Last time we talked about living by faith.  If you haven’t read that post or heard that podcast please go find it and start there because that foundation is going to be very important for going forward in this series.  Living by faith means, at its core, obtaining your eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.  It also means allowing your Christian faith to guide every aspect of your daily life.  But we can’t stop there.  To experience the final dimension of living by faith we must learn what faith really is.  Once we understand the power and mechanics of faith, living by faith takes on another, wonderful meaning. In my last post I explained that faith, in the Bible, is not the same idea as the words belief and faith today.  In the New Testament Greek, the word for faith is “pistis,” and pistis comes from the verb “to convince.”  According to the Bible’s standard, if you are in faith then you are convinced about what you believe, fully persuade...

Some time ago a movement began in the Church which became known as the “Faith Movement”.  Today, many of the leaders of the Faith Movement hold to a doctrine known as “Word of Faith.”  While I wouldn’t call “Word of Faith” a denomination, it’s at least a doctrinal view or belief system that creates something like an unofficial community of believers.  While I do not support every Word of Faith teacher or teaching, it’s very important that you understand, and begin to live by, its core teachings.  We are going to begin discussing these core teachings today, and these teachings will radically change your life, your relationship with God, and the results you see from prayer. Let’s start by realizing that some people in life are very successful in everything they do.  Some people aren’t successful at anything.  And most people are somewhere in between.  Some successful people get there through hard work and systematic living.  Others get there throug...

We have been discussing the Kingdom of God and living for the Kingdom.  Today I want to continue discussing these concepts and further develop our understanding of the reality of the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of God is here now.  We Christians are citizens of the Kingdom of God, and we are entitled to live in all of its benefits and blessings.  We are also called to seek the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness above all else.  The more you understand the Kingdom of God, the more you will begin to walk in the supernatural, the more you will see God’s will manifest in your life.  Remember this verse, which is so very important, “For [God] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” (Colossians 1:13 NIV) Every one of us was under the dominion of darkness.  Every one of us was under the devil’s jurisdiction.  We were influenced and blinded by the devil.  Look back at some of my posts ...

When I was 23 I decided to give my life wholly to God.  I had grown up in church but I had lived a mostly sinful life.  But I believed God had a good plan for me, and if I would start listening to Him I could find it.  After about a year I began writing Bible studies and trying to get my old friends saved.  I started talking about God all the time.  One day my friend (let’s call him Steve), emailed me and said something I will never forget.  “Byron, you are on fire for God.”  I was stunned, not because I was on fire for God, but because I realized Steve wasn’t.  Steve had been a Christian for as long as I had known him, at least since the third grade.  Steve stayed close to God all those years, never started drinking (as far as I know), he never went through sinful years.  He participated in Christian organizations and went to church.  He married a Christian girl and Christ was obviously important to him.  Why wasn’t he on fir...