THE SHACKLING OF GRACE
Making a Mockery
Greetings! Think about this...
Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
How can we make a mockery of faith? Do you know that it is possible to shackle grace by utilizing false concepts of living by faith? It is relatively common to say that our denomination is our faith, or that Christianity is our faith. It is also common to affirm that we have faith that we will be healed, or that we will become prosperous if we send tithe money to the wealthy pastors begging on television. Have you noticed the “name it and claim it” tithe proponents make sure you send the tithe to their personal ministries?
Do we hear about what it means that we, as children of the light, are enjoined to walk by faith rather than by sight. When we walk by sight we can live as the unbeliever lives, by putting our faith solely in the functions of the soul and body.
A person who lives by sight trusts in
the three parts of the soul = Soul, will - choose, mind - think & emotions - feel.
In addition, the person who lives by sight places his confidence in the functions of the body = Body, 5 senses - sight, smell, taste, hearing & touch. Remembering speech and action.
Thus a person who functions out of the body and soul can read the Bible, pray, fast, practice yoga, and even produce facsimiles of the fruit of the Spirit. However if one of the essential components of a person is dead to God, absent or not utilized, it is impossible to live by spiritual faith.
Each of us is born with a human spirit
which is intangible and invisible like the soul. But the spirit is separate from the soul. Since it is invisible, people may not even know that they have a human spirit.
The human spirit was intended, from creation, to be a vessel or container of the Holy Spirit, which is a person of the Godhead. Without an awareness of the spirit, and especially without the indwelling Spirit of God, it is impossible to live by spiritual faith. However, it is granted that an incomplete person can live by psychological faith, which is useless for faith in God. Thus the Bible describes such a person as “in Adam” and without God. At that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world (Ephesians 2:12).
Major Ian Thomas describes a person without Christ as being like a lamp without oil or a car without gas.
Since Christ said he was the Life, a person who tries to live the Christian life out of a 2-part being (soul and body) is living an imitation of Christ’s life. It may look like Christ’s life, but Christ’s life cannot be imitated. Therefore it is a false life.
Living by the Spirit
God intended for us to live by faith in the invisible realm. He intended for us to live by what we cannot see. But how do we do that? Hebrews 11:1 tells us that....faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
God intended for the New Covenant believer to live by the Spirit and by his position in Christ in the heavenlies, even while living in the visible world with a physical body. Man is the only created being that can live by sight and/or by faith. The soul can live exclusively by the functions of itself or the body and the soul can live by the Spirit, which is the invisible realm which includes the reality of our position in Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:18 reads, ....we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
How did it happen that Christians adopted a dichotomous (two-part) view of man? It happened in much the same way that a false view of a Singer sewing machine would be gained by reading a Ford truck manual.
The wrong manuals (secular psychology) are read to determine how God created man. Man wrote his own manuals and believed them rather than the Bible.
In Genesis we read that,
T
he Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground (body), and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (spirit), and man became a living being (soul), (Genesis 2:7). God said man was very good, but he did not say man was perfect or complete. He had not eaten of the tree of life which would have joined him to God, because the tree of life was eternal life, or God’s life. Thus the tree of life would have made man complete.
Not only in Genesis do we read that man is a three-part creature (trichotomist), but also in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Learn more in my next email, "The Wrong Manual."
-Lee LeFebre
