(Ver 1.1) This is Part 1 in a new Bible series about “Examining Our Faith”. However, this series is also a continuation of a former foundational study called “Understanding Bible Faith”. If you have not read this series, it might be good to begin there first. Faith is still one of the most important subjects found in the entire Bible. Many will say brother, that was a very bold statement about it being one of the most important Bible subjects, and others may say it was very overstated. Yet the more we learn about this subject, the greater the importance of having real living faith becomes. What is real Living Faith? Did you know that a Christian could have “dead” faith (James 2:20)?

Our subject matter today is exploring and expanding two aspects of the subject of “Faith”. First, what are the essential elements of real working and living faith? This would include asking about the adjoining necessary spiritual qualities of real “Faith”. Or asking what are the spiritual inter-dependencies of “Faith” that are required to overcome the evil spiritual force opposition that are attempting to stop our faith from working. Second, we will be asking the question and addressing the real “Faith” exam answers, “Do I have these qualities and the Kind of working and living Faith that is Pleasing to God”?

What is an Exam? An exam is what any student (disciple) takes in training to ensure their level of knowledge on any subject is sufficient for the task. Since our subject is “Faith”, the exam test today in this series will be a self-examination of our knowledge about real faith. What we think that we know about this subject is not really our issue. It is only the things that we do not know that are being used against us, allowing us to be defeated by our enemy. Do you know how we overcome this enemy?

1John 5:4 – For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

How do we overcome this world? It is only through real working and living “Faith”. This type of “Faith” is the foundation for every spiritual victory over each battle we are faced with. We already saw in James 2:20 that faith can be dead. Therefore, dead faith implies passive, non-living and non-working faith. If we go read 1 Timothy 1:5 and 2 Timothy 1:5 we can find Paul writing of a “Unfeigned” Faith. This Greek word translated as “Unfeigned” simply means not a “Pretend” Faith. This clearly implies that there are faith pretenders. Therefore, we are finding too many types of “Faith” being mentioned that are not the True kind of Faith that pleases God. These types are clearly non-working types.

Luke 18:8 – I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth? 

Do you remember this verse that Jesus said to us in Luke 18:8; “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth”. This statement should cause every Christian serious concern. We should all begin to ask; do I have the real living and working Bible God kind of faith that Jesus is looking for? Does my faith meet the Bible specific kind of faith necessary to please God? Is my faith working? Is my faith living?

Real living Faith appears to be more important to God than most know or realize. After all, remember that God says very clearly in Hebrews 11:6, “without Faith it is impossible to please God”. That makes having correct “Faith” sound incredibly essential. Yet so many people are completely clueless that there could be a correct faith, lacking faith or even a faith of complete error which is dead?

You see there is a great unknown to many Christians. Everyone in the world is living by “faith” to someone or something. However, many people are worshipping a devil, demons, or false religions. Many are worshipping the god of “atheism” believing there is no true God to give an account to. The number of possible false and misleading beliefs cannot be listed in any lesson.

It is essential to know upfront that it is only those that have heard the true Gospel of Jesus Christ and have believed in it as the Truth calling Jesus their Lord and Savior who have any hope of seeing Him and not going to hell. That statement will potentially offend a lot of people that have been deceived, but hopefully it will also awaken many others to the Truth. There is only One True and Living God and He made the heavens and the earth and everything on it, including all of us.

It is only the Words of God written in the Bible that can be the basis of True and Living Faith. In other words, if we do not have a foundation built upon known scriptures, we cannot have full faith for each specific situation or circumstance we are facing in life, including salvation, being made whole, God meeting our needs, our relationships, and receiving all of God’s provided fundamentals of life.

Let us pray and ask God to bless each reader as we read and study His awesome Word. “Our Lord God, we come to Your Throne of Grace, in the name of your dear Son Jesus Christ, to pray for your divine guidance in the writing of these lessons, and for all that will be led by You to read them. Let there be a connection in the Spirit and we request that you bear witness with Your Holy Spirit teaching us what is truthful. Open our spiritual eyes within our hearts to be receptive. We give the Holy Spirit full permission to do whatever is necessary to cause us to know Him and His voice to lead us into “all truth” according to John 16:13. But also help each one of us to be a more noble disciple of Christ according to Acts 17:11, to prove with our own daily Bible study time, what is being taught here is verifiable by what is written in Your Word. Thank you in advance for hearing, answering and speaking in our heart whatever we need to hear from you today before You return very soon. We ask these things in Jesus’ name expecting to receive, Amen”. Let’s begin.

