CBMC Pittsburgh的动态

#WordForTodayDevotional Wednesday, September 4, 2024 FAITH IN WHAT? (1) And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. Mark 11:22 (KJV) We live in a world where you are encouraged to believe in yourself. Self-confidence or self-reliance is not to be reckoned with here. Our faith is in Yahweh, our Elohim, El-Shaddai, Adonai. Have faith in Yahweh our Master told us in our text. Come to the point of total confidence in Yahweh; total reliance in His Word and complete abandonment to His will and purpose for your life. Yahweh does not want you to trust in yourself. II Corinthians 1:9 (KJV) says, ‘But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:’ Yahweh want to be your sufficiency. II Corinthians 3:5 (KJV) says, ‘Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;’ All these self-confidence motivation is an attempt by Satan to bankrupt your faith, don’t subscribe to it. Jeremiah 10:23 (KJV) says, ‘O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.’ The challenge people have is that you cannot have faith in one you do not know. Psalms 9:10 says, “And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.” Beloved, the problem is not faith per se. The issue is that you don’t know Yahweh. It is only those that know Him that don’t only believe Him but put their trust in Him. Trust is even a step ahead of faith. It takes the accurate knowledge of Yahweh to have the faith that works. But when you know Him, then it becomes your delight and no other alternative than to trust Him. Beloved, it is faith in Yahweh that we are talking about this month. It is faith in the one with whom all things are possible. In John 11 Lazarus died and when Yahushua came on the scene, he made a very insightful statement in verse 40, “Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?” Faith in Yahweh is what provokes His glory to be made manifest. Your faith in Yahweh must be confirmed first before you can experience a change of story. Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” Faith in Yahweh is a prerequisite for coming to Him in the first place. Whatever that is not Yahweh that you place your faith on is recipe for shame, sorrows and death. Psalms 16:4 says, “Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.” Tomorrow, we shall see why you should put your faith in Yahweh. Selah! PLEASE READ FULL DEVOTIONAL HERE: https://lnkd.in/dMH-Nve6

LET GOD DO THE HEAVY LIFTING! One major way the devil tries to deceive us is by provoking us to stay busy doing what the Bible calls “works of the flesh.” Works of the flesh refer to our efforts to try to make something happen without leaning on God for help. God doesn’t do everything for us, but neither can we do anything without Him. The apostle Paul writes in his Epistles about works of the flesh and how useless they are. These activities keep us busy, frustrated and disappointed because they are not effective. We are saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus and not by any works we have done (Ephesians 2:8-9). And the way we are saved is the same way we must learn to live our daily lives. For instance, worry is a work of our flesh that attempts to solve our own problems. As we learn to fill our minds with the truth that our battles belong to the Lord, we will be able to let God fight our battles for us and realize that worry is something we no longer have to do. As a matter of fact, God’s Word teaches that when we give our cares to Him, He will take care of us (1 Peter 5:7). The more we lean and rely on God, the more He helps us! Trying to change people is also a work of the flesh. Only God can change people. We can and should pray for them, but we cannot change them. True and lasting change must come from the inside out, and only God can change a person’s heart. We should love people as they are rather than how we want them to be. Learning to recognize when we are doing “works of the flesh” is very important. Anytime I start trying to make something happen on my own or try to force something that God doesn’t approve of, I become frustrated, disappointed and worn-out. I have learned that works of the flesh produce struggle, whereas faith in God produces rest! QUESTIONS: 1. Do you spend more time leaning on your own understanding or leaning on God? 2. How often do you give your cares, worries, and stress over to God? IF THIS DEVOTIONAL SPEAKS TO YOU then I encourage you to share it or read it with others you know who might be struggling and might need to hear this today. HAVE A BLESSED FRIDAY AND SMILE ?? BECAUSE YOU'RE AWESOME AND BECAUSE YOU GOT THIS!

