PASTOR DARRYL BAKER

Hebrews 10:23
We must continue to hold firmly to our declaration of faith. The one who made the promise is faithful.

Many still do not understand the power of their words. They do not realize for example when they say things like my arthritis, my cancer, my diabetes, etc; it is the same as a package being delivered to your front door and you sign for the package, accepting it as yours. Once you do the devil has the right to leave it with you. For faith to work you must believe in your heart what God has said, and you must then speak in line with His Word, holding fast to your confession of faith.

It is vital that when faith is released through our words to stay in faith. That is what this verse in Hebrews is telling us. We must hold fast to our declaration of faith. You must say what God has said. Every promise God has given to us through Christ Jesus He has said is already yours. You must, like God, call those things that be not as if they are already so. Faith believes it receives when you pray, and therefore you declare you already have what you have asked of God.

You never stop declaring what God’s Word says. Your confession does not change. When God gave Abram a promise to be a father of a multitude He changed his name to Abraham, which means father of a multitude. Abraham never went back to calling himself Abram after that. He kept saying what God had said, and he became exactly what God and he had said. Faith will not work unless you hold fast your confession, saying the same thing God says about you.

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Titus 3:4-5
4 But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared,
5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,

The fourth work of redemption that Christ has completed within the heart of every believer is the work of regeneration. Regeneration is the new birth, the rebirth of the human spirit. When someone puts their faith in Christ and calls upon Him for salvation with repentance, there is a rebirthing of a new spirit man within them. The washing away of the old man and the renewing of the Holy Spirit coming to live within us takes place.

In this area of a believer’s life, the devil tries to convince us that we are who we used to be, we cannot change. He tries to get us to fall for this lie so that we continue to live by the old nature’s habits and ways so that he can keep us in bondage to that old nature. But once the spirit on the inside becomes new, we can now as scripture teaches us, walk in newness of life. Anything about our old outward behavior and way of living can change.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Whoever is a believer in Christ is a new creation. The old way of living has disappeared. A new way of living has come into existence.

You can change anything about your life for you are not who you used to be. A new way of living has come for the believer. We should not continue in our old ways but begin to walk in the footsteps of our Savior. Romans 12:1-2 tells us how. We are to present our bodies unto Him as a living sacrifice, and we are transformed by renewing our minds to the new man on the inside. We are no longer who we used to be! Because of regeneration, we can live a whole new life.

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1 John 4:10-11
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

The third area of our redemption that Jesus completed for us is in the work of propitiation. This is one of the areas that satan lies to believers the most, convincing them that God is mad at them and must be punishing them. Many Christians do not understand this redeeming work of propitiation. It means to satisfy the wrath of God by taking the punishment we deserved because of sin. When Jesus bore our sin, He also bore the punishment for our sin.

Because of the sin of Adam in the garden, punishment for that sin had to come. But Jesus was the One who took our punishment. He satisfied the wrath of God toward sin as Isaiah 53:5 tells us, that He was wounded for our rebellious acts, and He was punished so that we could have peace with God. Jesus has become our Advocate with the Father, who is the propitiation for our sin, taking our punishment. When we sin, we may reap bad consequences for sowing to the flesh, but God is not punishing us.

As it states in the verses above, Jesus proved God’s love for us by bearing our punishment, and if God so loved us, we should love one another in the same way. Simply put, we should not punish people for the wrong they do as a believer, and this includes ourselves. We lose our true worth in God when we feel we deserved to be punished for the wrong we have done. We should receive correction, but punishment comes from anger, correction comes from love. God’s wrath (anger) was satisfied by the work of propitiation. God is not angry with us. Because of His love He will correct us by revealing the wrong we have done, but don’t punish yourself or others. Run to the One who loves you.

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Romans 5:10-11
10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
11 And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

The second area of redemption that refers to what God has done within us when we were born again is the work of reconciliation. Notice in the above verse it refers to the fact that we were enemies of God, but God reconciled us through the death of His Son Jesus. An enemy is not your friend. The word reconcile means to make a friend out of an enemy, to be restored to favor with God. Once born again, we now have the best friend we could ever have, God.

