Heart-Faith and Not Mind-Faith - Part 1

One of the things that we should take seriously is to ask ourselves whether we are missing something that God has for us in our earthly life. And it's something I'm concerned about quite a bit myself. You know, if I discover the judgment seat of Christ, there was something God wanted me to have, which was written in his word, and which I took lightly, I'm gonna have a lot of regret.

So, in my Christian life, I've constantly sought for, to discover more of what I may be missing. And I want to tell you something that there is a lot of difference between understanding what I'm saying in your mind and receiving revelation from God in your heart. If we don't understand the difference between what we receive in our mind and what we understand in our heart, we'll see that our Christian life doesn't become what it should be.

And there lies the answer why, as you look back over our life, we find that many times we've been stirred by what we have heard in a meeting. I mean, you can look back over the last 10 years and discover many, many times when you were stirred in a meeting and you thought that things are gonna be different because you understood it. But it wasn't any different.

And it's pretty much the same 10 years later. It's something we have missed. Let me turn you to Romans chapter 1 and verse 17.

It says here that, Paul says in verse 16 that he's not ashamed of the gospel because it is the mighty power of God for salvation. Now you know that salvation, we have often said in the church, is different from forgiveness. The name Jesus is not forgiver, but Savior.

And there's a world of difference between being forgiven of our sins and saved from our sins. To have our sins forgiven, you don't need the power of God. Why do you need the power of God to have your sins forgiven? You ask God and God forgives you, that's it.

But you need the power of God for salvation. I hope you understand that. You don't need any power at all to have your sins forgiven.

You got angry, you lusted, you got bitter, you repented and said, Lord forgive me. He forgave you. What part do you need for that? But to make sure that you overcome that anger and overcome that lust and overcome that love of money and overcome that bitterness next time, for that you need the power of God.

That is salvation. This is forgiveness. So Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it's not an Old Testament message where my sins are forgiven.

It is the power of God. For Paul, the gospel was not a message. It's not a tract to give it to somebody.

For him, the gospel was the power of God and this power for salvation is available to everyone who believes. So we see there that it's not available for everyone, but it's available for everyone who believes. So I at it like this, that if I have not experienced the power of God to salvation in some area, that means some part of the gospel I have not experienced in my life, there must be only one reason according to this verse.

What will that reason be? That you didn't believe. You thought you believed, but you didn't believe. Because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

And there, there is a lot of difference between believing in the head and believing in the heart. And I think lots and lots of Christians, perhaps most of us, when we think of faith, we think of what we believe in our mind. I've understood these truths and I believe it.

But it doesn't seem to bring the power of God. And it goes on to say that in this gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. You know, like the other verse in 2nd Corinthians 318, from glory to glory to glory to glory.

Here is an expression from faith to faith. That means you, it's like a staircase. One step and two steps and three steps and faith to faith to faith to faith, all the way until we become completely like Christ.

But every step is by faith. So it's possible that many of us have taken that first step of faith. My grace is saved through faith.

My sins are forgiven. Forgiveness is my faith. And I got that.

But it says here, the righteous man shall live by faith, not just have his sins forgiven by faith, not have that initial step by faith, but his whole life is to be a life of faith, right from beginning till end. So that is what I've been thinking of myself and I want to share with you. Is it possible that there's something that God has promised in his Word that you have missed out on because you stopped at some level of faith, which you were satisfied with.

You didn't go further. Let me turn you again to the verse in Matthew 13, where you see an example of people in Jesus' time who missed out on something that God had for them. And these things are written for our instruction.

Matthew 13 and verse 58. He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief. And if you read the previous verses, you find that there's a reason for that unbelief.

It says here, verse 54, Jesus came to his hometown. And the people were astonished when they heard. And he said, isn't this the carpenter's son? And it says in verse 57, they took offense at him.

I mean, they said, who does he think he is? And that's how the Message Bible translates that verse for 56. Who does he think he is? And when you have that type of attitude, you don't have faith. And Jesus said, well, I can understand that.

A prophet does not have any honor in his own hometown or among his own family members. That's been true throughout the ages. A prophet has no honor in his hometown or in his own household.

And he did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief. Now you see in contrast how he could do a great miracle for Roman centurion. And say about that Roman centurion in Matthew 8, I've never seen such faith in Israel.

But that's because the man had a tremendous respect for Jesus. And he said, I'm not even worthy that you should come to my house. There was a connection between that and his having faith.

And here are people who didn't have a respect for Jesus. They missed out on something.