Faith Exam – Series Introduction

In today’s world, it should be very easy to see that we are growing increasingly nearer to the time of Christ’s return to catch away the church. Of course, this would mean we knew what the Bible said about the end times. If we knew Bible eschatology, we would understand these descriptions are happening all around us and directly in front of our eyes, whether anyone else knows the Bible or not. Do you believe that your faith could play a factor in us being taken up when Jesus comes back for His bride?

Please answer this question. Did our faith play a role in being saved? Would we have been saved automatically without hearing the Gospel that gives us the opportunity to have saving faith? Some people believe this, but this is not true according to Romans chapter 10 and Ephesians chapter 2. What we learn from Bible study is that our faith participation was our determining factor for receiving salvation from God.

Therefore, the number one reason for understanding the real God Bible type of Faith, is that it is impossible to be saved without it according to John 3;16 which everyone should have memorized. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever ‘believes’ in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life”. According to God, our “faith” and “believing”, is our only exit out of hell. This fact alone makes “faith” an essential topic to understand.

Does the fact that Jesus said He is looking for “faith” when He returns, bother you? It probably should. We have already seen examples in the opening that there are different kinds of faith on Earth, and some are not positive types. And that every human on earth was designed by God to live by faith? This means every human is living by some type of faith in some kind of belief of who they are, where they came from and where they will go in the future after their death.

Therefore, how do we know if we have the correct knowledge of the kind of faith that Jesus is specifically coming back to find? Jesus makes it sound like there is only an exact type of faith that qualifies with what He is searching for! Not caring about knowing, not wanting to know, not having the time to learn, or thinking we already know are all tricks of the devil to keep us ignorant. Ignorance gives the devil an advantage over us, and that causes us to have the wrong faith. In a game of spiritual tennis with the devil, any ignorance even partial is “advantage” Satan. We learn this from Hosea 4:6 that says, “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge (ignorance)”.

Do you remember that Jesus taught us that straight was the gate and narrow was the way to eternal life (Matthew 7:14)? And that Jesus said, wide was the gate and broad was the way that leads people to eternal destruction, and many are they that will go in (Matthew 7:13)? In Matthew Jesus is describing two paths of “faith” and “believing” based upon individual knowledge. Many who are deceived and ignorant to believe lies, are blindly following their blind leaders and peers to their destruction. But the wiser ones on the narrow path have heard the truth of Jesus and have chosen to begin to walk in His Truth.

Perhaps we can get some clues to find out if we are in the correct path of faith in this foundational subject verse:

2 Corinthians 13:5 – Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? 

As we can clearly see, this verse is speaking of an examination of our “Faith” that we do ourselves. This is where we must begin to learn the right questions, to determine what we know or what we do not yet know to correctly evaluate our personal type and level of faith. This means we are not going around as Holy Ghost “Faith” inspectors of others. No, God wants us to only test ourselves. It is impossible for anyone but God to test others righteously.

Here is a verse of immense importance that is in harmony with the beginning foundational verse of Luke 18:8. Never forget that Jesus was teaching us in Luke 18:8, of Him looking for a very specific and focused type of “faith” when He comes back to the earth. These verses of Luke 18:8 and 2 Corinthians 13:5, appear to represent two statements of agreement concerning a potentially determining factor which strongly indicates that those people that have His type of faith will be the only ones that will be taken, and all the others will be left.

Drawing this conclusion is very spiritual and logical since every human is living by some type of faith or belief which can be divided into two binary choices. These choices are 1) us hearing and believing the Truth of God’s Word, so that we become born again and are translated out of the darkness of this world into a spiritual place called “In Him”. Or we are 2) living by default “in the certain death” sentence of the first Adam (Genesis 2:17). This certain default remains if we choose to continue to live in ignorance of God’s truth. The first Adam only gives us a death walk in the wide path option believing Satan’s opposing lies. This option is us placing our faith in anything else other than God’s Truth. And this choice results in us not being “In Him” (Jesus Christ the Last Adam) who is Life (1 Corinthians 15:45).

By keeping our Faith “In Him” (Jesus), keeps us on the narrow path. And by continuing to study the Bible we will remain His disciple (John 8:31).  This love of the Word of God is the correct path that will ensure and lead us to our full Freedom (John 8:32).

