We have different concepts of what faith is and we do not really

understand its true nature. In this study we will look at faith and what it
means to really believe so that YHVH is pleased with our faith.

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It is impossible to please YHVH without faith and it is one of the most important
concepts to grasp in order to live a life of faith that is pleasing to our Father. YHVH
will reward those who diligently seek Him. People today diligently seek things and
stand in faith so that YHVH can provide for them. This is the wrong way round, we
must seek Him and then He will reward us. Yshua taught the same concept in Matt
6:21-22 where He said that we should seek the Kingdom and Righteousness FIRST,
and then all the rest will be provided for us. Hebrews talk about a reward that we will
attain if we have faith and diligently seek Him, what will we get as a reward?
Righteousness means; right standing with YHVH and this means that when we seek
YHVH, we should seek the things that pleases Him.
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Very interesting, YHVH is our reward, not material things so if we seek things and try
to attain it through faith, we are not seeking YHVH and we do not please Him in
doing so. If you diligently seek Him, then you will find Him because He is the Reward.
To diligently seek YHVH is to seek a relationship with Him and to find the things,
which pleases Him. It is not about seeking His hand (provision), it is about seeking
His Face (relationship & righteousness). To receive YHVH as our Reward links up
with being righteous so that we can be with Him forever and that is the basis of
Salvation.
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Abrahams response to YHVHs Word was that he sought YHVH through faith, and it
was counted to him as righteousness. This implies that he is in right standing with
YHVH and that he attained everlasting life received YHVH as his Reward. The key
is that Abraham sought YHVH and he found YHVH. This is what true faith is!

Hebrew is an action language and we get Hebrew nouns that describe things
but all nouns have root words that are verbs. The Greek mind separates faith
from an action in the sense of having faith and works as opposites. According
to them you cannot have faith if you have works and vice versa, making faith a
noun. We have been led to believe this due to our doctrinal influences that
stem from the Reformation and work done by Martin Luther and later on Calvin
and his great work and that is very unfortunate and the Word say that we are
saved by faith and not works and this supports it even further.
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People think that we are saved by faith, but we are actually saved by grace, which is
a free gift from YHVH, to those who have faith in Him and seek Him diligently. It is
true that if you work to find favour with YHVH for salvation, then it is an abomination,
but on the other hand to work in RESPONSE to YHVHs favour is a good thing.
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Work and worship is the same thing. The word for worship is avodah comes from
he root word avad that means; servant, to work, to create, to make and worshipers.
Your every day work is worship unto YHVH if it is in line with the guidelines in
Scripture. So if you say that works are bad, then you imply that worshipping YHVH is
bad. We do not earn anything obeying the Commandments in our every day lives,
that is our response and worship unto YHVH because we are saved. He saves us
though His Grace and we respond with our faith by being faithful in the Truth, living
our lives according to His Commandments in worship unto Him because we love
Him.
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YHVH came to Abraham and presented him with favour. Abraham did not do
anything to deserve this and it was a free gift of grace from YHVH. Abraham
responded immediately through his faith, he was declared righteous. So in other
words, faith followed grace and is your response of appreciation. We have seen
earlier that Abrahams faith was based upon seeking YHVH, we will look at the other
aspects of Abrahams faith that led him unto righteousness.

The first thing that stands out is that Abraham acted immediately after YHVH spoke
to Him. This is a very good example of what perfect obedience looks like, acting on
the Word of YHVH.
The word for faith in Hebrew is amunah

that means: literally firmness;

figuratively security; moral fidelity: - faith (-ful, -ly, -ness, [man]), set office, stability,
steady, truly, truth, verily.
Amunah comes from the root word

aman which is a verb that means: to

build up or support; to foster as a parent or nurse; figuratively to render (or be)

firm or faithful, to trust or believe, to be permanent or quiet; morally to be true or
certain; once, hence assurance, believe, bring up, establish, + fail, be faithful (of long
continuance, stedfast, sure, surely, trusty, verified), assurance, nursing father,
nursing mother, pillars supporting a door entrance., put trust in, turn to the right.
From these two words, amunah and aman we find three more aspects of faith:
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To believe, truth, to be true, turn to the right, trust, put trust in.
To foster as a parent, nursing father or mother
Firmness, stability, steadfast, to be faithful, to build up or support

