Oxford Bible Church - Living in the Last Days (audio)

Faith is about knowing God. The Journey of Faith starts by seeking God. If we seek Him we will find Him (begin to know Him). As we continue to seek Him we grow in knowing Him: (1) as the Father, our Creator, (2) as the Son, our Saviour, and (3) as the Spirit, the Transformer of our spirit, soul and body.

Hebrews 11 is God’s hall of fame using each pioneer of faith to show a particular aspect of the Life of Faith. By faith ENOCH WALKED with God in daily fellowship (Gen 5:22) giving God pleasure, and he believed that God would translate him before judgment fell (Heb 11:5) - a type of the Pre-Trib Rapture.

God wants our faith to grow. Daniel 3 illustrates 3 LEVELS of Faith: (1) General faith in the character of God ('our God is able'), (2) Specific faith in the promises of God ('He will deliver us') and the highest level (3) trusting God even when we suffer loss ('even if He does not deliver us we will stll love Him').

God commands us to EAT His WORD (Matthew 4:4). Hilary shares PRACTICAL STEPS on how you can MEDITATE on the WORD so it gets into your heart. The time and effort we spend to get His Word inside us will be greatly rewarded, because once the Word is planted in our heart it produces great fruit

For singles: establish your Purpose and Identity first, then find your Partner, then you will make a good choice. Trust your Heavenly Father to bring your right one to you in the right time. In dating, follow this order: (1) spirit, (2) soul, (3) body. Christians are not to be unequally yoked with non-Christians.

God's WORD can only do us good if we get it INSIDE of us. So we must EAT it! But we will only eat it if we VALUE it, if we know it will do us GOOD. This message will inspire you to LOVE God's WORD. It will give us STABILITY. It imparts WISDOM for life. It has supernatural POWER to transform our life.

Unbelief is a veil over our spiritual eyes, so we only see the natural realm. It keeps us from possessing our Promised Land (Hebrews 3). 3 kinds of unbelief: 1. Ignorance (overcome by hearing the Word), 2. Rebellion (overcome by repentance), 3. Natural (overcome by refocusing by prayer & fasting - Matt 17:21).

As well as having faith we must guard our heart from unbelief, for it prevents our faith from producing much fruit. Faith comes from hearing the Word, unbelief from hearing the world. We see 3 examples of how Abraham kept out natural unbelief, and how Peter failed to do this when he walked on water.

To be full of faith we must (1) fill our heart with the Word (Rom 10:17), and (2) guard our heart against unbelief (Prov 4:20-23). Faith and unbelief can co-exist in the heart. Unbelief hinders the operation of faith. We study 3 main enemies of faith: (1) Natural Unbelief, (2) Unforgiveness and (3) False Doctrine.

Every blessing is ours in Christ, purchased by His blood, including forgiveness and healing (Eph 1:3), so they are available upon request. Mark 11:24 says we are to believe we receive them when we pray. This requires us having confidence that God immediately releases them to us in the Spirit.

We look at the many biblical examples of women in leadership including Mary, Phoebe, Priscilla and Junia, as well as leadership qualifications in 1Timothy 3. Finally, we study the passage on headship and headcoverings in 1 Corinthians 11, showing God has given women long hair as her covering (v15).

In understanding passages on authority we must know what Divine Institution is in view. We apply this to 1Timothy 2:8-15 which forbids a wife from usurping authority over her husband, but not from having positions of authority in the Church or Society. This is confirmed by examples of women leaders.

We begin this study on the role of women in Church in Genesis, with the 6 Divine Institutions of Delegated Authority: 1. Free-Will, 2. Marriage, 3. Family, 4. Government, 5. Work-Place, 6. Church. God designed Marriage to have a loving male-headship, but this was corrupted through the Fall.

The exclusion of women from ministry and leadership is a manifestation of the Fall (Genesis 3:16). We see how the New Testament restores the honour of women, and ask whether Paul was silencing women in church in 1Corinthians 14:34-35, or whether he was silencing the women-silencers!

After the Prayer of Faith, when we come to God believing we receive the promise, we must maintain an active faith that God's Power is working to bring His Word to pass in the 'pregnancy' time between receiving the promise (conception = the seed sown) and the manifestation (birth = the harvest reaped).

AFTER the Prayer of Faith, we must RELEASE our faith by THANKSGIVING. There are 2 kinds of Thanksgiving: (1) based on the manifestation and (2) based on the promise, before you see anything. We show from Bible examples how this keeps God's Power active in bringing the promise to pass.

The Holy Spirit was given to the Church at Pentecost empowering us to PRAY through the gift of speaking in tongues (Acts 2:1-4). The Spirit is our Divine Helper, helping us to pray God' will (Romans 8:26-27), speaking mysteries to God, by-passing the limitations of our minds (1Corinthians 14:1-14).

There are 2 stages to receiving a promise from God: (1) BELIEVE you RECEIVE it in prayer (Mark 11:24), and (2) SPEAK it (v23), calling it forth into manifestation (Romans 4:17). We see how Abraham and Sarah operated in this kind of faith in receiving the supernatural promise of Isaac.

Learn how to pray the Prayer of Faith, believing you receive what God has given when you pray (Mark 11:24, Hebr 4:16, jam 1:5). 1John 5:14-15 reveals we need the CONFIDENCE: (1) that what we are asking for is: “according to His Will (Word)”, and (2) that He gives it to us immediately upon request.

There are 2 STAGES to the OPERATION of FAITH: (1) BELIEVE you RECEIVE it into your heart, (2) SPEAK it out into manifestation (Romans 10:8-10). We see this from the teaching of Jesus in Mark 11:22-25, emphasising that it is essential to walk in fellowship (forgiveness) for our faith to work.

When we receive and TRUST God's Word we have FAITH in our heart, but we must also RELEASE it. We do this first by our WORDS or CONFESSION of FAITH. The spirit of faith (1) BELIEVES and (2) SPEAKS the Word, just as God did when He called the universe into manifestation (Romans 4:17).

We receive Salvation, forgiveness, wisdom and healing from God through the Prayer of Faith. Having received the Seed (Word) by faith there is then a process where it grows to full manifestation (as in a pregnancy). In this time we must guard our heart (spiritual womb) from unbelief by speaking the Word.

FAITH looks to GOD and His GRACE as the SOURCE. It is an ATTITUDE of the heart, NOT an ACT. But it will result in action. It has 3 necessary ingredients: K.A.T: Knowledge (mind) - Assent (emotion) - TRUST (will) - Hebrews 11:13. FAITH is BELIEVING the Word, and TRUSTING the One who gave it.

The healing of the woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5 is perhaps the best example in the Bible that shows us how to receive the healing power of Christ. Hilary explains the 4 Steps of Faith that she took to receive her miracle: (1) She SAID it. (2) She DID it. (3) She RECEIVED it. (4) She TOLD it.

As faith is so important we must know how to obtain, cultivate and develop it, so it increases & grows. We study the process whereby faith is formed in the heart. Faith (spiritual strength) is the Gift of God (Eph 2:8), coming by hearing His Word of Faith, our spiritual food (Rom 10:17, Matt 4:4, Hebr 11:1).