God’s Economy in Faith
Message Two
The Intrinsic Significance of Faith
Opening Word of the Prophesying Meeting
(Day1 ¦ Day2 ¦ Day3 ¦ Day4 ¦ Day5 ¦ Day6)
Reading the verses in each day.
Reading the main points in the outlines.
Pray-reading the verses:
Heb. 11:1 Now faith is the substantiation of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
2 Cor. 4:13 And having the same spirit of faith according to that which is written, “I believed, therefore I spoke,” we also believe, therefore we also speak.
Heb. 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to Him, for he who comes forward to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Word of Appetizer
What is the intrinsic significance of faith?
Faith is the substantiation of God’s facts. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substantiation of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”; the word substantiation means the capacity to make something real.
Faith is the substantiation of the substance of the truth, which is the reality of the contents of God’s New Testament economy.
Faith means that we believe that God is and we are not; to believe that God is, is to believe that He is everything to us and that we are nothing. Only He should exist—“it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ”.
Faith means that we believe that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Spiritual Burden
Faith is rooted in God’s great, eternal, and divine facts covenanted to us in His holy Word; the believers’ subjective faith is in their spirit, which makes their mingled spirit a spirit of faith.
As people of faith, we are people of “today”; the first point of the up-to-date way to practice the Lord’s present move is to be filled with the Spirit inwardly and outwardly, essentially and economically, for our life and our work “today”.
Concluding Word of the Prophesying Meeting
The Revelation of the Truth
Faith is the substantiation of God’s facts.
Faith is the substantiation of the substance of the truth, which is the reality of the contents of God’s New Testament economy.
Faith means that we believe that God is and we are not.
Faith means that we believe that God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
All our spiritual possessions in Christ are realized and actualized by faith.
The Experience of Life
At the time of our regeneration, we believed into Christ and received the Spirit by faith as the ultimate blessing of the gospel; after this, God is supplying the Spirit to us continually, and our receiving the Spirit is a lifelong, continuous matter by the hearing of faith.
The righteousness that is God Himself lived out of us is through faith in Christ; Christ Himself infused into us through our appreciation of Him becomes our faith, the faith of Christ that brings us into an organic union with Him.
Practice and Application
We must exercise our spirit of faith to believe in the fact that God is love.
We must exercise our spirit of faith to believe in the fact that God’s grace is sufficient.
We must exercise our spirit of faith to believe that the victory of the Lord is complete and that our whole life is included in this victory; we must see that we have already overcome and that we fight from a position of victory in order to maintain our victory.
We should not believe in our feelings but believe in the divine facts in God’s holy Word; we must learn to declare the divine, mystical, and eternal facts of what the Lord has done, is doing, and will do in us, for us, and through us for the accomplishment of His eternal economy.
PROPHESYING TOPICS—TWELVE TOPICS PER WEEK
T1 Faith is the substantiation of God’s facts (Heb. 11:1)
(Please illustrate what the word substantiation means. )
T2 Faith is not a mental understanding of a truth (Heb. 11:1; 2 Cor. 4:13)
(Please illustrate with examples that God’s facts can be substantiated only by fait.)
Further Reading: Life-study of 2 Peter, msgs. 1-4; CWWN, vol. 24, “The Overcoming Life,” ch. 7
T1 The divine title of our Triune God is I Am Who I Am (Exo. 3:13-14; John 8:28, 58)
(Please illustrate that Jesus is the great I Am.)
T2 Faith means that we believe that God is and we are not (Heb. 11:6; Luke 9:23)
(Please illustrate that to believe that God is equals to deny yourself.)
Further Reading: CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans,” ch. 7; CWWN, vol. 42, ch. 48
T1 The way to withstand Satan is by faith (1 Pet. 5:8-9; 1 John 3:8)
(Please illustrate what should our faith rest on, how should we exercise our faith to withstand Satan.)
T2 To exercise our spirit of faith to withstand Satan (Heb. 2:14)
(Please illustrate that we must exercise our spirit of faith to believe that the Lord’s death has destroyed him who has the might of death, the devil.)
Further Reading: CWWN, vol. 50, “Messages for Building Up New Believers (3),” ch. 43; CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The God-man Living,” chs. 10, 16
T1 To stand is to withstand Satan and to stop him from taking away our victory (Eph. 1:20-22)
(Please illustrate that we must exercise our spirit of faith to believe that the ascension of the Lord has put Him far above the power of Satan.)
T2 To withstand the devil means that we withstand him by the victory of Christ (Eph. 6:11-13)
(Please illustrate that the difference between a person who tries to overcome and one who withstands by knowing that he has already overcome.)
Further Reading: CWWN, vol. 43, ch. 74; CWWN, vol. 27, “The Normal Christian Faith,” chs. 13-14
T1 Faith gives us access into God’s grace (Rom. 5:2; 2 Tim. 3:15)
(Please illustrate that Faith first gives us access into grace, then a solid standing in grace. )
T2 To claim by faith is to reckon as ours all that the Lord Jesus has (Eph. 1:3; Heb. 6:12)
(Please illustrate the facts are the cause, faith is the way, and experience is the result.)
Further Reading: CWWN, vol. 1, chs. 4-5; CWWN, vol. 46, ch. 180
T1 As Christians, we need to live by faith and walk by faith, not by appearance (2 Co. 5:7)
(Please illustrate with experiences that do not believe in your feelings—believe in the facts, the Bible says this.)
T2 Every day is a today (Acts 13:52; Heb. 3:12-13)
(Please illustrate that all of us should be people of today. Do not look ahead to the future, and do not look back to the past.)
Further Reading: Life-study of 2 Corinthians, msg. 10