Ever wondered, is there a difference between Faith in Jesus and Saving Faith in Jesus? Is there a difference between Belief in Jesus and Saving Belief in Jesus? Some people say they have Faith in Jesus and continue living their life as they want. Other people say they have Faith in Jesus and reorder their life in drastic ways to do everything Jesus says. Are both of these Saving Faith? Even Satan and the Demons believe in Jesus. They have Faith that Jesus is who He says He is. Seems like there is a difference between Faith/Belief in Jesus. And Saving Faith/Belief in Jesus. What Satan and the Demons have is understood knowledge that Jesus is who He says He is. But not Saving Faith/Belief as the Bible describes. What does Saving Faith/Belief look like? Well, if you look at Jesus in the well known passage of John 3 and then James (chapter 2) talking about Faith/Belief, it seems Saving Faith/Belief is when a person is willing to act as if the object of their Faith/Belief is true. They are willing to reorder their life in order to live like it is true. Making whatever changes are needed to do so. Faith/Belief = Commitment + Confidence. Commitment = A decision that one makes. An act of one’s will. You have immediate, complete control over making the commitment. Confidence = Is only gained through evaluated experience over time. It is not something a person can will to make happen by a decision. Commitment and Confidence then reinforce and increase each other. Another way to look at the Faith/Belief equation is …. Faith/Belief = A decision of the will (Commitment) + Evaluated experience over time (Confidence) Saving Faith/Saving Belief = “Making the commitment that Jesus is right about everything and then being willing to reorder your life and take action as if Jesus is right about everything. As you do this over time and evaluate your experience then your Confidence that Jesus is right about everything will increase." Satan and the Demons have Faith/Belief that Jesus is who He says He is. But, they are not willing to live as if Jesus is who He says He is and act as if He is right about everything. Discipleship is making the Commitment and then increasing your Confidence through both knowledge and evaluated experience over time. Which will increase your Commitment. Which will increase your Faith/Belief. Which will increase your willingness to obey in more areas of your life.

Friday, May 24, 2024 Faith Alone “Then Jesus said to the disciples, ‘Have faith in God.’” —Mark 11:22?Sometimes, we make faith a little bit too mystical when it is, in fact, something we apply wherever we go. For instance, when you go into a restaurant, you apply faith that the restaurant employees are following health standards and preparing your food properly. When you board a plane, you apply faith that the plane will take off, fly to its destination, and land. The same is true when you go to the doctor’s office. You have faith they’ve been trained properly and know what they’re doing. And when you have a prescription filled, you have faith that the pharmacist is giving you the correct medication and dosage. We apply faith every day. Jesus said, “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22 NLT). Yet some people balk at that. They say, “Faith in God? Why, that is outrageous!” However, they apply faith in many other things. But they have a hard time putting their faith in God. There is no safer place to put your faith than in God. The Bible defines faith this way: “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see” (Hebrews 11:1 NLT). The very existence of your faith despite your circumstances is a proof of God. Faith is like a muscle. It gets stronger through use. Muscles build up when we break them down through use. And if we don’t use our muscles, they will atrophy. The same principle is true of faith. It’s something that we need to apply. It’s something that we need to use. Faith cannot be inoperative. We must use it. It is by this faith that we are saved as Christians. Ephesians 2:8–9 reminds us, “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it” (NLT). What saves is faith alone. But the faith that saves is never alone. In other words, if you have real faith, there will be evidence in your life. People can tell that you have faith, but it isn’t because you say you have it. Rather, it’s because they can see your actions. They can’t see your heart, but they can see the things that you do. We are to live by faith as followers of Jesus Christ. The Bible says, “The just shall live by faith” (Galatians 3:11 NKJV). It doesn’t say the just shall live by feelings or circumstances. God is the one who works, but He chooses to work primarily through human means. And faith can make the difference between something happening and not happening. We know that Jesus could do no mighty work in His hometown of Nazareth because of unbelief (see Matthew 13:58). The writer of Hebrews tells us, “It is impossible to please God without faith” (Hebrews 11:6 NLT). We want to make sure we are using the faith that God has given us.