The devil tries to convince believers that God is not our friend, and you even hear believers say that they feel God is far from them, but He is as close as their next breath. When we say we feel like God is far from us, we are going by feelings and not by faith. This is what satan wants us to do. Once you start believing this lie, you will struggle to believe in God’s love and in His desire to help you. You will try to find acceptance and worth through people instead of the best friend you already have, Jesus Christ.

If you are someone who is easily offended or gets their feelings hurt because of what others may say or do, you are trying to find your worth in the acceptance of others. You don’t need the acceptance of people, because of reconciliation you have been accepted by God. People in your life may come and go, but God said He will never leave you nor forsake you. So declare to yourself in those times of getting your feelings hurt that I have been accepted by God, and that is where my true worth comes from, not from man.

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Romans 5:18
Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they lost one of the most important things ever given to man, his true identity. Our identity came from God, our Creator. Man looking to God’s creation instead of their Creator lost their God given identity. Your identity is where you find you true value and worth in life. Jesus, by giving us a new spirit once we are born again, gave us the ability to regain our identity, our true worth once again from our Creator. There are four redemptive truths fulfilled in what Jesus did that gives us this identity in our God. The first of these four truths is justification

Justification means the act of God declaring men free from guilt and approved by Him, placing us in right standing with God. The devil works at trying to convince you that you are not in right standing with God, and you must therefore work at becoming approved by Him. If he succeeds, he will hinder your faith in receiving what you have a right to. Notice in the above verse it is through one Man’s righteous act that justification has come to us. You don’t work to become right with God, you already are because of what Jesus has done for us.

The devil lies to believers getting them to try and find their value and worth in what they do, instead of what Jesus has already done. No amount of “good works” can make us right with God. Because of justification, we are made the righteousness of God through what Christ has already done for us. Remind yourself, my worth or value in life is not in the works that I do, but in my Creator who has already made me right with Him, and therefore I am approved by God.

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Romans 4:19
And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.

Abraham is known as the father of faith, and we can learn much about our faith walk from his example of walking with God. Our faith is based on what God has said about any given situation in our lives, and our faith is in the One who gave us that Word, and what He has done for us. One of the areas that is misunderstood about faith is in what we are dealing with or facing in the natural circumstances of life. We do not deny they exist, but we are not to consider these circumstances.

Notice Abraham here in Romans 4:17, knowing that God had given him a promise that he and Sarah would have a child, did not consider, or give attention to what was true in the natural. He was almost 100 years old, and Sarah was barren, unable to have children. Abraham did not deny these things to be true, but he did not give his attention to those things. He chose instead to focus on what God had said. Once you know what God’s Word has said about any situation in your life, to walk by faith you must not talk about and think about what is true in the natural. Instead, you must line your confession up with God’s Word.

Some think faith is denying what is seen in the natural, but that is not faith. What is seen is true, but God’s Word is Truth (John 17:17), and if you walk by faith and not by sight, His Truth will change what is true. Too often you have believers that are denying what is true thinking that is faith, or others who continue to focus on what is seen by confessing and talking the problem. Both are wrong. Faith does not deny that something exists, but faith denies its right to stay that way by focusing on the Truth, declaring, and acting on God’s Word. Be like Abraham and don’t consider what you see, consider what God said, and what is seen will change. What are you considering?

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James 2:26
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

One of the most important aspects of walking by faith is found in this verse from the book of James. Many do not realize that if you say you have faith, but you do not act upon the Word of God, then your faith without corresponding action is useless, dead, and devoid of power. Faith must have action to work. One must have their confession and corresponding actions in line with what God’s Word says for faith to work.

Mark 9:23 tells us that all things are possible to them who believe. It did not say all things will come into manifestation because you believe, but they are possible. Romans 10:10 tells us with the heart one believes. You must believe in your heart that what God has said is yours. You cannot doubt in your heart, but once you believe in your heart you must then exercise your faith through action. Faith is acting as if the Word is true because it is.

