Religious Faith vs. Genuine Faith
Well, praise Jesus today, everyone. Yesterday, I was by a river and I happened to see all of these fig trees. I thought to myself, "When these fig trees have fruit on them, I will come back and I'll collect some of these fig trees to make something with figs. That'll be fun, I'll tell my wife."
But then I took a closer look and I noticed that it already had figs on it. Some were small, some were big, and the closer I looked, I noticed that they had a lot of ripe figs. So, I was excited that there were figs. Some of the figs were already so ripe they were falling into the river, and so I went to go pick a few figs. And these were big figs, guys. I've had some figs that were just the smaller kind, and they're very sweet and delicious, but these were huge figs. And so, I picked one of the big figs and, to my disappointment, it was totally dried up and the inside of it was all rotten. And so, I went to another fig. I picked another one of the figs, and every fig that I was picking off that tree—every single one of them—was rotten and bad.
What it reminded me of is where Jesus talks about how a good tree produces good fruit and how bad trees produce bad fruit. This tree, no matter where you went on the tree and picked a piece of fruit, even if it looked good, it was bad. I just knew it doesn't matter if I go clear to the top of the tree or pick low—all of its fruit is bad.
The Curse of Fruitlessness
The other thing it reminded me of is when Jesus was with his disciples and he came to this fig tree that was supposedly out of season. He's hungry and he wants some fruit, but there's no figs on the fig tree. So, what Jesus does is he curses that fig tree and says, "Never again will you ever produce fruit." And immediately, the fig tree withers up and it dies.
People think, "How could the Creator do this? Why would he do something so evil? Why would he curse a fig tree?" In reality, it has to do with spirituality. Jesus doesn't just curse things just because, but it's an example of how much he hates a lack of fruit. When people don't produce good fruit, their very lives are cursed. When you're doing evil in the sight of God, your very life is cursed by God because sin brings about the curse of God in your life. And so, this fruit never produced fruit again.
A lot of nations are cursed by God because they choose, out of their rebellion, to rebel against God. The nation of Israel was one of those that chose to rebel against God. What Jesus said about them: "How many times did I want to gather you under my wings like a chicken gathers her chicks, but you were unwilling." And because the nation of Israel was unwilling to be gathered by God, the curse of God is on her head.
Now, many Christians have rebelled against God. Even though they appear to look good on the outside, they're kind of like that fig tree that I came to the other day by the river. On the outside, it looks like they have big fruit and it appears to be nice or developing— some of their fruit looks small, some looks big—but the fact is, inside it is rotten.
So, how can we tell the difference between good fruit and bad fruit? Sometimes, apparently, you can't even tell the difference until you taste it. So, not only just by looking can you tell, but by tasting that fruit. When I tasted that fruit, I knew it was all bad. All the fruit on the tree was bad.
Religious Faith vs. Experience-Based Faith
How can you tell the difference between a Christian's faith? How can you tell the difference? What I want to talk about is the difference between religious faith versus faith that is developed or brought about by experiences in life.
When a lot of Christians think about faith, they think about a very superficial kind of idea of faith. The term "faith" has mostly been hijacked by our vocabulary. When you think about faith, you think about certain principles or a faith-based religion—so, the Christian faith, or the Muslim faith, the Catholic faith—which really doesn't mean anything that has been attached to faith over history. It just means: what do those people believe systematically? What is their theology? This kind of faith, I would call just a religious faith.
In fact, a lot of Christians are born into a faith, which means just because they were born into a Catholic family, they're Catholic, or they're born into a Protestant family, so they're Protestant. But this doesn't actually amount to anything as far as what faith really means.
When you look at people from the scripture—the patriarchs, the men and women who really had faith—faith was an attribute of their character that was developed by getting to know God through experiences. For example, Abraham heard from God, and God told him to leave his area where he was living, and that God would add to him more children than the stars in the sky or the sand on the seashore. If he were to follow the one true God, God would bless him and make him a great nation. So, Abraham had to develop and, by faith, trust that God would keep his word to him. When he chose to be faithful to God, then he saw God acting on his promise, and then his faith was developed.
So, it wasn't that Abraham just had a set of religious beliefs, and that he just read his Bible, and that he just believed the things that his parents told him, therefore he was Catholic or therefore he was Protestant. Faith to Abraham meant putting his feet where God had told him to go, proving that he was a child of God by obedience, and then seeing God keep his word to him. As God would keep his word to him, then he knew that God was the one true God. God telling him, "In your old age, you will have a son," and then Abraham sees that his wife has Isaac—that increased his faith.
