“For we live by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7)
That verse has more truth than is believed.
If you read it again, it doesn’t say that “we are to live by faith…”
It said that as a Christian, “we live by faith…”
It is a declaration, not a command. In other words, we are already alive because of faith. Just as oxygen sustains the natural life, faith sustains the eternal life in us.
“Not by sight”, means that our hope is not in the natural life, that which can be seen with natural senses.
“We live by faith” is a reaffirmation that we are alive in Christ.
Faith is not our understanding about God, but God’s revealing himself to us. Faith starts with God and ends with God.
Every time someone does something by faith, they do it as God has revealed to them that it should be done. (Hebrews 11)
As Christians, we are already alive, partaking the same life of God, eternal life, life of the Eternal One, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
As Christians, by sight we’re dead, meaning death is bound to the body we’re in now since conception. But, by faith we live, meaning God’s life is bound to our heart and mind, and soon our new body.
We are technically in the womb of Christ. By the Holy Spirit, we have a new heart in Christ. Our new mind is being trained daily by the Holy Spirit. And soon, very soon, our new body will come forth as the Holy Spirit shapes us up to the desire of Christ, the desire of God our Father.
We’re alive already by faith. Our new heart is a gift (Ezekiel 36:25-27). Our new mind is the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). Each time that a bridge is drawn from the new mind to the new heart, we rejoice like someone who’s found a treasure (Matthew 13:44). That is the work of the Spirit within us. We never forget the things we treasure because we hide them in our heart. Likewise, our new heart keeps all the truth that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, is teaching us daily.
When the world says that you’re not a Christian, ask “how can the dead judge the living?”. When the church says that you need to try to live by faith, remind her that yours and her life in God is a gift, not what you and she try. It is God who made us alive with Christ, not what we tried or are trying.
“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-15)
Oxygen flows from the heart to the brain. Faith flows from the heart to our new mind. Faith is like a giant flashlight. Each time we project it on the new mind, the mind of Christ, we learn something new, something to treasure anew. Thank you Father for the free things you have given us, the free things you have given me.
“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:12)
Jesus is the well of the living water, the Holy Spirit. 