The great apostle Smith Wigglesworth used to say, “Faith is an act.” For example, if you had a man dying of starvation and you brought him some food and asked him if he believed the food would save him, he would say yes. But if he sat there and did not act upon that belief in faith by eating the food he would die. Many say they are believing God, but that does not mean they are in faith, for if they were, their words and actions would line up with what God’s Word has said, for faith without corresponding action is dead.

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2 Corinthians 10:4-5
4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

We have an enemy whom Christ has defeated and therefore is simply trying to seduce or deceive us to believe and act upon what he wants us to believe. Christians need to learn that every thought, idea, or suggestion, contrary to God’s way of thinking that comes to your mind based on things happening around you in the natural is from the enemy. If he can get you to take these thoughts, he can seduce you or deceive you into obeying your feelings or your flesh and defeat you. If you want to win in life, you must learn how to win the battle of the mind.

The devil through outward circumstances will suggest things for you to do that will get your mind on thoughts that will lead you astray. Many never even realize it is happening, and next thing you know they are depressed, fearful, angry, or frustrated. It all began with a thought, an idea, or a suggestion from a very subtle deceiver who knows how to take advantage of our thought life. That is why the above scripture teaches us there is a battle for our mind, but we have powerful weapons that will work if we use them. Our primary weapons are the Words of God.

To win this battle you must do three things. Identify these wrong thoughts, then quench them by turning your attention to God’s Truth, and then take it captive by speaking God’s Word. In doing this consistently you will change your thoughts to God’s thoughts. When you do your actions will follow in line with who God made you to be, for thoughts precede actions. When you win the battle of the mind, you win in life, walking out what God has for you.

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1 Corinthians 11:1
Become imitators of me, even as I also am an imitator of Christ.

Christianity is not a religion to be learned, but a new life to be lived. Our very purpose of being “born again” was to remove the old fallen man within so we could be made a new creation inside, and then begin to transform our life outwardly to this new nature. We learn about this new nature on the inside by looking at Jesus in the Word of God, for this is a picture of who we have become within.

As we see Jesus through the Word of God and how He lived His life, we then by following His example allow this new life to take over. In doing so we are following in the apostle Paul’s example, as he himself was following after Jesus. This is what it means to be a “Christian.” The word is defined as a follower of Christ. This is what we are told in the following verse.

2 Corinthians 5:17 – Whoever is a believer in Christ is a new creation. The old way of living has disappeared. A new way of living has come into existence.

Why do believers still live in fear, anxiety, worry, stressed, and frustrated about life? Did Jesus live this way? None of these things belong in the life of a believer. The reason many are not free from these things is because they have not renewed their minds to imitate how Jesus lived and dealt with life’s challenges. They continue to do things according to their old nature instead. Our purpose in life as a believer should be to follow in His example, and in doing so we can live the same kind of life Jesus lived. We simply have to choose to imitate Jesus.

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Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

When is faith actually faith? When you are seeing things as already done. Faith is not past tense, nor is faith future tense, faith is now, present tense. When someone says they are believing for God “to do” something they are not actually in faith. This is where many miss it when it comes to faith. Romans 3:27 tells us that faith is a law, like the law of gravity. If you step off a building the law of gravity goes to work, and you will fall. That law is there, always present tense, even though you cannot see it with your natural eyes.

Faith works in the same way. It is a spiritual law. When you do the things that scripture teaches to walk by faith, that law goes into effect, but it was there all along. A key to activate that law is to BELIEVE IN YOUR HEART that what God has said is already so, present tense, not one day going to happen. Want further proof? When God appeared to Moses He revealed His name. What is God’s name? I AM. He is not the I was, nor the I will be God, He is the great I AM, always present tense God.

In Romans 4:17 scripture tells us that God, the great I AM, calls those things that be not as though they were, present tense. God is a God of faith. We are to imitate Him. Until you can believe in your heart what God has said is already so (present tense) and prove your faith by calling those things that be not as though they were, you are not walking by faith, and this is one of the keys that governs how the law of faith works. Faith is always present tense.

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Christian Faith Fellowship – Ponder Texas