#2 in FAITH & HOPE: Living in the Balance of Wisdom and Revelation
“For we walk by faith, not by sight.”
There are laws that govern the spiritual Kingdom of God. We see one example in Romans 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. The law of sin and death is easy to understand - when you sin, it produces death in your life. But the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus seems to supersede the law of sin and death.
The law of the spirit of life does not absolve you from obeying God, but it has a greater effect than the physical law of sin and death. What is this law, and how do we operate in it or experience it?
The short answer is, by grace through faith - just like how we got saved.
Think of the law of sin and death as the law of gravity. Gravity is constant, and it affects every aspect of our earthly existence. And think of the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus as the law of lift. The law of lift can supersede the law of gravity if you have the proper factors in place, such as thrust and speed.
It doesn't matter how much a craft weighs. If it has the right kind of wings, the right speed, and the proper thrust capacity, that craft will be lifted into the air despite the force of gravity working to pull the plane back to the ground.
Sin will always try to pull you back into the darkness and produce death in your life, but the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus can lift you out of the darkness and cause you to rise above the effects of sin and death. Of course, we know this is true of our regenerated spirits, but you can also experience the benefit of the law of the spirit of life in your mind, soul, body, and life circumstances.
I am in the beginning phase of a series titled FAITH & HOPE: Living in the Balance of Wisdom and Revelation. I plan to talk a lot about spiritual laws, and the role faith has in experiencing the benefits of these laws.
Here are a few laws we'll discuss:
Law of the Lord
Law of God's Word
Law of Sowing and Reaping
Law of the Seed
Law of the Spirit of Life
Law of Sin and Death
Law of Liberty
Law of Sin
Law of Righteousness
Law of Faith
Law of Love
These are not moral, civil, or dietary laws to be judged and governed, they are the constant laws of the spiritual dimension. Like the physical laws of nature/physics, they're consistent. They're not personal, meaning they're not evaluated for each person per case.
If you fall off a ladder and get hurt, gravity did not decide to teach you a lesson that day, you experienced the effect of a consistent law that's always in place and should be observed and respected. So likewise, if you stay in sin, you will experience some level of death, but it's not God judging you or sending difficulty into your life as a penalty.
Jesus was already tried, judged, and punished for all laws that applied to obedience and righteousness. Christ became the manifestation of the curse of those laws in our place. That aspect of our experience of the New Covenant is a done deal.
Now we are joined to a new realm we previously didn't have access to. We are now joined to and are in the midst of the Kingdom of God. But we must apply something akin to the law of lift to experience the laws of that kingdom and rise above the effects of the laws of the physical realm.
I believe faith is that law of lift we can live in. In fact, Galatians 2:20 tells us that we can now live by the faith OF the son of God. Faith, however, is not an ability you have to exert, it's a response to who Christ is and who we are in him. Faith is not what we do to get God to respond to us, faith is our response to what God has already done in Christ.
Faith is typically thought of as belief despite the lack of evidence, but faith itself is the evidence (Hebrews 11:1). Faith is not a simple choice to believe in God, faith is a response to God revealing himself to you. It takes faith or a willingness of heart to seek and experience God. Faith is the spiritual law God has placed in you that enables you to be lifted into a higher dimensional experience of Heaven, even though your feet are firmly planted on planet earth.
God Rewards Those Who Seek Him
These two passages reveal the same concept from my perspective.
Hebrews 11:1 But 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.
Proverbs 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
If you have a Newtonian view of faith, you will read these as cause and effect. You must act for God to respond with an equal and opposite reaction. But if you have a quantum view of faith, you will discern the constant spiritual law within these passages.
The law is this, God has made himself known, but you must get to know him and search him out to see what is concealed in him.
This example will make my point clear.
Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity in 1665. Daniel Bernoulli discovered the law of lift in the 1730s. The Wright brothers took flight using their knowledge of gravity and the law of lift in 1903. Albert Einstein predicted that gravity existed in waves in 1916, but the proof of that prediction wasn't discovered until 1976. We are still learning about gravity today.
Why didn't Newton know everything about gravity when he discovered it? Because there was more to it than he knew. There was more to be discovered.
As these scientists diligently searched out the dynamics of gravity and the law of lift and flight, they were each rewarded with new discoveries.
The Wright brothers were rewarded with flight when they applied these principles just the right way. The same is true when we search out what God has given us in Christ in the spiritual dimension of his kingdom.
While we are in a relationship with God and he's active in our lives, he is not hiding things from us. On the contrary, he has made everything knowable in Christ, and we are rewarded with the effects of our discoveries of the riches in him as we diligently seek him. We're spiritual explorers, searching out the wondrous realm that God has joined us to.
He's not playing hide and seek. He's already given us everything that pertains to life and Godliness. All his promises are yes, and amen. We are complete in him. God is a provider, healer, and our endless source of inerrant knowledge, but we are to seek him, and as we know him better, we KNOW him, which is in wisdom and revelation, knowledge and experience.
If you need healing, search out the healer and you will discover healing. If you need provision, get to know the provider and provision will be revealed. The rewards God has for you are not merit based, they are facets of his character and are received as your relationship with him becomes closer and closer.
I pray you KNOW him. I pray you experience him. And I pray you walk in all the wonderful purposes he is inviting you to.
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Clint and Sara Byars
Forward Ministries
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