I'll show you how you apply this into your life because unless it gets us a working thing in the heart it's just kind of words in the Bible. It has to move from words in the Bible to actually I know who I am and where I stand before God. You notice that the key path in there is the word faith, to him who believes, him who believes, I must believe. In Romans 10, Verse 10, by faith, we are made righteous before God by faith. I have to believe. Well what do I have to believe? I have to believe that all that Jesus Christ did is totally accepted, it's made me accepted to God. I'm going to just share with you a couple of things and then we're going to look at three or four practical truths related to this. First of all look in John, Chapter 8.
So we understand that in the Old Testament God made a provision for their shame, provided a covering. In the New Testament Jesus died on the cross and His life becomes our covering. If I will come to Him I can be accepted by God and this makes Christianity unique. Romans 10:10, with the heart man believes unto righteousness. Now look what it says in John 8, Verse 31. Jesus said to the Jews who believed in Him, if you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Notice this - He says truth has the power to liberate you and change your life. Truth has the power to free you from things that held you in bondage, so if my life has been in bondage to guilt and shame or particularly shame and I feel there's something wrong with me, I'm not good enough, not acceptable, the truth of God's word has the power to set me free.
But for it to set me free I must know that truth and that word know is the word in the Bible meaning to be intimate with someone with a view to reproducing something. When Adam knew his wife Eve there was sexual intimacy, or there was a oneness with his wife with a view to bringing forth children - so Jesus said you shall know the truth. So for the truth to set me free it's not just a matter I've heard the verse and someone told me; I actually have to become intimate with it. It has to get into my heart. It's not enough just to actually say yeah, yeah, I know that verse, yeah, I agree with it, it's right. See, the truth that sets you free is not just the truth in the Bible, it's the truth in the Bible that you now know by experience in your heart. Now what happens in the west is we tend to try to get lots of knowledge, but biblical knowledge always involves experience and outworking in your life, see?
Notice then the righteousness comes by faith. The word faith means to believe - alright then, but believe to us means yeah, yeah, I believe that. Yeah, I believe there's a God. Listen, believing there's a God does not save you, it doesn't change you a bit. The devils believe and they tremble - but it doesn't save them. Do you understand, biblical belief is not just mentally agreeing with something? That's where many of the churches in the west particularly have come undone. We're so filled with Greek way of thinking that we think if we know about it that's when we know it, but actually in the Bible the biblical belief, biblical faith, I have to have it working in my life or I don't know it at all. So in other words biblical knowledge was always experiential. The Greek invasion of the church in 300AD and the Greek thinking invading the church caused us now to become we just think if I know about it then I know it.
Well see you can know about tithing but it actually does you no good unless you position yourself and you begin to start to tithe regularly. You begin to see God break through for you. You begin to know the truth has actually done something in your finances. You've all got quiet now, yeah. This is true, this is how it works see, so if I know Bible verses but am not working them I don't really know them at all, I know about them. The only truth that changes my life is the truth I become intimate with, embrace and I allow it to change how I live my life. That's the truth we know, so we may have heard heaps of messages, heaps of sermons, but the only truth you really know biblically is the one that's actually working out in your life. If I see it working in your life then it is - you've got the truth and you'll stand up and testify, that's what Jesus did. It's experiential. Are you getting the idea?