If we want this genuine kind of faith, this developed kind of faith, it's only built through experiences in our life where we have a sort of faith that says, "I believe that God will provide for me. I trust that he will provide for me. I know that he knows the best for me, so I'm not going to run ahead of him and do anything without his will." It's not just supposing that we're men and women of faith because we were born into some religion.
You Cannot Outsource the Holy Spirit
I think that some people—and I've noticed this over the years—they think that faith can be granted them by a holy person. So, they're looking for a certain pastor, or a certain preacher, or a certain man or woman that has the Holy Spirit. They think that because that wise virgin has oil in his or her lamp, somehow they can have that overspill into their life, or that they can get that oil from that specific person.
Quite a few people have come to me over the years, guys, who have thought that I could give them the Holy Spirit. Someone asked me the other day this question as well—and I'm not saying this to pick on anyone—but what they asked is, "Can you give me the Holy Spirit?" People wonder, "If I am baptized by the right person, or if you baptize me, am I going to come out of the water speaking in new tongues? Now you have spiritual power in you because I baptized you, or because this other brother baptized you that's filled with the Holy Spirit?"
The truth is, not even Jesus was able to perform miracles in some towns around Nazareth because people had no faith. What Jesus would tell people is, "It's in accordance to your faith." Because a lot of people in Jesus's own town didn't believe in him—they didn't believe in him as the one sent by God—he couldn't do any miracles there. Jesus couldn't give them the Holy Spirit, and neither can I give you the Holy Spirit. It's not been granted to me, or by Jesus, to give you the Holy Spirit if you have no faith.
But if you have faith and it's been granted to you by God, then you can pray for yourself and go to the one who sells free of charge and say, "My God, would you please give me your Holy Spirit? Can you give me the fire of truth that I can be filled with your spirit and your love? Can you fill me up?" And if you go to him who can grant you the Holy Spirit, and you know that he's not going to give you a serpent or a snake, but he's going to give you the gift of the Holy Spirit, then he will to those who knock. Remember, the door will be open; those who ask will find.
What you're looking for, you're going to find, for good or for evil. A lot of Christians are looking in all the wrong areas. They're looking for a man in hopes that that man will give them the truth and give them life. You're looking in the wrong spot if you're looking for people. People will disappoint you. Every person is, at best, a brother or a sister in the Lord, and at worst, they're a snake.
So, as your brother in Christ, I'm encouraging you to go and pray and ask the Lord. Say, "Lord Jesus, I need faith. I need to be restored." Whatever you need, pray in faith, and that will be done for you if you have genuine faith. But don't be going running to other people as if they can give you the Holy Spirit, as if it's been given to them to somehow, just as it were magic, give you the spirit, give you a gift of tongues, give you a gift of healing, give you the gift of helps, give you the gift of prophecy. A lot of you guys are chasing after signs and wonders instead of after holiness, true repentance, and the things that God actually desires for you.
Instead of looking for people, rather check your own heart and say, "Am I someone who really wants to work for faith? Am I someone that wants to develop with Jesus? Have I counted the cost of following the Lord?" Because genuine faith is not something you easily stumble on.
The Right Attitude
What I've seen happen a lot, guys, is someone comes wanting to be baptized, and me, out of the goodness of my heart, I will baptize you. Because at the end of the day, Jesus isn't going to curse me for baptizing you even if you had the wrong attitude. Or if you came to me asking for money and I gave you money, even if you were trying to scam me, it's never coming back as a curse to me because I gave out of the goodness of my heart, or I was preaching repentance out of the goodness of my heart, or doing what Jesus called me to do out of the goodness of my heart. But if you came with a wrong attitude, then the curse of your sin is on you.
I see too often people coming to want to be baptized, or coming to hear the message of repentance, not because they really want to repent and get right with God, but because they are joining in by intrigue. Like the prophet says, they're just intrigued by the gospel. They're intrigued by the supernatural; they're intrigued by things that happen in the spiritual realm. So, they want to see the signs and the wonders and the magic, so to speak, rather than put their faith in Jesus and do the hard work to daily and diligently follow him.
