Commentaries on the Christian Faith

By Nicolas Morales

To Know about the Christian faith and its founder, Jesus Christ, will open your soul’s boundaries to partner with the Almighty God, the only God who gets in contact with you. Many believers have quit believing in praying to God to change the worsening conditions of the world around us, but I bring good news to them: there is power in prayer to change bad habits and behaviors, to heal incurable diseases, to set possessed people free, to provide for protection, and to open the heavenly storages of provision. Through 15 powerful testimonies, your faith in the only God that can turn impossible things into possible ones will be increased. After 30 years of experiencing hearing God’s voice and adhering to His guidance, the author wants to share with you God’s revelation on some controversial pieces of Scripture such as tithing, and why and how to keep on believing in tough or hurting times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nicolas Morales
• Release date: Nov 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463799192

Book preview

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

DEDICATION

COMMENTARIES ON THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1 - What is faith?

CHAPTER 2 - Where does faith come from?

CHAPTER 3 - Different types of faith

Unsound Christian doctrines

CHAPTER 4: - The Roman Catholic Church

What is idolatry?

Who is the Rock upon which the Church of God is established?

Comparative analysis of the Bible and the 7 Sacrament of the Roman Catholic Church

Interpreting the Scriptures without the help of the Holy Spirit leads to misinterpreting them

CHAPTER 5 - The Trinity of God

CHAPTER 6 - When our faith starts failing us

The discipline of the Lord

You think that you are doing God’s will, but things do not go well in your life

Why our faith weakens when the testing times take too long?

CHAPTER 7 - How to avoid losing our faith?

CHAPTER 8 - How to increase our faith?

CHAPTER 9 - When, how, and why to apply our faith?

A powerful weapon against Satan

CHAPTER 10 - Conflict between our faith and our decisions

Personal desires and the will of God

Meddling in a quarrel

Tithing: Is the commandment of tithing in the New Testament?

Tempted?

Raising your children

Where have we gone astray from the Lord’s way?

CONCLUSION

ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND CONTACT

ENDNOTES

CITED WORKS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I thank God for letting me write this book in the

hours following my secular working schedule. I also thank all those persons

who prayed so that this book could come out as an e-book.

DEDICATION

To the glory of God and to

the patience of my wife Martha

COMMENTARIES ON THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

Nicolás A. Morales

Copyright 2018 by Nicolás A. Morales

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INTRODUCTION

This book is addressed to all those people who believe in Jesus Christ and want to know some of the basic, and some of the most controversial teachings of the Christian faith. In the first chapter, I establish the basic requirements to have faith: its origins, meaning, recipients, and purpose. Chapter 2 is a detailed exposition of the foundations of the Christian faith. Here, you will get a better comprehension of the relationship among God, faith, and men.

The book comprehends a long but not exhaustive list of sects and the Author analyzes some of their teachings. In this book, I speak of how to avoid losing the faith, of how to make it grow, and how to apply it. Many testimonies at the end of each chapter tell of the power of God to heal, to protect, to guide, and to correct. The last chapter deals with the conflict between God’s will and our decisions. This is one of the reasons why faith can fade away and disappear from us.

CHAPTER 1

WHAT IS FAITH?

The faith of many born-again Christians is starting to fade away due to the many hardships of this life, the bad testimonies of some so-called Christians, and the entertainments of this world. Therefore, we need to fight the good fight of the faith (1Timothy 6.12) and to inflict on the enemy, Satan and His demons, one more stumbling block to hinder His schemes against the people of God.

In this first chapter, I give you a definition of the Christian faith so that you may have a better and deeper understanding of some of the teachings contained in it. This faith has been bestowed upon all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ by God himself and handed down to all the believers in an infallible book called The Bible.