Do you see how entering Christ’s Salvation is the beginning of our walk on Jesus’ “Narrow Pathway” Journey?  If we can see this, then we should be able to understand that this highway is not a single one-time entrance ramp containing no opportunities for U-turns or exits from it. This would be the loss of all our human free-will choices after salvation. Sure, our journey begins “once” by accepting Jesus as Lord, but then Jesus must continue to be our Lord throughout our life on earth.

This is why the Bible says, “We Walk by Faith and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Walking by Faith clearly indicates that our Salvation is a step-by-step Faith journey on a pathway with a God determined destination! However, like any highway or pathway, the walker still has the option of turning back or exiting off. That is not God’s desire, but Satan the deceiver entices many to divert away from God’s plan.

Also, Romans 1:17 clearly says “the Just shall Live by Faith”, meaning having no faith, or incorrect or incomplete faith is certainly walking on a path of “death”. Wow! These verses provide us an emphasis on a correct living “Faith” walk of life and proves that having correct living faith is essential. Thus, the reason why we are learning more today about Faith.

There are still too many Christians that still believe in a doctrine of “sovereign election”. This doctrine teaches that since a Christian was saved by God’s choice, there is nothing that any of us saved ones need do, to remain saved. Yet, all these other verses we are reading and studying strongly indicate otherwise. Let’s get back to our verse in 2 Corinthians and let’s read it again:

2 Corinthians 13:5 – Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? 

Notice how that in this verse of 2^nd Corinthians, God commands that we in the church, each “Examine” ourselves individually to determine if we are “In” the “Faith”. Doesn’t this sound like another reference to a very specific type and level of faith that God is expecting us to grow into and obtain?

Remember God is speaking of us performing an Exam. Then do not forget that an exam is something that everyone as an educated human has gone through at a school or higher learning institution many times. Also do not forget an exam’s purpose is to determine if what was taught to us was learned by us, comprehended and put into practical application. Therefore, an exam represents a knowledge test. Therefore, a Faith examination is still a determination and evaluation of our knowledge of God’s Word. But guess what, in this verse God tells us to do the exam of our own level of “faith” knowledge. Therefore, we need to know what real living faith is, to examine if we have it and all the elements that are quired to allow it to work.

If God personally places us into His type of saving faith by His sovereign choice, would it not be completely unnecessary for any human to perform a self-examination to see if we were there or not? Can we agree? Therefore, there is a potential problem and conflict rising with the sovereign God belief in “Election” without “Faith”.

Now, check out the word “Reprobate” to find the importance of what is being stated. This Greek word G96 is a compound Greek word comprised of the G1 “Alpha” letter as a negative prefix which negates and reverses whatever is being connected. The primary Greek word being connected to, is G1384. G1384 is defined as someone being “approved”. What does that mean? One synonym of “approved” can be “accepted”. Wow!

If someone can be accepted, they also can be rejected. Who is doing the accepting and who is doing the rejecting? It appears that the judge is God. We know this because Jesus said in Luke 21:36, “Watch you therefore, and pray that you may be ‘accounted’ worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man”. “Watch” means for us to be alert and aware. Pray can means to have a conversation with God and ask for His help if you believe your faith is weak. But the main point is for us to see that God is placing the responsibility on us to determine if we are worthy to escape the coming tribulation.

Therefore, whose choice is it, for the person to be accepted or rejected? Is this God’s sovereign choice also? Who has made each of accepted or rejected? If it is God, why then is the believer in Jesus told to examine themselves to determine which state of existence and category they are currently in? There are only two possibilities given to choose from. Could it be the human’s responsibility to determine which category they want to be in and then to do everything they can to achieve that level of being accepted? Or can humans choose to do nothing about testing their faith and remain possibly rejected?

I sincerely believe it is a human’s choice and responsibility to determine where we stand in our faith knowledge. After all this belief agrees with 2 Timothy 2:15 which says, “Study to show yourself approved unto God”. Isn’t this verse clear about increasing our knowledge of God’s Word and by correct study, and this will help us stay on the right path to be approved by God?

Do you see where God is leading us? God is giving the human through the personal examination of their “faith” type and level a time to make this determination of their future eternal existence while they are physically alive here on this planet. This means that each person is responsible for doing their own self-examination test. This self-exam will determine their type of faith to insure they will be approved by God, or if they are lacking in correct faith. Or this test could result in the opposite answer of being rejected and show the need for repentance and improvement in certain areas to move them from rejected to accepted. Do you see the value of self-examination?

