6.1 Foundations of Faith
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
And He (Jesus) said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me (2 Corinthians 12:9). – Christ lives in your heart through faith (Ephesians 3:17). – In whom (Jesus) you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Ephesians 2:22).
Allow all of these thoughts from Paul to fit together into your understanding. Consider them deeply. Then add this further thought from David. – It is He (God) who has made us, and not we ourselves (Psalms 100:3).
To Be Like Jesus. Through this little booklet you have read an underlying theme of God making us to be just like Jesus as the gospel promises. But what does that mean? Most people have an outward image of a Christ of power doing all sorts of miracles and never making a mistake.
My dad was a furnace operator in a rare metals refinery. I have never worked in such a factory in my life. Rather, I am a builder and a teacher. I am like my dad, but not in my outward work. To be like Jesus has nothing to do with re-creating His outward ministry. To be like Jesus is found entirely inside of sharing the same relationship with the Father that Jesus enjoyed.
Our Weakness. And, in extension of that relationship with Father, to be like Jesus is to be weak in our humanity. Are you a weak human? Then you are just like Jesus. If you were strong in yourself then you would be useless to God. Jesus said, “I can of Myself do nothing” (John 5:30).
Adam was given a choice between two things. On the one hand he could try to act like God outwardly by his own knowledge of what God requires, that is, word under his own control and by his own “strength.” On the other hand, he could eat of life, that is of Jesus, allowing Jesus to enter his heart and to be Himself every Word God speaks inside of Adam.
No Sufficiency in Ourselves. What was the bottom line for Adam? Adam hated being weak; he rejected the way God made him. He despised himself as the likeness and image of God. Adam imagined that by his own performance he could “do” what God wants. We never think any such thing. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves (2 Corinthians 3:5).
So, when Jesus told Paul that His strength is made perfect, comes to full completion, inside of Paul’s human weakness, we realize that’s the way God intended us to be from the start. Our weakness is our glory. If we were strong and capable of “acting like God,” how could God be Himself in us.
Jesus IN Us. There is also a much larger theme running all through these ten most important verses, and that is that you and I live INSIDE of Jesus and Jesus lives INSIDE of us, and in Jesus is the Father.
It is evident from Scripture that God designed mankind to be His dwelling place, that God Himself would live in and reveal Himself through humans. To be a normal human being is to be filled with God Himself in person and to reveal this personal God to others. To be a normal human is to be weak in ourselves, utterly incapable of being and doing what God made us for.
What is the one thing that allows God to be Himself in us?
Faith. Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).
What is faith? Faith is the simple, very human decision to believe that God is telling us the truth. Faith is not blind or nebulous. Faith connects directly with every Word God speaks entering into us as the Lord Jesus in Person.
Jesus was convinced that the Father was with Him, filling Him full, AND directing His every step inside the love of God. We are just like Jesus, we walk in that same confidence.
Jesus Carries Us. A God “far away” is not God at all. God is all here now, all of God in every place and in every moment. A Jesus “far away” does not exist. Christ dwells in our hearts, how? – through our faith that He does.
So when Jesus, inside of Paul, inside Paul’s own heart, whispered to him, “Paul, I’m here, I fill you with all that I am, and my grace to carry you is all you need. For I am what I am only as you accept yourself as God made you, weak and incapable. Paul, I AM responsible for you in every way.”
Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows (Isaiah 53:4). Jesus carries all that we are inside Himself, especially our sin and our shame.
Faith Against. But faith also is a standing against. We walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). Faith sees an invisible God, a God who IS directing our every step in His love, and faith disregards human sight and human judgment. Faith disregards all outward appearance.
“Oh, but you don’t look like ‘God,’ and you certainly don’t act like ‘God.’” Faith stands against all such judgment, knowing that God is telling us the truth, that Jesus IS the only life we are.
Nonetheless, God, knowing our weakness as humans, does give us three mighty pictures to enable us to know that He is true.
Seeing the Atonement. God gave us Jesus walking the path of the atonement from Gethsemane to the resurrection. And God placed us inside that same Jesus through every step.
You see, a God who would take me into Himself as the Lord Jesus Christ, stumbling, bloody and bruised, carrying me through death into life, along a way I could never traverse by myself, this God holds my heart as His own. I believe in Him against all outward appearance.
Whom [Jesus] having not seen [outwardly] you love. Though now you do not see Him [though He IS entirely inside of you], yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls (1 Peter 1:8).
Our Identity. The word Peter used that is translated “souls” as in, the salvation of our souls, is the Greek psuche. Our soul is our identity, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves.
Are we, as weak humans, always falling short of God? Or are we, as weak humans, always filled with a Jesus whose grace is sufficient to direct our every step? Which story do we tell ourselves? Which identity do we hold?
We are designed by God to contain God Himself in Person. Yet God will never violate our persons. Jesus comes into us only through our faith, through our willing acceptance, our decision that God is telling us the truth.
An Unmistakable Picture. Then He asks me to allow Himself in Person to be all that I am, to have no other identity than Father God filling me full, than Christ Jesus, my most precious Friend, living as me in weakness, and the Holy Ghost just always billowing out of me as rivers, to be nothing else, to know nothing else. This I would do, with all my heart.
But God does even more for us in the path of Jesus through the atonement. You see, identity is a big deal. We have filled our identities with everything but God. Thus God knows we need a clear, unmistakable picture set before our eyes to KNOW that He is telling us the truth.
Three Mighty Images. Here are these three MIGHTY things, three powerful images, total and absolute. – The BLOOD – The CROSS – The RESURRECTION of the Lord Jesus Christ –
He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world (1 John 2:2). The Blood erases all consciousness of sins; God simply cannot remember any of it.
For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died (2 Corinthians 5:14). The Cross eliminates the sinner; he no longer exists, end of story.
True Repentance. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22). The Resurrection is who we are; each in his time.
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God… (2 Corinthians 5:17-18). There is no sin; there is no sinner.
The sacrifice of Jesus allows us to turn our backs on every concern over “me,” and what “I do,” and busy ourselves with the one thing, the only thing that is important, knowing this God who fills us full. This is the true gospel “repentance,” the salvation of our souls.
Knowing Jesus Sent. God gave us the bold and absolute picture of the Blood, He gave us the bold and absolute picture of the Cross, and He gave us the bold and absolute picture of the RESURRECTION so that we could leap utterly into Jesus our only life and never worry about our human mistakes and inability ever again. So that we simply never again concern ourselves with ourselves. We are a done deal.
Now, we simply sink into God in Person filling us full, even as we rejoice in, not worry about, our human limitations. Our task is to know God and to know Jesus-Sent — Christ is perfected in our weakness.
As We Know God. But what is it that we are to believe? How do we know God?
This is my argument from the start. You will know God by that handful of “verses” you choose to rule over how you define God, man, and salvation. Everyone does exactly that already, yet the “verses” most choose are bizarre and contrary, some aren’t even in the Bible.
So, if I have carefully selected those verses that seem to me to convey the essence of the gospel to us to be the ruling verses of the Bible, how is that not better than any other option?
As we know God first by these ten most important verses, everything else in the Bible enters its place as Jesus inside of us.