Nobody can put something into practice and get good results unless he or she knows it and have received the proper training to do so. Similarly, faith can only be put into practice when one knows its origins, its meaning, its recipients, and its purpose. Let us quickly review each one of these four basic things that are necessary to put our faith in practice. First, the Christian faith has its origin in God as it is stated in the book of Romans (Romans 12.3) when the apostle Paul is urging Christians to be humble in the body of Christ by keeping the measure of faith God gives them. Second, to find out about the faith’s meaning, one must know first how God defines faith. The definition of the faith God wants us to learn is in the Bible in Hebrews 11.1: Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. The first part of this verse, being sure of what we hope for, has a defying request in it. Believing in the Author and Finisher of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the core demand related to being sure of what we hope for because it requires believing in Jesus who always fulfills His Word. Third, who are the recipients of God's faith? The recipients are all those who open their hearts to believe in the Son of God, Jesus Christ; thus, they become the vessels in which God will pour down His laws, precepts, and ordinances that constitute the faith of God. Lastly, the purpose of this precious faith of God given unto men is, first, to please God. As one can read in Hebrews 11.6: and without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Next, to obey God, to stand firm in Him by the power of God’s faith, to believe in His miracles, and to overcome all the trials and tribulations that will happen in our Christian lives.

All disciplines and training never come alone, but other disciplines or types of exercises help them. If we pretend to have an active Christian faith, this must be helped by two other requirements that God did establish to make it work. These requirements are hope and love as declared in 1 Corinthians 13.13, and now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greater of these is love. It is so because without true love for God we cannot obey Him and without hope in His promises we cannot keep our faith alive.

It is necessary to analyze a bit more in detail the verse of Hebrews 11.1 to have a better understanding of its meaning. In the original Greek of the New Testament, according to Vine's Expository Dictionary, the word used for assurance is the noun Hupostasis,¹ which literally has the meaning of standing under, support²

It is necessary to give a further explanation of the expression standing under. When someone is standing under something that can protect them, they are also under the strength of such a thing. As God’s children, we should run and stand firm under the covering of the accumulation of all the teaching and precepts given by God to men, which constitute the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints (Jude 1.3). In the written Word of God, we can find all the promises that support our faith. These promises are like the shelter we must stay under to stay protected. Psalm 91.1 says, He who dwells in the shelter of the Highest will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

As a matter of illustration, the following anecdote tells something that happened to me so that anyone can appreciate better the meaning of standing under a good thing that can protect them. A few years ago, I was leaving my workplace. Winter has started, but the temperature was not too low, so there was slushy snow everywhere. I was standing at the bus stop under a highway waiting for the bus. I had opened my umbrella because there were some flurries and I did not want them to fall on my head. Then, a vehicle went by, and the passengers were making fun of me because I was covering myself with the umbrella. As they passed by, they shouted: Hey! It's not raining! I never minded their shouting, and I kept my umbrella open. A few seconds after they were gone, another vehicle went by on the highway above my head and splashed a bunch of slushy snow right on the top of my umbrella. Does somebody see the analogy? Our faith protects us like an umbrella, and like a shelter under which we can abide in confidence because its builder is the Almighty God.

Besides, the second part of Hebrews 11.1, the expression certain of what we do not see, is telling us that seeing what we cannot see is a matter of the conviction we may have of the thing that we are expecting to see happening. Faith does not come along with reasoning; instead, they oppose one another. Faith invites us to believe in things we cannot see yet, as already done. To have that certainty, one must rely upon God’s promises, but to gain the inner strength of mind to keep on believing, we must believe that God is more than able to make things happen out of nothing or from nowhere. He can make things happen to back up His Word.

To summarize the idea of what faith is all about, we can imagine faith as a stringed musical instrument, like a piano or a guitar; whose maker is God and from which we can play so many notes and use the instrument to the glory of God.

Introduction to Testimonies of Chapter 1

In this first chapter, I have defined what the meaning of faith to God is. In the next two testimonies, I make emphasis on believing the words that God speaks into our hearts. Nevertheless, I understand that probably many Christians have never listened to the voice of God. I want to encourage them to pray to the Lord so that He starts communicating with you.

Testimony 1. God provided my first computer

In the year 2005, I was working as a driver operating a small motorized sweeper. That year, I was about to switch jobs, but for my future studies, I was going to need a computer. I used to drive the small sweeper, sitting in a small cabin and I was praying. I was asking the Lord to provide a computer for me or to let me get a raise in my wages to be able to save and buy it on my own. Every day I repeated to the Lord: Lord, please provide that computer for me, I will need it. After a few days of repeating the same request over and over, the voice of the Lord spoke to my heart and told me, Do not ask me anymore for that computer. Start giving me thanks for it. You already have it. What?, I said, The Lord told me that I already have the computer, and at that moment I believed the words that the Lord had spoken into my heart. This is faith, believing in the things that we hope for, even though we have not seen them yet. From that moment on, I just gave thanks to God for my first computer in Canada even though I did not know how or when God was going to give it to me. Nevertheless, I was determined to give Him thanks every day until He provided it for me. I went to find out about the computer prices, and I could not afford to buy one, because they were too expensive, I did not have any savings, and I had not gotten a raise in my salary.

