According To Faith

God blesses us many times, according to our faith and what we do in the faith realm.  There are many that try to accomplish the Lord’s work by the flesh and not by the Holy Spirit.  The works of the flesh will only result in the fruits of the flesh, which are sinful and result in nothing but worldly attempts of doing spiritual works.  It is sort of like a truck caught in the mud spinning its wheels and going nowhere, throwing mud everywhere.  If you try to do the works of the Lord through worldly, or fleshly, means you will accomplish very little and end up wearing yourself out.  If all you are is religious then you can only work from the flesh, so how can you expect to accomplish spiritual things; you will be only fooling yourselves.

Paul said this in Romans 1:16-17, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.”’  The only way that you can live by faith is to be a believer and to put your trust in the Lord, believing what His Word says.  

Have you ever heard that it takes more faith to be an atheist than a believer?  You may say that non-believers accomplish many things, and I agree with you because that is true.  The reason non-believers accomplish what they do is because they have faith in themselves and in the project they are involved in at the time.  That’s what motivational speakers do, they try to instill faith and confidence in their audience and the same thing happens with many coaches.  But the faith I am talking about is not a faith in oneself but the faith you have in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, what we believers call the Trinity, one God in three persons.  That is the only way you will be successful in spiritual things.

The works of the flesh have no place in God’s kingdom. This is what Paul said about the works of the flesh, found in Philippians 3:3-11, “For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh, though I also might have confidence in the flesh. If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

Paul put no confidence in the flesh; he counted all of his accomplishments outside of Christ total garbage.  Paul walked according to the Spirit and was willing to lay his life down for his Savior Jesus Christ.  By doing so the fruits of the Spirit were evident in his life and he accomplished many things with the Lord’s help, which he totally relied on.  

If you are a person that is full of religiosity, trying to accomplish the Lord’s work through the works of the flesh, stop it!!  You will only wear yourself out and accomplish very little.  Repent of your fleshly works and ask the Lord to be Lord of your life and to forgive you and to help you to walk in the Spirit with the gifts of the Spirit working in your life.  When that happens you will be able to further God’s kingdom in many ways, because you will be able to do it by faith and not the flesh, praise the Lord!  Something to think about!  May the Lord bless you and yours and may you have a super day!