Do We Believe the Facts or Truth?

Do We Believe Facts or Truth?

Psalms 33:4

For the word of the LORD [is] right; and all his works [are done] in truth.

               It is interesting to note that the word “fact or facts” does not even occur in the King James Version of the Bible one time.  On the other hand the word “truth” occurs some two hundred and thirty-five times.  The point this brings us too is that the Bible is a book about Truth.  While it may well be factual, it is not based on fact; it is based on truth.  We may ask what is the difference?  I thought facts were truth.  Facts are based on information presented as objectively real, such a real occurrence or event.  It is something having a real demonstrable existence.  It is something that can be seen or proven in our natural world.  Truth can be more real than fact even though it is not always seen or yet manifested in the real or natural world. 

               We grow up being a fact-oriented people.  We look at science and mathematics as being disciplines built upon facts.  That works pretty good in a natural world made up of natural people, but we have discovered that there is far more to our world than just the natural existence around us.  As we have come to know God, we who are believers in Christ have come to accept that God is the epitome and standard for truth.  Deuteronomy 32:4 says,”[He is] the Rock, his work [is] perfect: for all his ways [are] judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right [is] he.” We know and believe that the very nature and character of God is truth and with Him it is impossible that He should lie.  Numbers 23:19 tells us, “God [is] not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do [it]? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”  While we don’t yet see the existence of all that God has promised manifested in this natural world, we can take it to the bank, that if He has promised it He will make it good.  Hebrews 6:17-18 tells us, “Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability (unchangableness) of his counsel, confirmed [it] by an oath: 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:”

               As believers in Christ we activate the promises of the truths of God by our faith in those promises.  Our very salvation was our act of faith to believe and receive Christ into our hearts and become joint heirs with Him of the promises of God.  Even though we reached out and received our salvation, we didn’t see the fullness of it in that moment.  What we see is that as we plant the seeds of faith in the truth of God’s Word it begins a process of producing the fruit and the fullness of that truth.  We don’t plant a kernel of corn in the ground and then say that seed is a lie because I don’t see any corn produced yet.  We know that through time and patience we will reap that which we have sown.  In due season it will bring forth the fruit of the seed that was planted in the ground.  God’s Word operates under this like principal.  As we walk in the truth, as we plant our faith in the promises of God, we abide in the confidence that in due season it will produce fruit.  The reality of that fact is dormant in the womb of truth until it is given birth.  That which gives birth to the manifestation and fact of a truth is faith. 

               We live in a very negative world in many respects.  There is much in our world that speaks contrary to the Word of God.  In the natural world we readily accept these things as fact.  In a spiritual dimension we can see that the Hand of God is moved by our faith that activates and brings into being His promises.  Though God is sovereign, He has integrated man into the bringing forth of His plans and His promises by the working of faith.  Hebrews 12:1 tells us that, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.” 

               What is fact and what is truth in our lives today?  Many of the facts that we see are not the truth that we want to see revealed.  In fact, they may be there contrary to God’s will and highest for us.   We don’t plant weeds in a garden but they are very much a fact.  A good garden is purged of the weeds, those things contrary to the seed we have planted in faith and the product of what we are hoping for.  We likewise must purge from our lives the thoughts, words and actions that are contrary to the harvest we are believing for.  Let us begin to stand upon the promises of God’s eternal and ever true Word, declaring the things that are not as though they are according to the quickening of God’s Word by His Spirit.  Let us by faith plant that truth of God’s promises into our every situation, believing God for His faithfulness to bring to pass that which He has declared.

Blessings,

#kent

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Living Out of the Unseen

2 Corinthians 4:18
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Living Out of the Unseen
Natural eyes, physical sounds, human reasoning, life circumstances, what others tell us, five senses, human conditions, perceptions, surroundings and our understanding all feed into what we perceive as real. In the moment and with all that processes through our being, that may be what seems real and factual. As believers, the word teaches us that there is a realm beyond just human natural perception. This realm is not ruled and governed by the same principles that govern our earthly realm. This realm is not dictated by earthly facts or circumstances. This is a realm that God wants us to more and more operate out of, because it is the realm of the kingdom of God and its principles are truth. Its government and dictates are spelled out in the Word of God. It supercedes that which is natural, for what we currently perceive and understand as reality is passing away. It is temporal, but that which now unseen will take its place for it is the eternal.
Currently, we see in part the invisible realm invading the natural realm, but until it has ran its course in fullness of Father’s time, we will not experience the fullness of the currently unseen realm made manifest. 1 Corinthians 15:50 tells us, “I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” In this present corruptible world we can not inherit the fullness of that kingdom which is incorruptible until death is swallowed up with life. This is currently taking place in measure even now as Christ comes forth in us and we live out of His life. His life is swallowing up the death in us.
Before the apostle Paul says this he gives us understanding of the state that we have been in and that which we are moving into. “If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.” Now while we may see Jesus as the last and only Adam to presently demonstrate the fullness and likeness of the man of heaven, the Word of God and the message of Christ reorients the mind of the believer to not just be operating out of this earthly realm. Ephesians 2:6 says, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” Colossians 3:1-4 declares, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
In light of these scriptures we can see how our spiritual position has changed as we have died to the old Adam and are raised up in the last Adam. In that spiritual identification we see that God has positioned us in heavenly places and in that unseen realm that is eternal. From that position, what does He tell us to do? ” Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” While our physical perspective and position hasn’t changed, our spiritual position has. Now you tell me, which one does God want us to live out of?
Romans 8:5-11 teaches us this, “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” You can see where we run into conflict; we find ourselves in two different states, but in Christ we have made a declaration and a statement of faith to disenfranchise and disown our former natural man even while we still abide in this earthen vessel and have put on Christ and identification with His eternal life. That is the position we are to operate our physical lives out of. Even though we don’t see the fullness of that yet manifest we are as Romans 8:22-25 states, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
In that patient hope we aren’t focused on the temporal, corruptible and that which is passing away, but we are embracing the eternal as we declare and decree by faith the Word of God and its promises. It is out of these kingdom principles we now live, move and have our being as we walk by the Spirit and live no longer according to the dictates of the flesh. We are a new creation being made conformable in the likeness of Him who has translated us from darkness into His marvelous light, from death into His incorruptible life.

Blessings,
#kent