1. Firstly, we see the basic meaning of faith that everybody is familiar

with; faith simply means to believe and it and that is a build in
function within man; we all believe something, whether it is the truth or
not. The faith described here is defined as believing the truth. So for
us to really believe and have faith can only happen when we have the
truth. Truth is defined as the highest form of reality and that is the
truth that comes from YHVHs Word.
Faith also means to turn to the right. What does that mean? Right in
Hebrew means spiritual and Left means physical or fleshly. If you turn
to the right is a metaphor that means, to become more spiritual and to
be less physical or fleshly. In other words, if you have faith that is based
on the truth of YHVH, you will turn to the right or become more spiritual
and less fleshly, or you will become more holy and less sinful.
2.The second meaning of faith is nursing father or nursing mother
and this relates to our child like dependency to our heavenly Father.
This shows the relationship between the one believing and the One
believed in. We can interpret Gen 15:6 as Abraham that was caused to
be nurtured or nursed by the nurturing Father. Abraham believed in
YHVH and the best way to put this is to say that Abraham placed
himself in the mercy and care of YHVH alone.
It is similar as a child being dependant on its mother for nourishment
and care. How does a child tell a mother I need food? He cries. It is instinctive; a
child does not need to learn how to cry. The child does not know what he needs, he
just cries because het needs something and there is someone out there that can give
it to him. He will not stop crying unless he gets that need met, this is the kind of faith
we need to have.

Is it the crying that causes a mother to provide the need of the child? No, the crying
invoke an emotion that causes the mother to nurture the child which is build into the
mothers nature. Is the cry required to nurture the child? No, the mother will nurture
the baby and even defend it unto death. This brings us to the attributes of YHVH as
seen in the meaning of faith; He is a nurturing Father. It is His nature to defend and
look after his children and this sprouts from His grace.
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How does a child believe? They do not question, they do not reason their way around
YHVHs Word, they believe blindly. Abrahams faith was counted to him as
righteousness and that means that Abraham became like a child in order to be
worthy of entering the Kingdom. We saw that in Gen 12:4 that while YHVH was busy
speaking, instructing him to go, Abraham started to get his things ready to go. He
was so dependant on YHVH with a child like faith that he trusted YHVH without any
questioning or reasoning. Do we have faith like Abraham or have faith like a child
who will blindly trust and obey their Father?
3. The third meaning we get from faith is stability. To explain this we
need to go the Scripture to se where it is used and in what context.
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Emunah means to be steadfast and to be firm, just like Moses had to hold up the
staff, so you must be steadfast in your actions on what you belief is the truth. When
Moses held his staff high, the Israelites won, and when he let his staff down, the
Amorites won. The Amorites depicts the flesh and if you let the standard of YHVHs
Word drop in your life; the enemy of the flesh will win. Aaron and Hur supported
Moses hands and we as believers need to support one another in faith so that we
may overcome our enemies like the flesh.
Faith is a verb and an action that relates to faithfulness and stability in the truth that
comes form YHVHs Word. It can also be described as a door lintel that holds the
door opening open. Yshua is known as the Door and the Way to the Father and He
keeps the Door open for us so that we may have access to the Father. That means
the Yshua is stable and upholds the Truth with His stability and faith.
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We need to have the faith of Yshua, not only faith in Yshua. Many people
understand this passage only as having faith in Yshua, believing Who He is and
what He has done. But it is far more than that; it is to have the faith Yshua had, His
stability and faithfulness in the Truth. His faith led Him to be faithful unto death and
we must also be willing to die for the truth and be willing to die if we are persecuted
for living out and be faithful in the truth.

We see this faith of Yshua in Abraham in Gen 22 where he took Isaac his son, to
sacrifice him because YHVH instructed him to do so. This faith is obedience unto
death, which is similar to Yshuas faith that led to His actual death. Are you prepared
to sacrifice your most precious possessions, your sins, your bad habits that gives you
pleasure, your addictions, all the things that you hold dear to your heart, are you
willing to give it to YHVH completely so that He can be your ONLY Reward?
To sum it up:
YHVH approached Abraham first as Nurturing Father, offering him His Grace.
Abrahams faith can be summarised as follows; Faith is:
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To seek YHVH first and to seek a relationship with Him

To obey YHVHs Word immediately
Believing the Truth seeking the truth
Become more spiritual and less fleshly Become Holy and less sinful
To have a child like dependency
To believe like a child without reasoning and questioning
To be stable no matter the circumstances
To have the faith of Yshua and to imitate and follow Him
To be faithful unto death

