Over the last weeks we have been looking at two fundamental approaches to understanding God’s word. One is spawned from an environment where everything is outward performance and this naturally results in approaching God’s word in the same way—as a giant list of do’s and don’ts for us to outwardly perform. The other is the inner faith approach which takes the word of God and simply believes it, without any add-ons or qualifiers. Important to this approach is the realization that God Himself—the How-Great-Thou-Art Almighty God who created the universe and all that is in it—IS the Word of God and He lives in us. It is the word of God that contains the power to call into being that which does not exist.

God uses His own life, as the Living Word, to accomplish faith in us. We can trust that every verse in God’s word is tested; we can take refuge in it as a protective shield. (Proverbs 30:5). It will revive us (Psalm 119:25), strengthen us (Psalm 119:28), comfort us (Psalm 119:49-50), and sustain us. (Psalm 119:116). It will establish our footsteps in the ways of God’s leading. (Psalm 119:133). It produces our surrender. (Philippians 2:13). We have faith that the Lord is executing His word on the earth quickly and thoroughly, and we who believe in Him will not be disappointed. (Romans 9:28, 33). We rejoice that the word is always near us, even in our mouths and in our hearts. (Romans 10:8). It is the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17), and it is Truth. (Psalm 119:160). In it we find loving-kindness, salvation, delight, love; a place where we can seek after the Lord and His speaking, where we can meditate and lift Him up, where we can walk at liberty. (Psalm 119:41-48).

In this Foundational Truth Series we have taken the first three days to describe one approach to understanding God’s Word. We have temporarily labeled it the “outward performance” approach to God’s Word. Now, we are in the third day of describing what we have labeled temporarily as the “inner faith” approach to understanding God’s Word. We have gone direct to scripture to see how the power of Almighty God is in the “Word of God” (Jesus) and in the words Jesus spoke to heal the sick, raise the dead, and calm the storms. We also explored a number of verses that revealed that this How-Great-Thou-Art Almighty God is now living in us! We have all the power that sustains the universe in us.

Today, let’s connect the dots and add more verses to reveal what all of God’s mighty power has to do with this “inner faith” approach to understanding God’s Word.

Yesterday we saw from Genesis to Revelation that the How-Great-Thou-Art Almighty God speaks into existence everything according to His will. It is awe inspiring to know that this very God is our Father. But still, if we only had yesterday’s verses to go by we would have the impression of our God as external to us, perhaps far removed, and aloof. Today, let’s look at some more scripture to see God at work in His creation presently.

• “For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13). [Who is at work? God is! Where is He at work? In us! Does it say that He is working only IF we let Him? No. He is working according to His will and good pleasure, not according to our will and preferences. He is not waiting for our beck and call; God’s WILL is His progressive and continuous working in me, not something I try to align myself with or try to figure out!]

In the last few days I have painted a picture of my life as a Christian where everything about it was a matter of outward performance. I lived my life according to a list of do’s and don’ts and I approached God’s word as a giant extension of my personal list of do’s and don’ts for me to live up to and try to comply with. For the moment, I am referring to this as the “outward performance” approach to understanding God’s word. I will change this term later to a scriptural term, but right now I want you to understand the essence of this approach and not get distracted by a “label.” The essence of this approach is outward, it attempts to follow rules, and it leads to a sense of failure and discouragement.

Now let’s explore an entirely different approach to understanding God’s word. This may take us a few days as well to get the whole picture of this environment. I have given this the label of the “inner faith” approach to understanding God’s word. I will change this label later as well. This approach simply takes God’s word in context (both locally and globally) and believes in what the verse says as true without any qualifications or add-ons. It believes that the word of God contains the Almighty power necessary to carry out what the verse is declaring. To see this more clearly, let’s take some verses and connect the dots between them. They will help us to get a better sense of this wonderful environment. Take your time and review each verse and prayerfully consider what these verses have to do with this “inner faith” approach to understanding scripture:

This series of blogs is exploring two fundamental approaches to understanding God’s word. One approach frequently leads to guilt and stress, while the other yields the fruit of peace, joy and rest in the Christian’s life. That sounds like a no-brainer doesn’t it? Who would intentionally adopt the approach that leads to more anxiety and stress in life? Yet I will venture a guess that a majority of Christians, at some point in their Christian walk with the Lord, find themselves practicing the former method leading to stress rather than the latter method leading to peace when approaching an understanding of God’s word.  Why?

I can’t answer this question for others, but I know the answer as it applies to my own experience. I practiced a method of understanding God’s word that led to stress and anxiety for nearly forty years. It wasn’t that I intentionally adopted such a method, knowing that it would stress me out. I simply absorbed it as part of an overall approach to Christian living that I was raised up to understand was godly and correct. It was based on a fundamental belief that because God saved me and gave me a “ticket” to get into heaven, it was now my responsibility to live my life worthy of that calling. This belief assumes that every real Christian, after they make a decision to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior, will immediately begin to display certain traits in their life (previously referred to as my lists of Do’s and Don’ts). These so-called Christian attributes were all outward, capable of being monitored by the Christian personally and observed by every other Christian coming into contact with this believer.