And so, these sorts of people, they will come for a baptism, they will come for a healing, and then when they don't receive the healing or the spirit, then they blame it on me, or they blame it on the preacher, or they blame it on the person that baptized them. Because they think, "It couldn't be me who had a wrong heart. It must be them. They must have not been holy enough to baptize me and give me the Holy Spirit. They must have not been holy enough to fix my problem, or they must not be holy enough to heal me."
Even Jesus would heal people, and some of those people would go back to their sin. People wouldn't even thank Jesus. Remember, for example, those lepers that came to Jesus looking for a healing? Jesus could heal them, but only one of those ten came back and had gratitude in his heart. And Jesus said, "What about the other nine? Did they not also receive a healing? What about them?" Those guys only wanted a healing and then they ran right back to the world. But only one out of the ten realized that there was a miracle and gave glory to God and worshiped Jesus. Only one.
So, it seems like most people, of course, they want a miracle, they want to see God work in their life, but very few people are good soil or good seed in good soil, wanting to produce fruit.
Overcoming Daily Temptation
Genuine fruit is difficult to come by because it doesn't come naturally. You have to choose daily to deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow Jesus. It seems like a lot of people think that God is going to do everything for them. They think that once they come to genuine faith, because Jesus already died on the cross, they will instantly not lust anymore, all the desire to sin will just be taken from them, they will never get sick anymore, they will never experience pain or suffering—everything will just be done for them because Jesus tacked it on the cross 2,000 years ago.
They're living in a fantasy land. They don't understand that we have to pick up our cross. We have to daily deny ourselves and choose to go the right way with Jesus over the wrong way of sin. That is extremely difficult. That is the work that we have to do as Christians: bearing good fruit. The more that we choose to do right, then we get better at rejecting evil, at overcoming temptation.
But that doesn't mean that temptation just goes away, or that Satan tries to stop tempting us. Even though I am dedicated to Jesus, I still am tempted by Satan. And so, when I go to bed at night, I make sure that I pray with my wife and my family, and I say, "Keep us from sexual temptation. Keep us from falling into lust. Keep us from falling into all of the worries of the world and all the doubt that comes into this life. Help us just touch nothing that's unclean and stay unstained from the world." Because if you're going to bed and not praying, and your mind is wandering, that is when Satan's going to come in and he's going to try to sift you.
So, you need to keep yourself prayed up. You need to continue to pray and say, "Lord Jesus, put your hedge of protection around me. I pray that your spirit can fill me. I pray to be listening to you and to be moved by your spirit, and only by your spirit, and that other spirits would not push me around, or tempt me, or distract me, or get into my spiritual life like arrows from the devil." We need to be very persistent in putting on the full armor of God and resisting the devil because it's not going to happen just by default.
So many Christians, it seems, think that when Jesus comes into their life, or when another man of God preaches the truth, then all temptation's just going to go away. They think they don't have to worry about daily denying themselves. How has that panned out for you? Everyone that's been walking with God a minute or two realizes that temptation never goes away. Jesus was tempted, every one of the patriarchs was tempted, all of us are tempted in many ways. But we get better at overcoming sin and temptation the more we choose good ourselves, and choose to feed the spirit and not the flesh.
If you want to develop genuine faith, it comes from feeding your spiritual man or your spiritual woman and not feeding the flesh. You are never going to make it into the kingdom of God simply because you were called a person of faith because you were born into a Christian home.
How do you do this? It happens through constantly growing with Jesus. Each time that you have a temptation come into your life, even the little temptations, choose to cast out what is evil from your mind. All sin starts when it comes into your mind, whether it's lust or anger. Whatever the temptation is, it first enters your mind to do it. So, when those things are entering your mind, rebuke those evil thoughts in the name of Jesus, realize that you're under spiritual attack, and then pray that the Lord Jesus gives you the power to overcome.
Each time that you choose good over evil, then you start to be developed in your faith and you start to realize the Lord rewards you for choosing good over evil, even when it's difficult. When you choose to tell the truth in the workplace, even though you may suffer the consequence for that, then the Lord blesses you and you realize, "Oh, the Lord is providing for me, even though I thought that I wouldn't have the money or income or whatever it is." By you choosing to follow the Lord, you are developing your faith as you see Jesus work in your life. So, continue to pray, continue to worship Jesus.