Faith is the Hebrew word amunah and consists of an Apeph Mem Nun Hey
and we find these letters as symbols in Psalm 1 as well as in this word picture:
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A mountain in Hebrew represents a high place and that is YHVHs standards and
means origin and represents YHVH

where He is. This relates with the Aleph

the Father in His High Place of Holiness. He is the origin of life and of His Word and
from Him flows the water of life. This water flowss down the mountain and is
represented by the Mem

that means water or Word, which is Yshua. The

water is absorbed by the trees that is planted on the riverbank. We are the trees that
find our nourishment form this water and we bear fruit. Fruit is symbolised by the
Nun

that means fruit or fruitful and represents the Fruit of the Spirit. You can only

bear the fruit of the Spirit if your are planted and nourished by the Word and then you
shine your light in this dark world and is symbolised by the letter Hey

means

light.
The water flows to the ocean and the ocean represents the nations. As the river flows
to the ocean, people pollute the water and the water is mixed with all kind of
impurities as it flows to the sea. In the same way we see that the Word of YHVH is
polluted by mixing the further you move away from the Mountain (YHVH) and the
closer you get to the sea (world). If you want the purest form of the water you need to
climb up the mountain to get to the origin (Aleph) of the river. This is what Holiness
is; to climb the mountain of YHVH so that we can have a close relationship with Him,
so that we can lift our standards and drink from the purest form of the Word that is
not mixed and polluted by man.

We have seen how Faith is an action and how we need to act on the Truth and live
out the faith of Yshua as a child. We will now look at the relation between faith and
your actions described in the Brit Chadasha (NT) that is your sacrifice unto YHVH.
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We are the holy priesthood and have to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable unto
YHVH. What are these sacrifices and what do they look like? We see in Rom 12 that
it involves our bodies and in 1 Peter 2 we see that it is spiritual of nature, something
not form this world. The Priests offered up grain, fruit and produce of the land, as well
as clean animals that were both freewill offerings and sin offerings. Offering is the
Hebrew word minchah that mean gifts that you present as an act of worship and
sacrifice is the word zabach that represents sin sacrifices that are presented to
YHVH to cleanse us and to make us acceptable so to approach YHVH and present
our gifts or minchah.

To fully comprehend this concept of our offerings and sacrifices we must bring today,
we need to go back to the beginning to the story of Cain and Abel to study the
acceptable and unacceptable offerings and sacrifices unto YHVH so that we can
know what to bring as an acceptable gift of worship according to YHVHs standards.
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Why did YHVH accept Abels offering and not Cains offering? What
we know form the book of Genesis is that YHVH cursed the ground
when man fell into sin but He did not curse the animals. The offering
Cain brought was from the fruit of the ground and thus made the
offering cursed as well. The Hebrew word for Cains offering is the word minchah
that is normally grain of fruit and that is a bloodless offering.
Abel brought a lamb and is described as a Minchah that is a bloodless offering, how
can this be? We find the answer in the Book of Hebrews:
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Firstly we see that Abel brought the sacrifice by faith and it was a greater sacrifice
than Cains. The words used to describe this simply means it was MORE than Cains
offering, and Elohim testified of his gifts, which is plural. This implies that Abel
brought more offerings than Cain who only brought an offering from the produce of
the ground. Abel brought an offering from the produce of the ground, a minchah
which was a bloodless cursed offering, and he brought a sacrifice in the form of a
lamb.
Why did he bring a lamb? Abel understood the need for blood to sanctify his cursed
minchah or bloodless offering, so that it may be acceptable unto YHVH. Cain knew
that his offering was cursed but it did not bother him and he brought an unacceptable
cursed gift of worship unto YHVH, and thought it would be acceptable. We cannot
determine what is acceptable to YHVH, He determines this in His Word and we must
obey Him and not mans ideas. I think it is not a matter of Cain not knowing, I think he
had an attitude of rebellion and did his own way. We see this attitude of rebellion in
the Church today where man set the standards and people do not know the Word to
know what is acceptable and how to live out their faith unto Him.
Instead of making it right by bringing the blood offering of a lamb,
he slew his brother and presented Abels blood instead. YHVH
was not pleased and cursed Cain and he left and lived at the east
side of Eden.
We know that we need to present sacrifices that are acceptable
unto YHVH and we know that our sacrifices are gifts of worship
and an expression of our faith unto Him. We have also learned
that worship is related to every day work.

