The 4 dimensions of faith

I would like you to accompany me to the book of Hebrews chapter 11, I am going to start talking about a topic that may be well known to many, but God has directed me to meditate on it. Hebrews chapter 11, in verse 1, this is a text that many of us are familiar with. And Lord, before continuing, I only ask that these brief minutes that I am going to be meditating on Your word with my brothers and sisters, Lord, that this word come alive, that it acquire a new, refreshing meaning for each one of us, Lord, and that, in some way or another You use it to affirm our hearts, to affirm our conviction, our faith in You Lord. So, we launched my God believing that every seed that is released will fall on good soil, and that You will use it to produce good fruit in the hearts of my brothers and sisters. We thank you in the name of Jesus.

Hebrews 11, verse 1 says this, if we can all read it together with me: "faith is the certainty of what is hoped for, the conviction of what is not seen." Two keywords related to faith, certainty and conviction, although the two are more or less the same, it's like one is the cousin of the other so to speak. But they all have to do with this sense of security. And I would like to meditate with you today about, at least beginning, a beginning, because I would like to talk about several things that I know I will not be able to cover all of them today, but at least begin to talk to you about these dimensions of faith, dimensions of faith in our lives, and this may sound familiar to some of you because it is something that I talk about in my level four discipleship class when we are talking about the fruit of faith, but today I would like to cover this topic with all of you and start it, also share it with those who see us on the internet and that it can be a blessing.

But there is something that I have been meditating on regarding this dynamic of faith, and it is that our lives my brothers and sisters, in our lives faith can be said to have four main dimensions, there are four types of faith that are in us but that they remain faith, whatever it may be. And these four that I have been able to identify obviously from the biblical context are four areas that I would like to discuss, meditate with you, reflect with you, to rather use it as a way of reinforcing those things in which we believe. And there are four areas. One is the faith that has to do with our salvation. The faith that leads to salvation. The second is what has to do precisely with conviction. The third is faith that has to do with fidelity, a sense of fidelity, of being faithful, and the fourth dimension is the gift of faith. Four different things but all are related to what faith is.

You had thought about this before, it had crossed your mind, that faith has these four dimensions in our life, there is faith that leads to salvation, and I am going to explain this a little today, there is faith that has to do with With this certainty, as this text from Hebrews 11 says so well, certainty, something that one hopes for, that perhaps we do not see but that we know is there, there is faith that has to do with the gift of faith that is spoken in First Corinthians 12, which is I would say is a level beyond certainty, and then there is faith that has to do with the fruit of the Spirit that has to do with faithfulness. I am going to discuss these four areas, but today I would like to start talking about the faith that leads to salvation, if that dynamic of salvation is not there, it can be said that we do not have faith, it is just like hope at a general level.

Look how Romans says another very familiar verse for us, Romans chapter 10 says beginning in verse 8: "and this is the word of faith that we preach, that if you confess that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes for justice, but with the mouth one confesses for salvation." Look how interesting my brothers, that sense of original faith, I would say that it is the most essential faith, the fundamental faith, it is the faith that begins this entire journey of our relationship with the Lord Jesus. When we did not know him, when we were in our adventures in the world, I dare to say that it was not activated in us. Yes, we often live with a sense of hope, and there are many people who do not have the Lord and that sense of hope, the different experiences of life have robbed them of their hope, so they walk around in other words hopeless. People who live as they say from the plate to the mouth, and have no sense of things to look at or aspire to in the future. They are like who says singing around there all the time. He is the type of person who says, well, whatever comes, we'll get our hands on it. And fine that's fine. But how sad it is to live a life without a clear hope, without a hope that is encouraging, without a hope that is like your engine that gets you up every morning and drives you to do what you have to do.

That level of hope is what takes on a new life when the Lord Jesus activates that sense of faith in us. And this can be said to be a theological debate, because there are people who say that we are the ones who produce that faith, that faith of believing in God, and there are people who say that it is God who activates that faith in us, I am from that I think it's both working at the same time, I never like to say it's one or the other, both, why, obviously this passage from Romans says that if I believe it and confess it, that's where the salvation, but at the same time for me to believe that and confess it, it is because something has to be activated, as they say, something external to me has to activate that in my life, in my heart.

