Truth versus Facts

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. —Hebrews 11:1

Faith residing in your born-again spirit takes you beyond what is humanly possible (in the natural) and brings you into God’s power (in the spirit). Faith will connect you to your home country of heaven and give you access to its ability and resources. All believers are created to do good works. Good works are the works of the kingdom of God: healing the sick, casting out devils, supernatural protection, and speaking with tongues (see Acts 4:8–9; Mark 16:17–18). Faith is not a topic or a subject; it is a lifestyle. How should the just person live? By his faith in the Word of God. When should the just live by faith? Right now! Just read the first word of Hebrews, chapter 11: “Now faith is . . .” (emphasis added). People try to see it or feel it in order to believe it, but the Word itself is enough: “I tried to use faith to get healed, but it didn’t work.” How do you know it didn’t work? “Because I didn’t feel better and I didn’t see the symptom go away.” But God did not give us faith to get healed. He gave us faith because He has healed us. So I am going to believe that I am healed. When? Now! How long must I believe? As long as I live, I will choose to believe the Word and enforce my Kingdom rights. But what about the symptom? It will leave if I continue to believe. “By His stripes” I was healed, so I am healed. Faith receives what is already provided. People usually attack this message about faith when they do not understand it. Many say that “faith doesn’t make sense.” That is because faith doesn’t make sense! Others say that faith is a way of manipulating God to do something for you. But faith simply receives what God has already done for you. Just because people do not understand faith does not mean that it is not real.

Pastor Tom Kehres

The Ultimate Result

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. —2 Peter 1:4

The Church has believed and even taught that you need faith to get what you need or want: money, a new car, a house, or a spouse. But the real purpose of faith is to receive the nature and the life of God in your spirit, to have Christ living in you. Then, by putting faith in the Christ in you, you will manifest the life of Christ through you. Peter tells us in the verse above that we can “partake of the divine nature.” So, how do you partake of God’s nature? By struggling? By doing your best? Peter says that you must simply believe the “precious promises” that God in Jesus has provided for you. The change in your life doesn’t come through your works, but through faith in His work on the cross. You put faith in the new, righteous, Christlike creation that you have been made at the new birth. As you apply faith to the Christ who now dwells within you, you will start to manifest His life through you (Colossians 1:27). Faith is not a way to get what you want. Faith is God’s gift so you can have the life of Christ in you, manifesting through you. If you will grow in faith and in the knowledge of God and His Word, and allow the life of Christ in you to manifest through you, you will have what you need—Christ’s results in your life!—in your family, marriage, health, power, finances. You will get God-results in every area of your life.

Pastor Tom Kehres

The Spirit Connection

For [in the gospel of Christ] is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just [or righteous] shall live by faith. —Romans 1:17

Because we live our lives in the midst of a fight, we encounter opposition, an opposing force. This natural realm, what we experience with our five senses, will oppose the supernatural realm, or the realm of the spirit. Faith, a vital element of successfully living in God’s kingdom, takes us beyond the natural of what we see and feel, and it hooks us up to the spirit realm. The first thing you must recognize to operate in this spirit realm is that you, the real you, are a spirit. You have a personality, or soul, made up of your mind, will, and emotions. You live in a physical body. Your spirit is what became alive to God when you became born again. Your soul will now need to be reprogrammed to the Word of God, and your body will follow as the transformation becomes complete. If you are born again, you are also righteous. Those who are born again, who are (by that fact) just, shall live by their faith. When you were born again, born into the kingdom of God, you were made just, or righteous, by the blood of Jesus, and not by your own works or goodness. The righteousness that comes by faith in Jesus put you back in right standing and in right alignment with God and His kingdom—justified—“just as if ” sin never existed, “just as if I’d” never sinned. Once the sin question is forever settled by Jesus’s blood, the sinner–turned–just person will then learn to live in right alignment with and connected to God and His kingdom. God is a Spirit; you are a spirit. Living in agreement with His Word, which is also spirit (John 6:63), will keep you connected to the spirit realm.

Pastor Tom Kehres

It’s a Fight!

Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called. —1 Timothy 6:12

As born-again sons and daughters of God and kingdom of God citizens, we are commanded to “fight the good fight of faith.” We are to fight this fight every year, every month, every day. This is the only fight the believer is called to fight! We do not fight sin, because sin no longer has dominion over us (Romans 6:14). We do not fight the devil, because Jesus defeated the devil; we can simply resist him (and his tactics), and he must flee (James 4:7). But now, as sons of an unseen God and citizens of an unseen Kingdom, we must learn to live our lives by faith, and not by what we can see in this earth realm (2 Corinthians 5:7). We must go beyond what we see in the natural, what we feel, what we can perceive with the senses. We must learn to put the Word of God in first place over our senses, emotions, and situations. A believer walks by faith and daily fights the good fight of faith. In this walk, or daily lifestyle, sons and citizens must also learn to talk by faith (2 Corinthians 4:13). This means not only believing the Word of God, but filling your heart with that Word, so that what is in abundance in your heart will naturally come out of your mouth (Matthew 12:34). God’s children walk by faith and talk by faith in order to fight the good fight of faith.

Pastor Tom Kehres