2 Corinthians 1:19-22 (NLT)
For Jesus Christ, the Son of God, does not waver between “Yes” and “No.” He is the one whom Silas, Timothy, and I preached to you, and as God’s ultimate “Yes,” he always does what he says. For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!” And through Christ, our “Amen” (which means “Yes”) ascends to God for his glory. It is God who enables us, along with you, to stand firm for Christ. He has commissioned us, and he has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first installment that guarantees everything he has promised us.
A hot topic in the wide world of sports is the subject of performance enhancing drugs. Many athletes have used supplements to increase skills and abilities needed to be more successful in their field. However, many agencies have now banned such substances. While many of these drugs have beneficial results in the short term, in the long term they have extremely adverse ramifications many years after they are no longer being used. In the sports arena the greatest concern seems to be that they can give participants an unfair advantage over other athletes who choose not to use them. In an industry which will pay millions of dollars for an excellent performance, why wouldn’t these men and women seek assistance to be the very best even at the risk of their life? As Christians, we have an unfair advantage in this world. His Name is Jesus Christ. His Spirit lives inside each and every born again believer ready to assist us in obtaining all of God’s Promises. Jesus gives us God’s Seal of Approval and the Spirit gives us access to all of God’s Secrets. Jesus Christ is God’s “Yes” Man who makes supernatural living and blessing possible for all who call on His Name. The great thing about the Lord is that He never wavers. His “Yes” never becomes a “No” which means no matter what you do, how far you may fall, or how many mistakes you have made the Lord is still ready to bless you upon your return. All of God’s Promises became a “Yes” when you invited Jesus to be the Lord of your life without exception – you win! So why are so many Christians living defeated lives? Why is the church powerless in the community? Where has our power gone? But more importantly, how do we get it back?
Philippians 4:19 (NLT)
And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.
Your needs are completely satisfied by Jesus Christ. He has given us everything we need to not only make through life but prosper in life. The lack of prosperity being witnessed by believers today is not weakness on God’s Part. How many times have you felt if just the basic essentials in life were met that you could really give more time to the Lord? Well, your needs have been met and the sad truth is too many times we are working for what we want not what we need. A lack of faith creates a fear of lack that calls us to work harder to find prosperity. Everything you need is supplied according to God’s Riches in Heaven and obtained by faith. So maybe the problem is a lack of faith?
Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV)
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith is the unfair advantage of every believer. Faith gives us access to everything we need and everything we want in accordance with God’s Will to give us His Very Best. Faith is the substance of the things we hope for. It is evidence of what we do not see. The measure of faith provided by God is meant to be supplemented as we grow and prosper in the admonition of the Lord. Doing this avails men and women of God to all of His Provision. It will become apparent as promises come to pass. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews 11:6) You must know God and that His Love is real in order to satisfy His Requirement for blessing. It is our faith that makes us right with God and inheritors of His Kingdom. (Romans 3:22-23) We all have sinned and fallen from God’s Glory, but by faith in Jesus Christ rightness with God is reestablished opening the Windows of Heaven over our life. Inability to believe God past the point of salvation robs us from the Riches in Glory He has stored away for us. Your provision is just sitting in Heaven waiting for you to believe in the Lord. Your promises are right there waiting to be released by faith. Everything that you need to be complete lacking nothing is waiting for you to believe that God is ready, willing and able through Jesus Christ to do that which He has promised. The rest, my friend, is up to you!
Romans 12:2-3 (NLT)
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.
Faith has been given to us by God. But just enough to get us going, the rest is up to each believer. God is not going to make you into a new person if you like the old you. Only those who realize that they have not one redeemable quality and are willing to turn their heart, mind and soul over to the Lord will experience the resurrection power possible by believing and trusting God. God will tell you His Will in exchange for that measure of faith. However, people squander their faith every day on unnecessary things. Worry, anxiety and fear consume faith making it impossible to believe in God losing all confidence. Do not be discouraged. The measure of faith that you have been given is enough to change your life when you are ready to invest it in good ground. You must consider the cost as you build a foundation of faith knowing that your blessing will be as big as your barn. If you only lay a foundation of faith by calling on the Lord Jesus to be saved never making it past the concrete slab of salvation, you will never be able to catch His Abundance of Promises and Blessings. You have no place to receive them. Faith that is allowed to grow will build a structure in life that is always ready to take hold of God’s Best. One must consider the cost of such a building because it is your entire life. (Luke14:28-30)
2 Peter 1:4-8 (NLT)
And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
There is no question that the Lord has promises and blessings reserved just for you! The question is “will you receive it?” You bear the responsibility of building faith big enough to accept and receive all that God has promised and Jesus has secured. His Spirit is pressing, pushing and moving the parameters of your life to prepare you for it. What is your response? Fear tells you, “Don’t do it, you are risking it all.” Faith says, “Go for it, what do you have to lose?” It is up to you to acknowledge and respond to God’s Promise for your life. We must supplement our faith to contain His Blessings for our life.