DEVOTIONAL – Faith Is A Choice May today’s inspirational message abundantly bless you and greatly inform you. We pray that you will be the better for having read this message. If blessed by today’s message, please share so that others may be blessed as well. Amen. Have an awesome day in the Lord. Continued blessings. Faith Is A Choice aDevotion.org LUKE 22:67 NASB 67 "If You are the Christ, tell us." But He said to them, "If I tell you, you will not believe; No one can force anyone to believe anything. Each one of us chooses whether we will believe something, based on our evaluation of the evidence presented to us. Faith and belief may have different English meanings, but in the New Testament they are different forms of the same Greek word. Believe is the verb and faith is the noun for the same word. (Like think and thought are in English.) JOHN 20:25 NASB 25 The other disciples therefore were saying to him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I shall see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." Note that Thomas said, "I WILL NOT believe." Many think seeing miracles would cause people to have faith. But the only ones who believe as a result of seeing miracles are those who choose to accept the miracle as sufficient evidence for them to believe. It is still a choice. JOHN 12:37 NET 37 Although Jesus had performed so many miraculous signs before them, they still refused to believe in him, I used to think faith was difficult to pin down with certainty -- something like a feeling or state of being. But now I understand that once we make the decision to believe, we are in faith, no matter how we may feel. At its heart, faith is always a decision. No one can force you to believe in anything. The choice is yours. However, we cannot believe or have faith in anything without evidence. We must have evidence that convinces us before we can believe something. The primary evidence God has given us so that we may have faith in Him is His Word. God is not a liar; He can be trusted. Whatever God says, always comes to pass. So if someone says they don't have much faith, the solution is for them to see the evidence from God's Word on that subject, then choose to accept what God said as true. Then they will have faith. At that point they may not feel anything, but they have faith. The primary action of faith toward God is speaking in agreement with God's Word. Jesus said if you had faith you would say. So we express what we believe by the words we speak. And then we stand in that position of faith, regardless of feelings or circumstances. SAY THIS: Nothing can force me to believe. I must choose to believe. #KWMinistries?#dailydevotional?

Daily Blessings April 12 “As the truth is in Jesus.” - Eph 4:21 Without truth there is no regeneration; for it is by “the word of truth” that we are begotten and born again (James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23). Without truth there is no justification; for we are justified by faith, which faith consists in crediting God’s truth, and so gives peace with God. Without the truth there is no sanctification; for the Lord himself says, “Sanctify them through your truth—your word is truth.” And without the truth there is no salvation; for “God has chosen us to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.” And as the truth is the instrumental cause of all these blessings, the divinely-appointed means whereby they become manifested mercies, so truth enters into and is received by all the graces of the Spirit as they come forth into living exercise. Thus, without the truth, there is no FAITH; for the work of faith is to believe the truth. What is all the difference between faith and delusion? That faith believes God’s truth, and delusion credits Satan’s lies. “And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” Without truth there is no HOPE; for the province of hope is to anchor in the truth. “That by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us; which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters into that within the veil.” The two immutable things in which hope anchors are God’s word and God’s truth; in other words, the pledged veracity and faithfulness of him who cannot lie. This made holy David say, “I have hoped in your word.” Those who go down to the pit,” said good king Hezekiah, “cannot hope for your truth.” No; it is “the living, the living who praise you as I do this day.” And it is “through patience and comfort of the Scriptures,” that is, the consolation which the truth of God revealed in the Scriptures affords, “that we have hope.” Without truth there is no LOVE, for it is by “the love of the truth” that the saved are distinguished from the lost. “And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in those who perish; because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.” And it is only as we speak “the truth in love that we grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.” Thus “the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth;” and this in the Person of the Son of God, for “grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” https://lnkd.in/giztxM2s #taptapstudio #youdevotion

