Page 4 - Living Epistles

proclaiming to many that they need to pick out key verses and take a stand
upon them, I want to share from Scripture how this is actually a
misunderstanding of the word of God. God has given us the Holy Spirit to
make His mind and His will known to us. He never intended for us to apply
the Scriptures to circumstances as we see fit, independent of His leading.

Faith must always consist of a word from God and a response of trusting
obedience. At times we may not realize that God has spoken to us until after
the fact, but this vital ingredient of faith is always present. Faith can be said
to have an object and an action, which is a response to the object. The object
is that which God reveals to us or speaks to us regarding a specific situation
or condition.

Let us examine the following Scripture:

Romans 10:17
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

This verse clearly demonstrates that in order for there to be faith there has to
be something that is first heard that requires a response. Faith comes by
hearing. The literal rendering of this verse is "faith comes out of hearing", that
is, a word must come first from which true faith arises. In this particular
passage that which is heard is defined in verses 8 and 9.

Romans 10:8-9
But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your
heart"-- that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess
with your mouth Yahshua as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised
Him from the dead, you shall be saved...

The object of faith that is revealed here is that Yahshua is Lord and God has
raised Him from the dead. The response is to confess these truths with your
mouth and believe them in your heart. Here we see that faith has two parts,
revelation and response. As we look at further examples of faith in Scripture
we will see that there are no exceptions to this pattern.

There are many places in Scripture where both of these parts of faith are not
clearly stated. Sentences are constructed in this very same manner. Every
sentence must have a subject and a verb, however, sometimes the subject is
inferred. Similarly, when faith is spoken of the response of faith is often stated