living Stream Ministry