Faith for Daily Living

Faith in God is vital, not only for our eternal salvation, but also for our everyday living.

Are you trying to get to heaven by your own efforts? Are you trying to be good enough to make it in? What about your daily life? Are you trying to do all you can to please God? Do you agree that God is all powerful? Well, if so, why are you trying to help Him out.

I have come to believe that the same faith which assures our eternal destiny should characterize the life of every believer--that just as we have trusted Him for salvation, we should trust Him for every area of out lives.

Many years ago, I placed my faith in Jesus Christ as my personal savior to save me eternally from the judgement of God through His sacrifice on the cross for my sins and feel this is the basic message that everyone needs to know, since it determines our eternal destiny, but ALSO because I have come to believe that this same faith should characterize the life of every believer--that just a we have trusted Him for salvation, we should trust Him for every area of out lives (For poems on God's providential care for us, see Poems of Inspiration)--and even though I have fallen short in this aspect, I am now determined to let faith in God, rather than fear and anxiety, be the rule of my life, as I seek to follow by faith His principles for successful living. The Bible says in the book of James that faith without works is dead. Thus I want my faith to be no longer a dead faith but a living faith on which I can lean every day of my life--(faith for daily living.) Another verse on this is in Philippians 4, where Paul tells us not to worry about anything but pray about everything.

The Bible describes faith as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Heb.11:1).

For a more general definitions and descriptions of faith, including my own religious background, see the links and modules below; and for an example of both faith and doubt and their results, please read my article on Abraham and Ishmael below.

First you may want to Listen to the Gather's sing about living by faith in the video below:

The basis for my faith

I was raised in a Christian home, but at an early age came to realize I had to trust Jesus for myself and so, I prayed with my neighborhood bible school teacher to accept Christ.. But in my teenage years, I got away from it and began to doubt my eternal salvation, until one day I came to grips with it and realized I had to make sure, so I went forward in church and prayed for God to save me or make me sure of my salvation and I felt a real sense of His peace, and have never doubted since, but have been living in thankfulness with a living faith. It doesn't mean I'm perfect. I still sin, but when I do, the Holy Spirit convicts me and I confess it and am forgiven (I John 1:9)

I am growing in my faith day by day as I face the challenges and trials which each day brings.

Knowing who God really is, His character and personality, should really be a great aid to our faith. The resource listed below presents the many names of God, describes how they reveal His character, and explains that by trusting in them readers can better understand who God is. Whether it's read in order, by topic, or devotionally over 30 days, readers learn to make better decisions in their daily lives, respond more courageously to trials and adverse circumstances, trust God rather than people, money, and possessions.

NO ISMEALS PLEASE!

Many events in my own life have driven home just how easy it is to lose sight of what we say we believe. Just like Abraham of old who is known as "the father of our faith," we often try to bring about result through our own efforts. For those of you not familiar with narrative found in the book of Genesis, let me summarize. Abraham had been given the promise by God of having a son in his old age. God, in fact made a covenant with Abraham, sealing the promise in the blood of sacrificial animals. Typologically this looks forward, for those of us who are New Testament believers, to the blood of Christ through which we are made partakers of God's eternal covenant. In fact, in Galatians chapter 3, Paul says of Believers in Christ that "we are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the [covenant of] promise."

But, back to Abraham. Certainly after such a dynamic demonstration (Genesis 15) of God's covenant promise, we would think that Abraham would have not doubt that God would fulfill his part of the agreement. But, instead of trying to have a son with his wife Sarah and waiting patiently on God as he should have done, he listened to his wife, Sarah, and tried to help God out, by having a son with his handmaiden (as was the custom of the day), since Sarah was barren. He did have a son with his handmaiden, but that was a cause of much sorrow to him. At Sarah's insistance. he sent Hagar and Ishmael away into the dessert.

And this one act of faithlessness on the part of Abraham is the cause of much conflict even today. For, you see, this son, Ishmael, is the father of Arab nations. Oh, God was still with Ishmael and provided water to keep him alive after Sarah had thrown out the handmaiden and her son. But Ishmael was not God's first choice for Abraham. Thus, later, God did fulfill his promise and give Abraham a son through his wife, Sarah. That son, Isaac, is the father of the Jewish people. We are all aware of the Arab-Israeli conflict which continues till today. Yet, God was gracious, and Abraham is remembered today as the Father of the faithful, and in the hall of faith, Hebrews 11, his faith is mentioned but not his lack of it in that one moment of weakness. (Thus, I don't feel that I should share the particulars of my Ishmael experience with you, except to say that I attempted to use intimidation of a sort instead of praying pleading and relying on God. That is all I chose to share about it, as I know God has put it in the sea of forgetfulness.)

Often we may be tempted to do what Abraham did and take matters into our own hands and, as the song says, do it our way, instead of moving ahead in faith and trusting God explicitly. But, this can only result in the production of an Ishmael, which, although God may still bless, will mean trouble for us and cause us to deviate for a time from our primary God-given goals and purpose. However, when that happens, we may be assured of God's grace in getting us back on track. May God ever keep us from producing Ishmaels. But if we do, may we run to Him for His mercy and grace and know that He is still in control and we will not be remembered by him for our Ishmaels, but for our Isaacs--the fruit of our faith.

Paul did refer to this in the book of Galatians in 3:21-31, but only by way of a metaphorical illustration comparing the principle of law and that of grace. Since we are all sinners by nature, if we attempt to please God by trying to follow the law, we place ourselves under the old covenant which was from Mt. Sinai (vs.24) instead of the covenant of promise, and as such, we can only produce Ishmeals.

Although this principle applies to the every day challenges we all face in life, it is never truer than in the matter of our eternal salvation. In Ephesians 2:8 and other places his epistles, the apostle Paul makes it clear that we cannot work our way to heaven. We get there only by trusting in Jesus and accepting the blood of Christ and His sacrificial death on our behalf, trusting in Him to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. We can never be good enough to earn our salvation, which is why Jesus had to die, so that by faith in Him, we can receive salvation as the free gift of God. This should be the first and most basic exercise of our faith and from there we should be able to go on exercising it daily, expecting that, since God gave up his only son for us, he will surely give us everything else we need.(See Rom..8:32). Our faith should keep growing stronger so that eventually we will be able to use it to face any trial which comes our way.

The authors below are leaders in applying God's principles to practical everyday living. Of course, everyone remembers Peal for his "Power of Positive Thinking," but "A Guide to confident living." has proved more helpful to me, showing me the secrets of how to free my inner powers, how to "talk out" my troubles, how to achieve freedom from fear, how to attain married happiness, and how to meet sorrow. The author presents Biblical principles in a practical, easy to understand manner, without quoting a lot of scripture,

ALSO NOTE: I used many of these principles (I like to call them God's success principles) in my bi-weekly ezine, "Inspirational Success Tips. and incorporated them in my self-help book, "Principles of the Kingdom." For details, CLICK any link except the first one and the last one in the link list ("Inspiring, motivating & Biblical links") below.

Another great book which inspired my faith is "A shepherd's look at Psalm 23", which is a great inspiration to trust our great shepherd. You can find it on the web.

Living by faith daily begins with a look into God's Word. It's always good to start the day with a gimps into the scriptures and this devotional by Schuler is a great help, as it uses scripture to get you thinking and thus living positively:

There's just something about music that, as they say, has charms to still the heart--and spiritual and inspirational music can especially accomplish this. No matter what music genre you prefer, you can always find some inspirational music in that genre.

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