Romans 12:1-2 (NKJV)
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
To supplement faith requires moral excellence which is a form of Christian energy that is the beginning of residency in the Kingdom of God. The beginning of faith is the sacrifice of life as we know it by embracing the Kingdom that is to come. This is not some super spooky spiritual existence without cognizance of the world in which we live but rather placing a higher priority on pleasing God over pleasing people. Our relationship with the Lord requires a lifestyle change as we move from residency in the darkness of this world into the Light of His Love. We are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to live the Will of God including every word, attitude and action. We must renew our mind by seeking to discover what pleases Jesus and striving to do so by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Everything we do must be as though we are working for Jesus Christ and not human beings. Everything includes the things we do not get paid for and that we think others cannot see. Every facet of our life must be yielded to the Lord for His Service. (Ephesians 6:7)
Romans 10:17 (NKJV) So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Faith must be supplemented by the Word of God. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God and allowing His Spirit to reveal the secrets hidden within. It is God’s Love Letter to you! We must know the Will of God to find the Way of God. If we have no idea what God is doing or how He does things, it will be very difficult to have confidence in His Ability especially given the fact that God seldom does things man’s way. He uses simple things to confound the mighty as He leads His Children to His Kingdom forever. To attempt to live by faith without the word is silly. It is like trying to assemble a puzzle not knowing what the picture looks like. Where do you begin and how does it end? What’s the point? Every answer you need to every single problem you will encounter is in the Word of God. It reveals His Promises so you can claim them one by one and know where to look to find them. (Psalm 119:138)
I Corinthians 10:12-13 (NLT)
If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall. The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.
Faith requires self-control. A woman once contacted me as she felt the Lord had been calling her to compose a Christian blog. She had been following Pure Devotion and wondered how I made time for writing each day. I shared with her that I had to make time. I used to get up thirty minutes earlier and over the years it has grown to two hours earlier to spend time with the Lord each day. She said, “Well there is no way that I am going to do that, I am not a morning person. I need my sleep!” In a world where people will wait in line for hours for Black Friday or a movie premiere and spend countless hours watching pointless television shows, it would seem that there might be time for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords but when statistically the average Christians spends less than four minutes a day praying, no wonder the church is struggling. When God’s People are blessed, the House of God will benefit. However, when His People live subpar impoverished lives because they are merely surviving on a measure of faith rather than supplementing their faith with self-control the Body of Christ will suffer. There is no temptation that you cannot withstand in the Power of Jesus Christ. Having all that God has promised will require obedience born of self-control!
James 1:3-11 (NLT)
For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.
God’s Goal is that all of His Precious Children will be fully developed, perfect, complete and needing nothing. This is achieved by faith. To supplement means to complete or add to. It is an addition designed to complete. This task will require endurance because the Promises of God for you are lifelong beginning to end. There is not one detail or season of life that God has ignored or withheld His Blessing from. Even if you wander from the Lord, He saves those blessings for when you are ready to redeem them. Our faith requires patient endurance. God works on me in this area every day as He makes me wait for some of the things that I know He is doing in my life while human nature tells me to run ahead of God and do it myself. I want the full blessing of God that comes when we harvest in due season according His Will and His Way!
Ephesians 5:1-2 (NLT)
Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.
We must be like God to supplement our faith. Otherwise, we live in opposition. To have God’s Will and all of His Promises requires doing it His Way. Do not let stubborn willfulness rob you of the Lord’s Blessing and Favor on your life. Jesus Christ is our example. It will require energy and motivation, as well as self-discipline to change the way we think and act but it is a must to supplement our faith. “Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward complete holiness because we fear God.” (2 Corinthians 7:1) If you will take the time to discover what God is doing in your life in His Word by His Spirit, you will want God’s Will and wait for His Best. His Spirit allows us to know the Will of God and empowers us to do it but without the Word (who is Jesus in the flesh) we have no way to find any direction.
I Corinthians 13:7 (NLT)
Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
Faith is impossible without love. It says “love never loses faith” so they are partners. To attempt to trust the Lord without such love makes faith inevitably impossible as the two are inseparable. In fact, it is that very love that proves we are disciples of Jesus Christ. (John 13:35) Brotherly affection is how we love others. Faith enables us to do so as a service to the Lord so we don’t have to expect anything back from the recipient as God just keeps pouring His Love on us. Imagine what a difference this would make in marriages, families, friendships and basically every other relationship possible for human beings. The problem is too often we expect people to satisfy us like only the Love of God can. Brotherly affection and love are faith partners that supplement and complete the cycle of love between God and His People. Jesus did not suggest we love others but He did command it.
Galatians 5:22-23 (NLT)
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
If you review the faith supplements, you will see derivatives of the Fruit of God’s Spirit. As God develops our faith, we will begin to bear fruit which pleases the Father. As we prosper in the Holy Spirit, our soul prospers creating more and more faith in God. Now you are ready to receive, now you will be blessed, because now you have built a strong bond with Jesus – God’s “Yes” Man. You can have it all by faith according to God’s Will for your life.
Ephesians 4:13-14 (NLT)
This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth.
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