Ephesians Lesson 26 of 39 part 3

We trust that each of you already know our definition of the word faith? It’s simply, "taking God at His Word, more simply it is trusting with the heart wholeheartedly!" For this is the trust or faith that pleases God, just as Enoch and Abraham did. That is never a bad definition. Faith is always taking God at His Word. God said it, and I believe it, and God reckons that as our faith. We just can not simply say, "Well I look at it this way," and someone else says, "I look at it from a different view point." No, Paul says, "There is only One Faith." And Faith is total abandonment to God, Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Romans 12:1-4, it is like we have said in the past, this Book is narrow. This Book is not something that you can just look at from 15 different directions, and say, "Well we are all going to the same place." No way! When Paul tells us in 1Corinthians 15:1-4, and Romans 10:9-10 that for salvation we must believe in our heart that Jesus died for our sins, was buried and rose again. That its through all that He did during the evening of His Last day from 6 PM until His ascension, then that is narrow. Remember the mystery of the Covenant meal, the Sacrament as some have labeled it, which He shared and we are to have the proper remembrance of 1Corinthians 11 verses 23 through 32. For those who partake of this meal in an unworthy manor get sick or die prematurely. Why? Quite possibly because there is no truth or love in them. 

Romans chapter 3, at verse 23.

Romans 3:23-25a

"For all have sinned*, (because of Adam) and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood,..."

*this could read, for all have sin, because sin and untruth is mans very nature since Adam's fall. So try as we will to do and be good we are not matters not our parental past for they to are sin by nature.

All right let’s use our definition here for the word faith, and let’s just feed it in here. "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation"...(our everything) through taking God at His Word concerning His blood. So what he is saying is, "I’m going to take God at His Word about what He has said about His Blood." We have not the time in which to look at all the various verses concerning the blood of Christ. But from our own knowledge of scripture, what is the one major attribute of the blood of Christ? What does it do? "Cleanses us from all sin!" Do you see that? We know that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin, we also know that the blood of Christ is the power that has been able to withstand all the evil forces of Satan that would destroy us. In it is the power of an Endless Life the bases of our New Covenant as promised through the Old Testament Prophets who only saw it as a thing far off, the everlasting.

Again let us just go back to the night of the Passover. Why did those Jews stand there at their kitchen table eating that roasted lamb with no fear and trepidation of the death angel that was striking all over Egypt? Because the blood was on the door! Remember that? And that blood was their mark of safety, and it is the same way with us. Why are we as believers safe? We are washed by the blood! We are said to be under or in the blood, in Christ. We have passed through the death and the spilling of His Blood. So we have to tell people this constantly, that Satan can not touch us because we are under/covered surrounded by the blood. How do we know we are in the blood? The Bible says so, and if the Bible says so, then we just simply take God at His Word. So this is a good example.

Let’s back up a page here in Romans to chapter 1. This is a well known verse, and the word faith itself is not in here, but the synonymous word is. We have always said there are three words in scripture that all mean the same thing. What are they? Faith, Believe, and Trust. They are all the same thing. We must keep in mind while we are here that this is the ground upon which God sees mankind. What Paul through the eternal Spirit of Truth is revealing to us is how God sees us. Look at them here in verse 16.