There are other areas in the Bible that confirm this belief. For example, do you remember what God said in 1 Corinthians 11:31? This verse says, “Judge yourself and you will not be judged”. This is a view of another command to do another self-examination, so that we have no need for a heavenly external examination and judgement by our God. Uh oh? It appears God has given humans a great participatory responsibility to contribute to their own salvation process and eternal destination. Therefore, let us move back to our main study subject of doing a “Faith” self-exam.

The only logical results of the faith test in 2 Corinthians are first the right answer, which is “my faith” is “present” and is “deemed acceptable” according to standards taught in the Word of God. However, the second answer that is not where we want to be, according to the placing of the G1 Alpha as the prefix, which reverses the state of being judged “acceptable”, and changes the evaluation to mean I tested my type of faith and I judged it to be deemed “worthless” or lacking in something that meets the level of God’s “acceptable” which potentially causes me to be rejectable.

Uh oh? This is more serious than we can imagine. Why would the Apostle Paul be writing a church containing previously saved Christians and telling them to test their faith; to determine its value from acceptable to worthless? This appears to say there could be many varying levels of a person’s faith beginning at not being saved having no faith, then rising to a newborn child’s unusable type of faith, and then potentially increasing and growing to a level called “acceptable” like God’s minimum standard that will keep us saved! Let us look at another verse that appears to confirm what we are being taught:

2 Thessalonians 1:3 – We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth; 

Notice how Paul is commending these people in the church of the Thessalonians. These people are being praised for the “growth” of their “faith” and their “love”. Wow! We should all be looking for this type of praise from God. Do you know what this means? This means these people are feeding and exercising their faith and love muscles and they are becoming stronger and more spiritually dominate in their walk in life towards others. This means what is on the inside in the spirit is growing and is coming to the outside to be seen as “fruit” in the natural realm.

Can we see that there are also implied growth levels above and below the level of what God called the “acceptable” level? Those that increase beyond acceptable are clearly of such value that these types of Christians are certainly viewed by Christ as more than the minimum type of faith that He is planning and designing to find? It should be very clear that levels of “Faith” can “Grow”. This means that “Faith” levels can also potentially “Decrease”. Let’s compare this statement of acceptable with another verse found in Romans 12:2:

Romans 12:2  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Please pay attention to the fact that God lists what appears to be three levels of His “will” being performed in someone’s life. Some preachers and teachers try to say these are not levels but rather they are just three synonymous descriptions of God’s will. This type of thinking appears to be established on the extreme position of God’s sovereignty and His will always being done in full to everyone, all the time. But this leads us to error and conflicts with other verses in the Bible that teach us God’s will is not being done unless we pray and ask for it. If you don’t believe this, look at the prayer Jesus taught the disciples to pray in Matthew 6:9-10. 

Let us examine quickly the definitions of the three Greek words that are in question to what they represent. The Greek word G18 was translated as “Good”. The word “Good” is certainly a very positive word and it can be viewed easily as the opposite of “bad” and “evil”. But notice how a good quality item could be potentially very far from a “perfect” quality level as in a “flawless” diamond. Would you rather buy a pretty good diamond or a flawless diamond?

We can clearly see in Genesis 1 that the term “Good” can have varying degrees of measure. The Hebrew word translated as “Good” occurs 7 times in Genesis 1 and the 7^th time it occurs it is adjusted with the modifier “Very” causing an implied greater or higher quality emphasis of a basic “Good” level of quality and value.

Also, pay attention to the term “Perfect” as compared to “Good”. In Ezekiel 28:15 God described the creation of Lucifer. In this verse God says, “You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created”. This Hebrew word H8539 translated as perfect, is defined “entire, without blemish, complete, full”. This description appears to describe Lucifer more like a “flawless diamond” and Adam like a “very good quality diamond”. If you agree or disagree, there is a difference being stated, otherwise why didn’t God describe Adam’s ways to be “perfect” also?

From these descriptions, we should be able to clearly see Lucifer’s level of perfection was not how God created our present world system it being described as only “very good”. This clearly teaches us “Good” has a potential range of measurable values which is less than perfection.

