Living by Faith by Lynn Lundquist

Author:Lynn Lundquist
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-11-07T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10: Faith and Holiness

There is a fundamental change you must make when you determine to live by faith. You can no longer depend on organized religious institutions as a functional substitute ——A functional substitute is an institution that replaces another primary institution when that primary institution becomes inaccessible or unresponsive, or is held in low esteem. As used above, dependence on organized religious institutions (to provide direction in your life) replaces personal dependence on God. Functional substitutes will be discussed more completely in Chapter 18—— for personal dependence on God.

If you want to live by faith, you must be in direct communication with Almighty God Himself, and then pattern your life after His holiness. You can no longer measure your life according to the standards held by your Christian peers. You must take personal responsibility for establishing your own standard of holy living.

God initiated four specific areas of growth in my Christian life. I have already mentioned the first three:

1. A foundation of knowing Jesus as Almighty, Sovereign, Creator God.

2. The desire to ask Jesus to give me a deep love for Him.

3. The desire to ask Jesus to give me an implicit trust (faith) in Him.

The final area of growth was,

4. The desire to ask Jesus to make me a godly man even when I have no innate desire for holiness.

In the same way I have prayed for both faith and a love for Jesus, I have also prayed that God would produce holiness in my life. I regard the three requests of loving Jesus, trusting Jesus, and being a godly man as the essential elements in my relationship with Him. All other things—including ministry—are secondary issues that will grow out of these three.

I have described these benchmarks in my own life because I think they are biblically relevant. God, however, will lead you uniquely.

Ephesians 1:4 states God’s earliest purpose for our being:

“[God] chose us in [Jesus Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.” (NASB).

Before God began creating the cosmos, He determined that He would choose for Himself people who possessed His absolute holiness. Of course, we now understand that this holiness is only available through faith in Jesus. But the earliest demand of Almighty God is, nonetheless, that we as believers are to be holy and blameless, meeting the same standard God holds for Himself.

His standard is not relative to our standing in human society. The holiness He demands is His own absolute standard of holiness.

In Matthew 5:48 Jesus said,

“Therefore you are to be perfect,——The word perfect means completed, finished or perfected rather than holy. However, in this context holiness would be implicit in describing one as being complete or finished.——as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (NASB)

Nothing less is satisfactory to Him.

Scripture clearly identifies the believer living in today’s world as one who is called to live a holy (godly) life.

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But

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