Faith makes us Pleasing to God, for Faith is to Believe that God is and We are NOT

Without faith it is impossible to please God, to make Him happy, for whoever comes forward to God must believe that God is; we need to believe that God is and we are not – this is the real denial of the self, and this is faith.

All believers in Christ, those who had a genuine divine birth in their spirit by receiving salvation to be born of God, have a sixth sense, a believing ability; this sense substantiates the things unseen or hoped for, the things of God.

We cannot see God with our human eyes, we cannot touch Him with our hands, we can’t smell Him or hear Him physically, but we can contact Him and substantiate the things concerning Him by means of our believing ability which came from His infusing.

Our five senses help us substantiate the things of the physical world to make them real to us subjectively; for instance, by means of our nose with its sense of smell, we can detect when there’s smoke, perfume, a fresh cooked meal, or a bad smell.

How can we “detect” God? How can we substantiate God? As the eye is to seeing, the ear to hearing, and the nose to smelling, so our spirit of faith is the organ whereby we substantiate God and everything in the unseen spiritual world.

Faith is not in our mind but in our spirit; our mind is still fallen, filled with doubts, opinions, and thoughts that many times we cannot associate ourselves with, but our spirit is filled with faith.

Therefore, we must exercise our spirit of faith, which is our mingled spirit, to believe and to speak the things which we have experienced of the Lord.

When we exercise our spirit of faith, we regard the things that are not seen, realizing that the things we can see and touch physically are temporary, but the things unseen, the things of God, are eternal. Our Christian life is a life of things unseen, and as we experience Christ daily we are being recovered from things seen to things unseen.

The heavenly ministry of Christ is unseen, but it is real and wonderful to us when we exercise our spirit of faith. Everything of God and of Christ, with all that He is and has done, is real to us in the mingled spirit, our spirit of faith.

Without Faith it is Impossible to Please God, for he who comes forward to Him must Believe that God Is

Faith is so crucial to our Christian life that Heb. 11:6 says that without it, it is impossible to please God, to make God happy. Many people think that it is pleasing to God to do many things, such as give money to the poor, help the needy, do good deeds, etc, but all these things don’t make you more pleasing to God at all!

What makes God happy is faith; all those who come forward to God must believe that He is (Heb. 11:6; cf. Gen. 5:22-24). Without faith it is impossible to make God happy, but when we have faith, when we exercise our spirit of faith to believe in God, we are pleasing to Him.

God doesn’t require us to do many things for Him: He simply wants us to believe that God is. God’s only requirement is that we believe that He is; the verb “to be” is the divine title of our Triune God.

When Moses was called by God to deliver His people from Egypt, God told him that His name was, “I AM WHO I AM” (Exo. 3:13-14). Our God is the One who is; He was, He is, and He will be – He simply is.

When the Lord Jesus came, He declared that He was the I AM three times in John 8:24, 28, 58; at one point the Jews wanted to kill Him because He said that He is Jehovah, the I AM. God wants us to believe that He is.

The fact that God is has a positive and a negative aspect. Positively, the fact that God is means that He is everything we need. Negatively, the fact that God is means that we are not – only He is.

Positively, whatever we need – God is. Jesus said concerning Himself that He is the bread of life (John 6:35), He is the door (John 10:7, 9), He is the good Shepherd (John 10:11), He is the life (John 14:6), He is the resurrection (John 11:25), etc. Christ is also the bread of life (John 20:22), the living water as the Spirit (John 4:10, 14), and the tree of life (John 15:1; 14:6; Rev. 2:7).

Christ is everything to us. Whatever we need, He is. Do we need comfort? He is our comfort. Do we need peace? He is our peace. Do we need delight? He is our satisfaction and delight. He is everything to us.

On the negative side, we need to realize that, since God is, we are not. He is everything and everyone, and we are nothing. This is why the Lord said that, if we want to follow Him, we need to deny the self, take up the cross, and follow Him.

To deny the self is to realize that God is and we are not, and we are organically joined to Him; now we live our Christian life in faith, allowing Christ to live in us. May we be those who are pleasing to God, those who believe that God is, and that He is a rewarder to those who diligently seek Him!