Next look at the term “Acceptable”. This is the Greek word G2101. Strong defines this word as something meaning “a thing that is fully agreeable or acceptable”. This definition alone implies there are levels of acceptance that are below this standard. For example, partially acceptable does not meet the fully acceptable level.

Consider the bartering of a sale of an item. The seller has a goal of the level that is acceptable to sell an item at to meet their desired value of the item. But the buyer has a different view of what is acceptable for them to pay for the item. As you can see there is usually a compromise upon each party to achieve the sale. Thus, further teaching the levels of “acceptable” for each person has a varying range.

It should be obvious that what is acceptable to God could be totally different than what is considered acceptable to every human. In fact, what is acceptable to one human can be radically different than what is acceptable to another.

For example, take the subject of abortion. Abortion is completely unacceptable to God. But to humans the range of acceptability can vary from it being completely unacceptable like God, then moving to it being acceptable in special cases. Then human attitudes can continue downward to the level of abortion being acceptable anytime, even after birth which at any level of acceptability, these types of humans’ “acceptable” are totally evil to God. Therefore, someone’s view of what is acceptable can vary in levels that are clearly measurable. But by what standards? We must use the Word of God to determine our definition of what is acceptable to Him.

Finally, analyze the Greek word G5046. This word was translated as “Perfect” in our verse. This word clearly defines an item’s type as one of the highest standards of measurement available. The Thayer dictionary defines the Greek word as “a level of completeness that lacks nothing to be considered fully accomplished”. In other words, this appears to be the “full” will of God being performed by someone without omitting any detail.

From what is easily observable by the Greek word definitions of the words “Good”, “Acceptable”, and “Perfect”, is that they are not describing the same levels of an item. What we are confirming is that God’s type of “Faith” measuring has multiple levels that can be measured. Therefore, in 2 Corinthians 13:5, where we are commanded to examine our faith to not be judged reprobates, it appears that God has set a minimum standard of “acceptable” for what He is returning to find on the earth.

However, remember what God writes to the church in Hebrews 12:2, “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith”. This appears to suggest that God is helping us to grow our faith. In other words, it is with God’s help that our faith begins and continues to grow. This means we are in a partnership with God, and we must cooperate with Him to continue to grow our faith. This means that God will “NOT” cause or force our faith level to grow without our participation.

Hopefully, you have learned in the Understanding Bible Faith series that faith is like a muscle. When a baby is born into this world, this child has all the muscles that are necessary to function but only with great assistance from a mature adult. However, we also understand, these muscles are not yet developed to be strong enough and coordinated enough to feed themselves, walk, or much less crawl, thus the need for a mother and a father to help sustain physical growth in the beginning of a baby’s faith training and education.

No, it takes weeks and months of feeding, growth and movement to develop an acceptable level of maturity to function like a human. I believe this is very similar to how a new Christian is born into the church body of Christ. They have “faith”, but it must be fed and exercised to cause growing and mature levels of acceptability.

Conclusion

We have just begun this series by establishing with scripture that we are required to have faith. But not just any kind of faith. Jesus has clearly implied that when He returns to the earth, “Faith” will be what He is looking for. This further implies that this is just not any kind of “Faith”. But based upon other scriptures God’s return to the earth is looking for a “Faith” in the works of the Son of God who is Jesus Christ.

Then we spent a lot of time looking at another verse in 2 Corinthians 8 that appears to command every individual church member to examine their faith to determine if it is an acceptable type of faith that God approves of. What we will hopefully find as we continue this study are the co-dependent qualities that must be joined with our faith to produce a type of faith that is working and alive. For example, we earlier say a type of “Faith” called “Dead” that is certainly not what God is looking to find.

We also found references to a “Fake” or “Pretend” type of “Faith”. This also is not a type of “Faith” that God is looking for. But we did find a type of “Faith” called “Growing” that was being praised. This seems to be the type of Faith that “a Christian” chooses to walk with God by Faith called the narrow “Path”, the correct path that leads us to eternal life.

The remainder of this series will deal with information about the qualities of “Faith” that are absolutely necessary for “Faith” to be acceptable, working and living “Faith”. I hope and pray that you are interested in this topic and can see how important it truly is.

Thank you for your valuable time. God’s Word is so amazing that all our time could be spent studying it. It is certainly that valuable, or it should be. God Bless you as we all continue to increase in the Knowledge of God’s Word.

If you would like to continue your study in the series, please go to “Part 2“.