How many people have we not come across throughout our lives. I can talk about many people who come up to me and say oh pastor, do something with my son my daughter, and pull his ears and I say to myself wow, if you in the 15, 16 years of your life have not managed to do nothing what difference am I going to make. The most I can do is listen to him, talk to him, talk to her, pray for him, pray for her, but if it's not in him, if it's not in the boy, the girl has to reconsider, do something, she won't go away. to give. And I understand my brothers that there are stages in life in which we sow in life, we are sowing a seed of faith in those hearts. But it is not until God says like that, now is My time in your life. That is when I understand that when God puts his fingertip in that person's heart, that person will not be able to resist it.

If I give you an illustration, I don't know how many of you have seen Tom Cruise's War of the Worlds movie, which is one of these so-called Martians who come, fall like lightning and reach the depths of the earth and suddenly these machines come out and like that, they start to destroy everything, and so, ok I see that many of you don't like science fiction, I'm going to have to think of another illustration. But hey, imagine that there is a hidden machine under the earth that nobody knows is there, and suddenly a storm of lightning and sparks like the one there was today, and in one of those rays something tiny arrives that penetrates deep down, he gets into that machine, activates it and makes it work. Imagine something like that. That in us many times I say that in us is that essence of God, that image of God, that because of our sinful nature that nature of God is like, asleep, numb, insensitive, but it is there, and people pray, he comes, we lay hands on him, we preach the bible from cover to cover but nothing works.

We tell him, eat the bible, it's going to taste like honey on your palate, and we want to shove it down his throat, but nothing works, neither fu nor fa, it doesn't move anywhere. But suddenly when you least expect it, you're like this with your eyes closed praising God, and when you open your eyes the person you've been praying for for years is here at the altar crying broken before God and it's like wow, where did that come from. That husband I was praying for suddenly came home from the men's congress this weekend and he came there crying, oh my love forgive me for everything I've done to you, God has touched me and I'm going to be a different man , praise God for that, that young man or teenage daughter who has been giving you headaches for years and years and years suddenly after he left home and said he was going to live his life two, three, four years passed , and you there praying faithfully for that son daughter, suddenly he comes knocking on the door of your house saying mommy daddy, I need to go back, forgive me, God has spoken to me, God has touched me, I want to straighten my steps with the Lord, look at that it is something that only God does.

You can, oh wow, God knows what you're doing so if the drop of water is falling on you let it fall and get wet. But look here, I believe that the beauty of the Lord is there. We understand that Jesus himself says, or the word of the Lord says, rather, that the reason why Jesus Christ came into the world is so that everyone who believes in Him does not perish, but has eternal life, there is a promise of hope , a promise of eternal life that if I put my trust in this person, in this divine being, I know that I will have a life that is to come, that will surpass everything that I am living now, that sense of Hope, even Billy Graham can preach it to me, but it's not until God truly breathes into my heart that that word comes alive and makes me come to my senses and say like, ok, Lord, it's been a long time.

There are some who at an early age say yes Lord, do with me as You want, there are others who already when they are there on the brink of death, about to kick the bucket and now and say I don't give anymore, someone comes and tells them look accept the Lord Jesus is going to touch you, he is going to transform you, and you go straight to heaven with everything and boots so to speak, and there in his last breath Lord, I accept you in my heart, and now, he expired and left , there are times when there are questions that they ask me, but how can it be that that tired man, that scoundrel, after he did everything he did, that there in his last breath that he is going to go with the Lord, hey, that is the grace of God. For some it may sound unfair but hey, what happened to the thief who was next to Jesus, right there on the cross Jesus himself says to him: hey, truly I tell you that today you will be where? in hell rotting, no, you will be with me in the kingdoms of heaven. So He is the one who has mercy, the one who has to have mercy, but He is the one who activates it in the person.