Worship is the Hebrew word Avodah that comes from the root word Avad that
means; servant, to work, to create, to make and worshipers.
So everything I do is worship unto YHVH if I do it in line with the
Word, which is an expression of my faith. This is in line with what Paul
said in Rom 12; that we need to present our bodies as living sacrifices
and through our actions, not to conform to the world but do things that
are acceptable unto Him. This is 100% in line with what we have
learned about being faithful in the Truth, expressing the faith of
Yshua. This means that our everyday actions are gifts or offerings
of worship unto YHVH if your actions and words are in line with
YHVHs Word.
We only present gifts to people we love and we show that we love
YHVH by giving Him gifts that are acceptable unto Him. These gifts
are our obedience to His Commandments that is our love-gifts of faith unto Him.
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Without doing His Commandments (Torah), you cannot show that you love Him and
you are doing things contrary to His Word that are the things of this world (Rom
12:2). Doing His Commandments is good and pleasing and in His acceptable will.
We see the parallels between this concept and the offerings of Cain and Abel since
our obedience to His Commandments are gifts or offerings (minchah) of worship
unto Him. If we only do the Commandments we are doing bloodless minchaha
(spiritual) offerings/sacrifices unto YHVH. These offerings are cursed because of our
cursed sinful nature and we need to present these offerings with a Lamb so that
they may be acceptable unto YHVH. We need the Blood Yshua to make our obeying
His Commandments acceptable spiritual offerings and gifts of worship unto Him.
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People who do the Commandments without the sacrifice of Yshua (accepting His
Blood and His Spirit) will make their obedience a following of a dead letter that kills
(mostly Jews). You receive His Spirit after you accepted Yshua as Saviour and His
Spirit is a sign that you have the Blood of the Lamb. The Spirit of YHVH is the Gift He
gave us after we accept Yshuas Blood, so that His Spirit and the Blood can sanctify
our gifts of worship of obedience. YHVHs Spirit will help you to do His
Commandments with the right motive and attitude, just like Abel, and YHVH will
accept it as true faith and worship that pleases Him. So again, it is not by our doing
that we are acceptable, it is only through His Grace and His Sacrifice that our gifts
and obedience are sanctified to be acceptable.
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You can only understand His Commandments if you have the Spirit and you will only
do them with the right attitude of love, if you are born of the Spirit. Two things stand
out; you cannot do the Commandments without accepting and presenting the Blood
Sacrifice of Yshua, and you cannot only have a Lamb without any minchah or
gifts of worship. Abels offering consisted of both.

If you only have the Blood of the Lamb (Yshua), then you do not worship Him if you
live a life that looks like the world, not obeying His Commandments. The ONLY
acceptable Offering unto YHVH is a blood sanctified minchaha; that is your
obedience to His Commandments and Faith in Yshua. We see the same principle in
Revelation:
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When Adam and Eve fell, they were removed from the Garden of Eden. YHVH did
the first sacrifice and used the skins of the animals to cover their nakedness (sin). In
order to present your offering or gift unto YHVH, you need to be covered by the
blood offering of Yshua. We are created to worship YHVH and to present gifts back
unto Him.
The City is the New Jerusalem and to gain access to it you must have authority over
the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life represents life eternal inside the City and you gain
that if you do His Commandments and have the Aleph-Tav (Yshua) in your life. This
is obeying His Commandments, showing your love through presenting true spiritual
gifts of worship and obedience through faith unto the Father, cleansed and sanctified
by the Aleph-Tav, the Messiah Yshua. Then He will give you a reward based on your
works or mitsvots which are your obedience to His Commandments and acts of
worship and faithfulness. You are saved by Grace through faith and we have looked
at what faith means previously. Those who refuse to follow this way and rather follow
the world, they will be outside the City:
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They will be on the outside, not accessing the Tree of Life (eternal life) and will be
cast into eternal death. Outside means to be separated from and they will not enter
the New Jerusalem and will not dwell with YHVH forever.
The scary part is that it is dependant on our actions and our worship as well. You
have to have Yshua first, to have His sanctifying Blood, so that you can live out the
faith of Yshua, following and obeying His Commandments faithfully, being 100%
dependant on Him to do so. We are to live a life acceptable as Yshuas Priesthood,
offering acceptable sanctified sacrifices unto the Father as our reasonable worship.