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The Indispensable Principle

I want to begin by reminding my heart and your heart of the
indispensable principle; total reliance on God’s Holy Spirit.
I’d like to share this verse and then we’ll look at the new
material. Psalm 81:10, “Open your mouth wide and I will fill
it.” Is that an invitation? Is that a command? Is that a
challenge? Is God saying, “You can’t open your mouth wider
than I can fill it?” Is it a promise? I think that verse teaches
us, “If you are ready to eat, I’m ready to feed you.” We never
have to overcome God’s reluctance. We always have to lay
hold of His infinite willingness.

Let me introduce what I’d like to look at now. It’s such
a large theme, that’s it’s almost impossible to do it in one lesson.
The foundation that I want to discuss is faith; what it means to
trust the Lord. How can we trust the Lord? I have some verses
to illustrate why this is very important. Hebrews 11:6, “And
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 seek Him.” Romans 14:23, “But he who doubts is
condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and
whatever is not from faith is sin.” 2 Corinthians 5:7, “For we
walk by faith, not by sight…” Galatians 3:11, “Now that no
one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for, ‘The
righteous man shall live by faith.’” All of that is to say faith is
very important. If you don’t have it, you can’t please God.
Faith is reckoned as righteousness.
If you tried to study faith in the Bible you would see
how large that is. We could talk about faith as a gift from God.
We could talk about God being the author and finisher of faith.
We could discuss how it’s reckoned as righteousness. We could
talk about it being “the substance of things hoped for and
evidence of things not seen.” We could talk about “mustard
seed” faith. We could relate faith to works. We could talk
about the difference between faith and presumption. We could
contrast it with the law. You get the idea.
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