And I believe my brothers that this dimension of faith is key for us to understand it. I cannot fabricate a faith, as I would say, artificial, thank you. I cannot fabricate an artificial faith for whoever claims to enter into that dynamic of salvation. I do believe in the fact that when God activates something in me, when God begins to say look, you've hit a wall, two three four times, think again, I'm here, you have to do something with me . When God brings that feeling to my heart, that sense of conviction, that's when that other part that was in Romans is activated where then I can believe something, in my heart and because I believe it then I confess it. And when I confess that, a totally revolutionary dynamic of faith is activated in my life and in the life of anyone who declares it. This is how I believe my brothers.

And I want to invite you so that we can meditate on this. I want you to join me in a journey on these next Wednesdays so that we are going to be sharing the word of God. We're going to get into a faith journey, because faith has many dimensions that are based on those four areas that we were talking about. And look like this, many times, as you said, one despairs wow three four years I have to wait, ish, how long have the people who have preceded us had to wait. How much God also waited for us. Hey, if I start doing a survey of how much God has waited for you, very interesting stories would come out here, very interesting. I don't know how many times I've shared this, but if you don't remember I'll tell you again. Imagine this. Imagine how that sense of faith is activated. Imagine that you are a fish in a lake, and God is sitting in a little boat, fishing, and God chooses one of his hooks that He knows you will like, that when that hook falls into the water you are going to be mesmerized. of that hook. And when that hook falls there you take it, which is what the fish does when it feels the hook in its mouth, it goes crazy and what it does is move away from the boat, or from the fisherman's little boat, it starts pulling in different directions, trying to to escape trying to leave, but that hook is there, and the fisherman there giving him line giving him line oh don't worry, fight all you want, and keep giving him line line line, until the moment comes where the fisherman already sees that the little fish has gotten tired and is not pulling much anymore and he says ok now it's my turn to pull, and he starts to pull, and the little fish comes back and fights again but he comes back again and keeps pulling keeps pulling, it's the same Faith.

Likewise is that faith that leads to salvation. It is something that God has impregnated in us, why, because that faith is based on what God is about our lives, it is there based on us, it is in our spiritual DNA, so to speak, and God has already marked us and we We are like part of that lake there, the world, God's creation, and God marks us and throws that hook at us little by little, little by little, and that hook is there, it is here already caught in our hearts, and we fight, We wander in life in many ways, we do many things that we don't have to do, or we stop doing things that we are supposed to do, and when God's time comes, pac, it starts to bring, it starts to bring, it starts to bring, And what does the fisherman do? They take a picture with it, some even give the fish a kiss, and what they do throw it back into the water because it is still part of their lake. But when that fish falls into the hands of the fisherman, it is a totally different fish, it is not the same fish.

Now that fish begins to live a whole new life, because it has experienced what it is like to be in the hands of the fisherman. So my brothers, we are going to be experiencing these four dimensions, exploring the faith that leads to salvation, the faith that has to do with certainty, the faith that has to do with fidelity, and faith as a gift. We are going to stand up and we are going to pray.

Father, I thank you for the opportunity that you give me to have started this meditation with my brothers and sisters tonight. Those who are here and those who are watching on the internet Jesus, I ask you that in the next few days, these next Wednesdays, we are going to meditate on this dimension of what faith is, on these dimensions of what faith is, Lord. May our hearts and minds be open to you Lord. That we do not believe that we know everything about faith, but that we can approach you with a humble heart and even say that we learn something new again, Lord. Thing that our faith in you Lord can be revived, Jesus can be affirmed for the things that You want us to experience from you in these times, in these seasons of our life Lord. Take us to a new dimension of faith Jesus. That is my request.

That through these meditations You take us to a new dimension of faith, of certainty, of trust, of hope in you Lord. So, Father, tonight I ask you to be over my brothers, my sisters, those who have come, above all those who could not make it, over each one of them, Jesus, I ask that your grace, your goodness, your favor be over each one of them. of them sir. That You reach them, that You speak to them, that You reveal Your purposes to them, that You intervene in their lives Jesus, and that You do great deeds in their midst. Bless us now as we prepare to go home Lord, take us safely home, and may You allow us a peaceful sleep tonight so that tomorrow if You permit, we can grasp a new day and receive from you the blessing that you have for our lives, we thank you, for your son Jesus we pray, we bless this time, amen, and amen, thank you Lord Jesus.