10 [WATCHMAN NEE] LESSONS ON FAITH

 

1. What is faith? Faith is when you are brought to the place whereby you can claim from God that something has already been done even though it appears it has not. 
2. Faith is the substantiation of things hoped for (Heb. 11:1). This means making them real in experience. Substance is an object, I possess – something before me. Substantiating means that I have the power or faculty to make that substance be real to me. 
3. Faith is not expectation. It neither waits for the wait for the future nor requires the performance of any work. It merely accepts as fact in reality and experience what God has declared and accomplished. 
4. Fact is God’s work; faith is our trust in what God has worked; and experience is having God’s work lived out through our lives in a practical way. 
5. In spiritual progression, fact is the foundation, faith is the process, and experience is the consequence. In other words fact is the cause, faith is the way, and experience is the effect. 
6. As our faith at the time of regeneration was given to us by God, so our faith for daily living must also be given by Him. Hence, all faith is given by God, and we must always be dependent on Him for the supply of it. 
7. Repentance is negative; faith is positive. Repentance causes me to lose myself; faith enables me to gain Christ. Repentance is the impression; faith is the expression. 
8. Faith is a compound of two basic principles: (1) to cease from man’s own work and (2) to wait for God to work. 
9. God does not give us faith so that we might fulfill our own desires, for our proper place is death. According to God’s will, a believer lives on earth for the Lord’s will and glory alone. Though God desires to use us as His vessels, this calls for us to die to self. 
10. Faith and rest are inseparable, and those who have believed have entered into that rest (Heb. 4:3). Hence, the first of faith is to cease from one’s own works and to rest in the love, wisdom, and power of God.

 

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By S. E. Entsua-Mensah. ©2014 Christ for Humanity Outreach 

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