{"id":10533,"date":"2013-11-13T10:18:23","date_gmt":"2013-11-13T15:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=10533"},"modified":"2013-11-13T10:53:14","modified_gmt":"2013-11-13T15:53:14","slug":"faith-or-experience-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=10533","title":{"rendered":"Faith or Experience?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>. . . the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me \u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?version=31&amp;search=Galatians+2%3A20\" target=\"_blank\">Galatians 2:20<\/a><\/h1>\n<p><!-- .entry-meta -->\u00a0 <iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qrOotpSKOX0\" height=\"315\" width=\"620\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<section>We should battle through our moods, feelings, and emotions into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. We must break out of our own little world of experience into abandoned devotion to Him. Think who the New Testament says Jesus Christ is, and then think of the despicable meagerness of the miserable faith we exhibit by saying, \u201cI haven\u2019t had this experience or that experience\u201d! Think what faith in Jesus Christ claims and provides\u2014 He can present us faultless before the throne of God, inexpressibly pure, absolutely righteous, and profoundly justified. Stand in absolute adoring faith \u201cin Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God\u2014 and righteousness and sanctification and redemption . . .\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=1+Corinthians+1:30\">1 Corinthians 1:30<\/a>). How dare we talk of making a sacrifice for the Son of God! We are saved from hell and total destruction, and then we talk about making sacrifices!<\/section>\n<p>We must continually focus and firmly place our faith in Jesus Christ\u2014 not a \u201cprayer meeting\u201d Jesus Christ, or a \u201cbook\u201d Jesus Christ, but the New Testament Jesus Christ, who is God Incarnate, and who ought to strike us dead at His feet. Our faith must be in the One from whom our salvation springs. Jesus Christ wants our absolute, unrestrained devotion to Himself. We can never <em>experience<\/em> Jesus Christ, or selfishly bind Him in the confines of our own hearts. Our faith must be built on strong determined confidence in Him.<\/p>\n<p>It is because of our trusting in experience that we see the steadfast impatience of the Holy Spirit against unbelief. All of our fears are sinful, and we create our own fears by refusing to nourish ourselves in our faith. How can anyone who is identified with Jesus Christ suffer from doubt or fear! Our lives should be an absolute hymn of praise resulting from perfect, irrepressible, triumphant belief.<\/p>\n<p>_________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>November 13, 2013-<\/p>\n<p>Journal Entry- JDV<\/p>\n<p>Lord, this devotional reminded me of one of those \u201chellfire and brimstone\u201d sermons I would hear (and that chased me away from church) years ago.\u00a0 When Chambers writes that all of our fears are sinful, and we need to just pull ourselves up by our faith bootstraps, and have solid and confident faith; well it doesn\u2019t seem to work that way for me Lord. I am a great deal like the father of the girl that told Jesus, \u201cI believe, help me in my unbelief\u201d. I would like to have more confidence, more faith, more discipline, but how much less than 100% is acceptable? Lord, please help me understand how much more confident in my faith need I be to be acceptable?<\/p>\n<p>And God says<i>\u2026\u201dYou are always and completely acceptable to Me because I see Jesus when I look at you. When you surrender and identify with Jesus, you are not required to grow and sustain your own faith. I will provide your growth and sustenance. You are not required to think or behave or even believe in things a certain way.\u00a0 You simply trust in Jesus and give up your rights to your own notions of spirituality. You must even question the notions and ideas of preachers and teachers, as they preach and teach their ideas of faith. Simply trust in Me. \u201c<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>The way to step out in confidence in an uncertain and demanding world, to live a life in confident faith, is to know that I love you beyond all you can imagine, and my love has nothing to do with your work or worthiness. \u00a0My love is because of what Jesus did and what He is for you. Seek first the kingdom of God, which is Jesus, and all you need, or hope will be provided. Delight yourself in Jesus and I will give you the desires of your heart.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>. . . the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me \u2014Galatians 2:20 \u00a0 We should battle through our moods, feelings, and emotions into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. We must break out of our own little world of experience into abandoned devotion to Him. Think who the New Testament [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10533"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10533"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10538,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10533\/revisions\/10538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}