Friday, May 24, 2024 Faith Alone LISTEN “Then Jesus said to the disciples, ‘Have faith in God.’” —Mark 11:22 Sometimes, we make faith a little bit too mystical when it is, in fact, something we apply wherever we go. For instance, when you go into a restaurant, you apply faith that the restaurant employees are following health standards and preparing your food properly. When you board a plane, you apply faith that the plane will take off, fly to its destination, and land. The same is true when you go to the doctor’s office. You have faith they’ve been trained properly and know what they’re doing. And when you have a prescription filled, you have faith that the pharmacist is giving you the correct medication and dosage. We apply faith every day. Jesus said, “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22 NLT). Yet some people balk at that. They say, “Faith in God? Why, that is outrageous!” However, they apply faith in many other things. But they have a hard time putting their faith in God. There is no safer place to put your faith than in God. The Bible defines faith this way: “Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see” (Hebrews 11:1 NLT). The very existence of your faith despite your circumstances is a proof of God. Faith is like a muscle. It gets stronger through use. Muscles build up when we break them down through use. And if we don’t use our muscles, they will atrophy. The same principle is true of faith. It’s something that we need to apply. It’s something that we need to use. Faith cannot be inoperative. We must use it. It is by this faith that we are saved as Christians. Ephesians 2:8–9 reminds us, “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it” (NLT). What saves is faith alone. But the faith that saves is never alone. In other words, if you have real faith, there will be evidence in your life. People can tell that you have faith, but it isn’t because you say you have it. Rather, it’s because they can see your actions. They can’t see your heart, but they can see the things that you do. We are to live by faith as followers of Jesus Christ. The Bible says, “The just shall live by faith” (Galatians 3:11 NKJV). It doesn’t say the just shall live by feelings or circumstances. God is the one who works, but He chooses to work primarily through human means. And faith can make the difference between something happening and not happening. We know that Jesus could do no mighty work in His hometown of Nazareth because of unbelief (see Matthew 13:58). The writer of Hebrews tells us, “It is impossible to please God without faith” (Hebrews 11:6 NLT). We want to make sure we are using the faith that God has given us.

Faith’s joy in trials James 1:1-4 - James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, - Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, - for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. - And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. The first thing we need to remember to be able to understand this book of James, is that it is written to people who have believed in Jesus as their Savior, who are born of God and have eternal life. Nothing in this book is written to those who do not believe – which is why this book concentrates on what faith looks like, not on how we accept Him. Most of us want to have a strong and active faith in Jesus Christ, but many of us do not know how our faith in Him grows. In this study we will discover from the writings of James what it means to have a faith that is living, growing, and active. We need to begin by understanding what faith is. We often think of it as a noun – as something that we have, something we possess. When the Bible says “faith as a grain of mustard” (Luke 17:6), we understand it this way. But faith must also be an action. One of the best ways to show the difference is if we substitute “trust” for “faith.” We can say of a dear friend, “I have complete trust in my friend.” Trust is then a feeling. But when we read in Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart” trust becomes an action. It is a command for us to DO something. In this study we will use faith and trust as meaning the same thing – sometimes it is something we have and sometimes it is something we do. In Verse 2 of the beginning of James, we find the first command which means we must do something for our faith to grow. *How do you meet trials in your life now? *When is the last time you thanked God for something that went wrong in your life? How often do we see trials and troubles as things we just need to get rid of? Is our first reaction to a trial one of running to God and asking Him to take this trial or trouble away? The first step in growing our faith strong, then, is learning to thank God for our trials and troubles (1 Thessalonians 5:18 and Ephesians 5:20). The action required of us here is to “count it all joy.” We must learn to be thankful for the car that was stolen, for the job we lost, for the illness that came, for every trial we have in our lives. Why? Because Jesus’ promise is that if we learn to be thankful, every trial will be used by Jesus to produce out of our faith a steadfastness. Steadfastness means the ability to stand strong, stick to something, being reliable. And steadfastness produces more God-likeness in our lives, making us more like Him and giving us more ability to be steadfast and joyful in the next trial.

