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Our key faith verses:

1.      All things are possible to him or her who believes!

Mark 9:23 – Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes (NKJV).

2.      Fear is the enemy of faith, so: “Stop the fear!”

a.       Jesus has given every human the power to stop the fear.

b.      He has also given us the primary assignment in life:  “Only believe.”

Mark 5:36 – As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, He said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not be afraid; only believe” (NKJV).

B.            A renewed mind

1.      In order to receive a healing miracle from the Lord, it is essential that your mind is renewed to your righteous position with God.

a.       No one can “earn” their healing; it all has to do with faith and trust, not with works or holy living.

b.      Holy living is essential for a number of things, such as hearing the voice of the Lord regularly and fulfilling your divine assignment, but not for receiving the blessings of the Lord.

Colossians 3:1 – See yourselves co-raised with Christ! Now ponder with persuasion the consequence of your co-inclusion in him. Relocate yourselves mentally! Engage your thoughts with throne room realities where you are co-seated with Christ in the executive authority of God’s right hand (Mirror Bible).

2.      “Falling in Love” (by Francois du Toit)

It is so easy to believe when you know you are loved.

Galatians 5:6 says, “faith works by love.” Love sets faith into motion.

The Law presented man with choices; grace awakens belief!

Will power exhausts, love ignites.

If choices could save us, we would be our own saviors!

Will power is the language of the Law, love is the language of grace, and it ignites faith that leads to romance; falling in love beats “making a decision to believe in love”!

C.            Great faith springs up when you gain true understanding of who you are in Christ.

The following is taken from “Why the Mirror Translation” by Francois du Toit.

 Mankind has forgotten their Maker and in the process, their identity. You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth (Deut 32:18 RSV).

The mission of Jesus was not to begin the Christian religion. His mandate was to reveal and redeem the image and likeness of God in human form.

While none of Jesus’ siblings believed in him during the three years of his ministry, his brother, James, discovers his own true identity when Jesus appears to him after the resurrection (Jn 7:5, 1 Cor 15:4-7). James gives testimony to this life-changing discovery: We did not begin in our mother’s womb! “It was God’s delightful resolve to give birth to us; we were conceived by the word of truth.” The incarnation reveals the logic of mankind’s origin (Jas 1:18).

James continues in 1:23-25, “By being a mere spectator in the audience you underestimate yourself (you come to an inferior conclusion of who you really are). You are God’s poem. The difference between a mere spectator and a participator is that both of them hear the same voice and perceive in its message the face of their own genesis reflected as in a mirror; they realize that they are looking at themselves, but for the one it seems just too good to be true, he departs (back to his old way of seeing himself) never giving another thought to the person he saw there in the mirror.

“The other one is mesmerized by what he sees; he is captivated by the effect of a law that frees mankind from the obligation to the old written code that restricted them to their own efforts and willpower. No distraction or contradiction can dim the impact of what he sees in that mirror concerning the law of perfect liberty (the law of faith) that now frees one to get on with the act of living the life (of their original design). This person finds a new spontaneous lifestyle, the poetry of practical living.

“The law of perfect liberty is the image and likeness of God revealed in Christ, now redeemed in human life, as in a mirror. Look deep enough into that law of faith that you may see there in its perfection a portrait that so resembles the original that he becomes distinctly visible in the spirit of your mind and in the face of everyone you behold.”

A word in any language can be most fascinating. A seed stores the life energy and the genetic detail of a plant species in much the same way as thoughts and concepts are concealed in words and language. Individual words can greatly influence the meaning and interpretation of any conversation.

For many years deliberate as well as oblivious errors in translations were repeated and have empowered the religious institutions of the day to influence, manipulate and even abuse masses of people.

Consider the word metanoia, from meta, together with and nous, mind or mental awareness. This word suggests a radical mind shift; it is to realize God’s thoughts towards us. It is an awakening to the awareness of God's thoughts. To co-know!

Sadly this word has been translated regularly as “repentance,” which is an old English word borrowed from the Latin, which means penance. Then they added the “re” to get even more mileage out of sin consciousness. Re-penance. This gross deception led to the perverted doctrines of indulgences, where naive, ignorant people were led to believe that they needed to purchase favor from an angry god. Most cathedrals as well as many ministries were funded with this guilt money.

English translations do little to help us understand what repentance truly is. Until Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation, the word metanoia was commonly used. For instance, Tertullian wrote in 198 A.D., “In Greek, metanoia is not a confession of sins but a change of mind.” But despite this the Latin fathers begin to translate the word as “do penance” following the Roman Catholic teaching on doing penance in order to win God’s favor.

The business of religion desperately needs paying and returning customers. The entire system that trapped multitudes in their hierarchy of sin-consciousness was challenged and condemned by Jesus. In the genius of God, the Lamb of God took the sin of the world out of the equation!

Isaiah 55:8-11 gives meaning to metanoia: “your thoughts were distanced from God’s thoughts as the heavens are higher than the earth, but just like the rain and the snow would cancel that distance and saturate the soil to awaken its seed, so shall my word be that proceeds from my mouth.”

The Greek preposition meta, together with, implies another influence. This is where the Good News becomes so relevant since it appeals to our conscience to reason together with the Engineer of our original design where the authentic thought, the mind of God is realized again. The distance caused by Adam’s fall, compared to the distance between heaven and earth, is cancelled in the incarnation. Metanoia suggests a co-knowing with God! It is an intertwining of thought; it is to agree with God about me.

In Mark 11:22, Jesus says, “Have the faith of God.” Unfortunately, most translations say, “Have faith in God.” There is a massive difference between our beliefs and philosophies about God and God’s persuasion about us! God’s belief in you gives substance to your faith. Jesus is what God believes about you. Your belief in God does not define him; his faith in what he knows to be true about you defines you.

If our point of reference is not God’s faith in the finished work of Christ we have no valid gospel to preach. If our faith is not sourced and sustained in him as the mirror image of God revealed and redeemed in us we are deceiving ourselves with yet another religious disguise called Christianity.

Jesus is the face of the Father! “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.” This was his purpose, to resonate and redeem the Abba echo in every human heart. “You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you’ll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me!” (Jn 5:39, The Message. See also Lk 24:27, 44, 45.)

Jesus is what the Bible is all about, and you are what Jesus is all about. (John 5:39) 

Every invention begins with an original thought. You are God’s original thought. You are his initiative, the fruit of his creative inspiration, his intimate design and love-dream. The first Hebrew word in the Bible, בראשית bereshet, from berosh, literally means “in the head.” God had you in mind from the beginning. You are his work of art; his poem, says Paul in the Greek text of Ephesians 2:10.

Every human life is equally valued and represented in Christ. He gives context and reference to our being as in a mirror; not as an example for us, but of us. The ugly duckling saw reflected in the water the truth that freed the swan. Perceiving the completed work of your co-inclusion in all things that Christ possesses elevates your faith.  When your mind lines up with God’s faith, you realize there is nothing too hard for God, that no sickness is beyond what He can do to heal and restore your physical body.

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