Lord Jesus, we come forward to You, believing that You are, and that You are a rewarded of those who diligently seek You! Amen, Lord, You are and we are not! You are our life, our peace, our joy, our rest, our supply, and our everything. Lord, You are our bread of life, our living water, our spiritual breath, our good Shepherd, and the tree of life. We believe that You are and that we are not. Lord, You are everything and we are nothing. We put ourselves aside, we join ourselves to You, and we want to remain in this organic union with You!

The real Denial of the Self is to Believe that God is and we are not; this is Faith

If you read Heb. 11:6 together with Luke 9:23 you will realize that to believe that God is equals to deny the self and follow the Lord. To believe that God is, is to deny the self; in the whole universe He is, and all of us are nothing – this is faith.

Faith, believing into God, is to stop ourselves from doing anything and take God as our source and everything, for we are not – but He is. When we are about to do something, go somewhere, or buy something, we need to stop, check with the Lord, touch Him, and take Him as our source.

In our family life, the husband needs to realize that he is not – he’s not the one living, but Christ should be living in him, Christ should be the One loving his wife and caring for his family in him.

When we go shopping, we may know what we need, and there may be things that we desire; we need to stop inwardly, take God as our source and everything and let Him shop in us.

Faith is to stop us from doing anything and make God everything to us.

Paul testified of this experience in Gal. 2:20 when he said that he was crucified with Christ, and it was no longer him who lived (that is, he stopped himself, he denied himself, he had faith), and the life he lived, he lived in faith – the faith of the Son of God.

The real denial of the self is to believe that God is, and to believe that God is equals denying the self. We should not be anything – we should not exist, but Christ should be everything, and He should be the One living in us.

The normal Christian life is “not I but Christ”. Many think that being a Christian means you have to do this and that, go to that place and give money, etc; Christian life is Christ is and we are not – He lives in us, and we live by faith, the faith of the Son of God.

Saul of Tarsus was a young man, aggressively serving God in himself and by himself; one day the Lord met him, knocked him down, and Saul asked Him, Who are You, Lord? The Lord told him, I am Jesus (Acts 9:5).

The Lord was actually saying, I am the great I am, I am the One who is, and you must believe that I am and you are not. Ever since Saul of Tarsus met Jesus, he was a different person, for he realized that Jesus Christ is the I AM – He is, and Saul was not; therefore, he changed his name to Paul (Acts 13:9).

When we believe into the Lord, we realize that He is so wonderful, and He is everything to us; then, our baptism is a declaration that, by believing in this One, we are no more, we are terminated, and from now on it is Christ who lives in us.

John Nelson Darby once said, “O the joy of having nothing and being nothing, seeing nothing but a living Christ in glory, and being careful for nothing but His interests down here.” This is faith.

Faith is to realize that God is everything and that we are nothing, and faith is to care only for God and His interest. This makes God happy. This makes us pleasing in His eyes. This is what God wants from us.

Lord Jesus, grant us to realize that You are and we are not. You are everything, and we are nothing. We believe that You are everything and everyone, and that we are nothing in everything. Oh, what a joy to have nothing, be nothing, and see nothing, but a living Christ in glory! What a joy to care for nothing but Christ’s interests here on the earth! Lord Jesus, we are crucified with You, and it is no longer we who live – but Christ lives in us! Amen, Lord, may our Christian life be a life of no longer I but Christ!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans, msgs. 7-8, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Cooperating with the Heavenly Ministry of the Ascended Christ (2017 Spring ITERO), msg. 8 (week 8), Cooperating with Christ in His Heavenly Ministry by Running with Endurance the Race Set before Us, Looking Away unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of Our Faith.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Not I, but Christ be honored, loved, exalted, / Not I, but Christ be seen, be known and heard; / Not I, but Christ in every look and action, / Not I, but Christ in every thought and word. (Hymns #591)
  # I am crucified with Christ / And it is no longer I who liveth, / But it is Christ who lives in me; / And the life which I now live / In the flesh, I live in faith— / The faith in the Son of God / Who loved and gave Himself up for me. (Scripture song)
  # O the joy of having nothing and being nothing, seeing nothing / But a living Christ in glory, / And being careful for nothing but His interests down here. (Song on J. N. Darby’s quote)