BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

******************************** POINTS TO GET YOU THERE: developing faith God has deposited in your spirit His own life- producing faith. It's yours to use just like He does, to create where creation is needed and to move mountains that stand in your way. To use your faith effectively, however, you can't just focus on externals, thinking and talking like unbelievers do. You must develop your spirit and learn to live like someone from another world. Here are some points to get you there: 1. Your reborn spirit is the real you, the central core of your identity. Romans 8:9: "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you." 2. Your spirit is what makes you alive. John 6:63: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." 3. Keep your spirit strong and your faith well-nourished by feeding on The WORD. Proverbs 4:20, 22: "My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. For they are life unto those that find them, and health [medicine] to all their flesh." 4. Exercise your spirit by praying in other tongues and walking in love. Jude 1:20-21: "But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God...." 5. Don't expect the world to understand your lifestyle of faith. 1 Corinthians 2:14: "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." ****************************** ****article from page 7******** Because faith can be used up, it needs to be fed a regular diet of The WORD. The problem is, most Christians don’t realize that. So while they’re feeding their outer man three meals a day, their inner man is starving. Don’t do that! Don’t feed your physical body full of food and put your spirit on a fast. If you’re going to fast one or the other, fast the flesh and feed the spirit! Build Some Spiritual Muscle Of course, there’s more to spiritual development than just eating. You also need to get plenty of exercise. If you’re not sure how to do that, you can start by following the instructions in Jude 1:20-21: “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” According to those verses, praying in the spirit, or in other tongues, gives your inner man a workout. It strengthens your spiritual muscles. It builds you up on your “most holy faith.” Why is it “most holy faith”? Because when you pray in an unknown tongue, your natural mind doesn’t get involved and foul things up. You’re speaking directly from your spirit so the Holy Spirit can give you words to pray according to the perfect will of God. (See Romans 8:26-27.) “Well, I tried that and it didn’t help me any,” someone might say. That’s because you didn’t do it by faith. Jesus said, “Whatsoever thing you desire when you pray, believe you receive it, and you shall have it.” He didn’t just tell us to do that only when we pray with our understanding. He said, believe you receive when you pray—whether it’s in the spirit in other tongues or in a known language. Both those kinds of prayer are valid. The Apostle Paul settled that in 1 Corinthians 14:15 when he said, “I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also.” He also instructed us in that chapter to pray to interpret when we pray in other tongues so that our mind can bear fruit. But even if you don’t get the interpretation right away, you can still believe you receive when you pray. The words you said might be a mystery to you, but you can release your faith anyway and say, “I believe what I prayed came from the Spirit of God, and I believe I receive it, while it’s still a mystery!” Another kind of spiritual exercise mentioned in Jude 1:21 is this: Keep yourselves in the love of God. Love is absolutely vital to the development of your faith because “faith...worketh by love” (Galatians 5:6). Where there’s no love, there’s no faith. So stir up the love of God on the inside of you. Feed your spirit on what The WORD says about it and get lots of spiritual exercise by walking in it every single day. Even if the world around you doesn’t understand what you’re doing, keep living like someone from another world, because the reality is...you are. V 8 : B V O V

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