Discipleship Starts at Home
The other thing that stands out for me as far as developing your own faith is, as your faith develops, you make disciples of the people around us. For example, when I first got married and I was coming into my relationship with Jesus, my relationship with Jesus spilled over to my wife, and it became this really wonderful thing that built our marriage on the rock of Jesus from the beginning. I'm so grateful that I met Jesus at the very beginning of my marriage because, instead of my marriage being built on the religious faith of the church and what people were trying to make our marriage be, instead my faith was built on the truth of Jesus and trusting him, obeying him, and growing in real genuine faith.
And then after we had children, instead of my children being raised in church and just developing in religion, I could then have that overspilling of my life, of my faith, and my prayer life. All of that poured into my children. Because the things I was learning—all of those things—were spilling out of my life, then my children, instead of by default growing up in church and religion, they were growing up in genuine faith. It's been really a wonderful thing to see.
I have now five children. It's a really wonderful thing to see them grow in the joy of the Lord and really putting together what it means to have faith. I didn't have exactly that when I was growing up. Although I did have faith at times, mostly what I knew was religion. At some point, Jesus did speak to me and I started to realize the difference between what just religious kind of faith was and what really developing faith in the Lord meant. But how wonderful is that, to grow up in a family that teaches you what genuine faith is?
A lot of us as parents didn't have that. So, to be that to your children if you are a parent is really the most valuable thing because we want to bring our children into the kingdom of God. One thing that I think about is my children are the ones I've been given spiritual authority over. I haven't been given spiritual authority over people on YouTube or my neighbor, but those of my own household. I've been given spiritual authority over my children, my wife, and they're the ones that I am responsible for as a husband and as a father.
If you are a father or a mother, you're also responsible for your own family. You're responsible to help your children develop in their faith, develop real faith, learn how to pray, to talk to Jesus, have a prayer life, read their Bible, and develop good habits that will build them in the kingdom of God instead of the kingdom of the world. If you learn how to do that as a parent, you're going to greatly help yourself and your family to stay in the truth. You learn to pray, and by doing that, you're making disciples.
A lot of Christians that are just religious, they think of discipleship as a church program, or maybe going on a mission trip and making disciples overseas, but they totally forget about their own family. It's not a pastor's job to disciple your children. It's not a pastor's job to disciple your wife. It's your job as a husband and as a leader to disciple your wife and your family. That starts, of course, by you being a disciple, by you reading the Bible, by you applying the words of Jesus to your life, and by you being 100% devoted to Jesus.
100% Devoted
I was thinking about this the other day—how a lot of Christians have coined this term called "devotions." To them, devotions means spending time with a devotional or devoting 20 minutes of their time to God. When you think about it, that's ridiculous because God doesn't want Christians that devote 20 minutes of their life to him; he wants us to be 100% devoted to him. So, instead of just doing a devotional, you give 100% of yourself to God. Then, because you're devoted to God 100%, you become a disciple 100%, and then you're able to make disciples 100%.
By doing life that way with Jesus, you really develop genuine faith and you have real fruit—not this kind of fruit, you know, that looks good on the outside. A lot of Christians have fruit that looks good on the outside. You'll find Christians that appear to have genuine love; they're very thoughtful, very caring, they will give things to you, and in all these ways, they're helpful. But you find that their fruit is disingenuous on the inside.
We don't want to be the kinds of Christians that have a fig that looks big and juicy on the outside, but on the inside, it's all rotten. We want to be pure and holy on the inside. That way, the love of Jesus, true worship, and righteousness flows out of us.
So, that's all I have for today, guys. But I do want to pray for those of you that want to devote 100% of yourself to Jesus and develop the genuine faith that God requires.
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, I pray for those who are listening today. I pray that someone may hear your voice, not my words, but that they may hear your word—that they may hear the word of life and that they may devote their life to you. I pray that they may repent of their sins and become a good tree that produces good fruit.
I pray that you purify them on the inside so that they can also be pure on the outside. I pray that we can be washed clean from immorality, from all the wickedness that's in the world. We pray not to have any addictions. We pray not to be addicted to anything in this world or tempted by the things of Satan, but that we could truly seek first your kingdom and your righteousness, and be filled with the glory of God so that we can bear good fruit and be your children.
I pray for your true church, Lord Jesus, and that someone today would be edified, put their faith in you, overcome sin, and inspire others to do the same. In your name I pray, Lord Jesus. Amen.