A Happy Way To Live “The servants who are ready and waiting for his return will be rewarded.” -Luke 12:37 All around us we can see fulfilled Bible prophe-cies, signs indicating that the return of Jesus Christ is drawing near. As followers of Christ, we should be watching for Him. We need to be ready to go. Jesus, speaking about His return, said, “Be dressed for service and keep your lamps burning, as though you were waiting for your master to return from the wedding feast... The servants who are ready and waiting for his return will be rewarded” (Luke 12:35–37 NLT). Are you ready for His return? To be ready means to be engaged in activities that you wouldn’t be ashamed to be doing if Jesus were to return. It’s a good idea to periodically ask ourselves this question: This place that I am about to go, this thing that I am about to do, would I be embarrassed if I were doing it when Jesus came back?” Think about your plans. Is there anything you will be doing today, tonight, or tomorrow that you would be ashamed to do if Christ were to return? If so, then change your plans. You want to be ready for His return. Not only should we be ready, but we should anxiously await the return of Christ. We used to have a German Shepherd who slept outside the bedroom, leaning against our door. We didn’t let him sleep in our room because he often had nightmares and would wake us up. Every morning when we opened the door, he rolled into the room. Then he’d jump up and start running in circles. He was genuinely happy to see us. That is how we should be waiting for Christ’s return. And anything that might prevent us from saying “Come quickly, Lord Jesus” is out of place in our lives. In addition to waiting, we should be working. Every now and then, someone predicts that Jesus will return on a specific date. People believe these predictions and start quitting their jobs or divorcing their spouses. But that is not what we should be doing as we wait for the return of Christ. Instead, we should be working for Him. The Bible says, “Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works” (James 2:26 NLT). If watching is the evidence of faith, then work-ing is the evidence of faith in action. Watching for the Lord’s return will help us prepare our own lives. But working will ensure that we bring others with us to Heaven. The great British preacher C. H. Spurgeon said, “It is a very blessed thing to be on the watch for Christ. . . . You can be poor without mur-muring; you can be rich without worldliness; you can be sick without sorrowing; you can be healthy without presumption. If you are always waiting for Christ’s Coming, untold blessings are wrapped up in that glorious hope.” When you live in the anticipation of Christ’s return, it’s a happy way to live. Are you watching for Christ's return?

DEVOTIONAL – Faith Is A Choice May today’s inspirational message abundantly bless you and greatly inform you. We pray that you will be the better for having read this message. If blessed by today’s message, please share so that others may be blessed as well. Amen. Have an awesome day in the Lord. Continued blessings. Faith Is A Choice aDevotion.org LUKE 22:67 NASB 67 "If You are the Christ, tell us." But He said to them, "If I tell you, you will not believe; No one can force anyone to believe anything. Each one of us chooses whether we will believe something, based on our evaluation of the evidence presented to us. Faith and belief may have different English meanings, but in the New Testament they are different forms of the same Greek word. Believe is the verb and faith is the noun for the same word. (Like think and thought are in English.) JOHN 20:25 NASB 25 The other disciples therefore were saying to him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I shall see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." Note that Thomas said, "I WILL NOT believe." Many think seeing miracles would cause people to have faith. But the only ones who believe as a result of seeing miracles are those who choose to accept the miracle as sufficient evidence for them to believe. It is still a choice. JOHN 12:37 NET 37 Although Jesus had performed so many miraculous signs before them, they still refused to believe in him, I used to think faith was difficult to pin down with certainty -- something like a feeling or state of being. But now I understand that once we make the decision to believe, we are in faith, no matter how we may feel. At its heart, faith is always a decision. No one can force you to believe in anything. The choice is yours. However, we cannot believe or have faith in anything without evidence. We must have evidence that convinces us before we can believe something. The primary evidence God has given us so that we may have faith in Him is His Word. God is not a liar; He can be trusted. Whatever God says, always comes to pass. So if someone says they don't have much faith, the solution is for them to see the evidence from God's Word on that subject, then choose to accept what God said as true. Then they will have faith. At that point they may not feel anything, but they have faith. The primary action of faith toward God is speaking in agreement with God's Word. Jesus said if you had faith you would say. So we express what we believe by the words we speak. And then we stand in that position of faith, regardless of feelings or circumstances. SAY THIS: Nothing can force me to believe. I must choose to believe. #KWMinistries?#dailydevotional?