In the second month, after the Lord had spoken to me, a Christian friend of mine gave me a call. I picked up the receiver, and after we had greeted each other, my friend asked me, Nicolas, do you have a computer? No I answered, but I am trying to buy one. Do you have one for sale? My friend told me, You do not have to buy it from me, I am going to give you my computer. When I heard that, I rejoiced in the Lord. My friend brought the computer with all the programs he had already installed in it. The computer was in good condition, and it helped me out for four years.

Testimony 2: God provides me with a second computer

My first computer worked for four years before it broke down. Then, I started praying to the Lord for another one. My faith increased after seeing how the Lord had provided the first one. Then I kept on praying for another computer. After one month of prayer, a Christian sister called me up, and when we were talking, she told me, "We want to come to visit you because we want to give my daughter’s computer to you. At that moment, I did not tell her anything about the prayer petition I had before the Lord. I waited until they came to my place to give them the testimony of how the Lord was using them to answer my prayer. The computer was in perfect working condition.

CHAPTER 2

WHERE DOES FAITH COME FROM?

Trying to think of an acrostic with the word FAITH, I found an interesting one: Find An Incredible Tool Here. Yes, but where is here? Where can we find the faith we need to overcome our weakness and temptation, and from where does faith come? Faith is an incredibly powerful tool residing in God, hiding in His written Word, and being available to all those who approach Him with a sincere and humble heart. The Almighty God has planted a necessary amount of faith, as small as a mustard seed, in our hearts, so we can start watering it with the heavenly water, which is a symbol for the written Word of God.

A. The Almighty God: Author and finisher of our faith

If one tries to believe in something that cannot see, it might sound illogical; nevertheless, men have believed in many things that they have never seen. When we accept something that we cannot see as a fact, and we decide to believe in it, it becomes illogical or senseless for many people, but valid for us. For instance, when a person decides to buy a house, he or she believes that all the utilities such as water and electric service are in perfect working conditions. Even though one cannot see the water in the pipes, it is a fact that there is water and when one turns on the faucet, he or she will get fresh water. Another example is the air that we breathe, which we cannot see, but we can experience that we cannot deny. The fact of the existence of nature in its different forms, some visible and other invisible, speaks of a superior Being or a mastermind behind all the creation that the Bible calls God Almighty. True Christians have experienced the invisible presence of God and the effects of God's power to change their lives, just by believing in His invisible presence and unquestionable changing power. God has granted a necessary amount of faith to every human being, just the necessary to believe in him even though we cannot see Him.

Moreover, God created us according to His image and likeness, and then we also have a measure of faith to remain faithful to God by trusting in him. In that manner, He can operate His will with His power in us and through us. Faith is a gift from God which is innate to Him as one of His qualities: His faithfulness. God sees all things of His creation as fulfilled, as accomplished according to what He has decreed. God is one-hundred percent sure that what He says will be accomplished.

God is the one who gives us that amount of faith that will be necessary to face Satan and our weakness in our Christian walk. Faith is like a seed that is planted by God in our hearts, but it depends on us how much this seed can be developed in to accomplish the purposes for which He has called us. That seed of faith must be watered to make it grow, to quicken it to produce a hundredfold the power enclosed in it. What is the power enclosed in it? The power is this: true faith backed up by God and our prayers, which will reach the heavenly throne of God and move Him to act in our favor. The Lord Jesus said in Mark 11. 24, Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

God has created us with a free will to make decisions that will take us closer to Him or further away from Him. If we use our faith, the Lord will be pleased, and we will draw ourselves near to Him. If we do not use it, we will miss the purposes for which God has called us.

1. How to believe in God as the provider of our faith

There is a process through which one should go to believe in God as the Heavenly Father and the provider of our faith, in Jesus as God’s Son, and in the Bible as the Word of God. This process starts with believing in Jesus as