Leon Fontaine - Faith And Love
Hey everybody, welcome. It is so good to have you with me today. And as we dive into God's Word, I just, I love God's Word. I just, think the Word of God, the more I dive into it, it's astounding. And today I want to talk to you about how to live in consistent miracles. I mean, a consistent, God's ability continually flowing in your life. His grace, which is His ability, His unearned favor, connecting and just doing things all the time. This amazing life.
So, I want to dive into this, and I hope that you can sit down and listen to it, let a friend know. You might have to listen to it again to take notes, I'm going to say some things that might confront, because truth always confronts lies. It confronts misbeliefs, things you believe that are incorrect, even if you don't know that that is one of the beliefs of your heart. So, let's dive in.
Now, as we talk about faith, I want to talk about faith is a process. It's never just do I have it or not? Faith is something that I'm always working, I'm always working this process of faith. Continually, every day I'm doing this. And as you work this process of faith, it's such an excitement. Even the things that I'm not seeing happen yet, I have hope, I have this confident expectation that I am persuading my heart with God's Word. I'm gathering the evidence that is in His Word, and I know I'm going to be fully persuaded at that heart level so soon, that the process is exciting to me. This process of faith. So I want to dive to the front end of this process of faith, and talk to you about what I believe is destroying people's faith. And I want to talk about love.
Now, the Bible says in Galatians 5, that faith works through love. Faith works through love. Without love, faith will not be consistent, it will be scattered and happenstance. But if you can recognize the power of love, and then what do I mean by that, it can radically change your faith. And make you rise up as never before. Now, one of the things I want to mention, you'll hear me talk about quite often, is a doctrine that just is through the body of Christ. And anytime someone cannot figure something out in their situation, they prayed, they believed, they thought they did right, something bad happened. Something didn't work out the way you wanted.
I hear this line. Well, God is sovereign. And to me, it is a line that people use when they haven't been diligent in the Word. When they're worried that they're not going to look good as they talk to the person that they're speaking with. And what they mean by God is sovereign, is different than what the word means. Because the word means, He's all-powerful. He's, has all authority. He is God. And, what they mean by that, which is incorrect, is that God doesn't have to do what you want. God could change His mind is the inference that you know, yes, the Word promises that, but God is sovereign, He might know what's better for you than keeping that promise or keeping His word.
And, it is one of the most destructive teachings to people who know His Word, because you can't, you can't be confident in faith. You can't be fully persuaded as the Bible says, because that's a fast, good definition of faith. To be fully persuaded. That, His promise is going to work. If you think for a minute that well, the sovereignty of God means He might have, make an exception with you because He's got something better. The sickness is going to teach you better than anything else He could do. The accident is going to help create some connections and you met somebody in the hospital you never would have met if you didn't you know, have an accident and break your leg and you won two people to Jesus.
And oh, I just hear on and on all these people, and none of it is true. God is quite capable of leading you by His Spirit to the hospital to talk to a person. He doesn't need to have bad things happen to you, and then well He wanted that. He allowed it. We have all these different terms that are being used, and all of these teachings destroy your ability to walk in faith, and to know the love of God. And so, God's love is crucial.
Now you need to know that you, that how do I love God? Well, one of the things to remember is that, you can't love deeper with somebody you don't trust. Trust, is a vital component of love. Which is why the enemy will always attack in a married couple, he'll always put these thoughts, he'll try to shoot these thoughts into your head. Where were they, what were they doing, do they think about you, do they treat you the same, that, you know they don't smile at you like they used to, they don't do things like they used to. And it's like, and it's like sh-, is there somebody else? Where are they right now? And this, and you begin to distrust. And when you distrust, it affects your love. Because love is God, and love is a phenomenal thing.
And so, when you look at God and you go well, He says He heals but, He's sovereign, He might not. He says He'll prosper us, but He might find a better way to bankrupt me to humble me and make me push in for Him more. He might just allow this kind of stuff to go on. And we have all of these crazy doctrines. And what they have done is undermine a solid faith. And it's undermined because you no longer have a solid love with God. You no longer trust Him.
And so, let's dive into the Word of God for a few verses, about this love. In 1 John 4:16-19 it says, and we have known and believed the love that God has for us. First of all, you need to believe the love that God has for us. It's not a sick love. You know, it's not I'm going to hold my child's hand over a flame to teach them not to play with matches and burn them. I'm going, like, I'm going to hurt them to help them. Like, there's some, whenever you've counseled with children who've been abused by a parent, it's kind of sick some of the conversations you get. Yes, daddy hurt me but did you know he said he loves me and my daddy loves me and it's for my own good and I'm just bad and I'm a liar, and you kind of look at them and go what in the world?
And this is but yet this is how Christians look at God. And we have this problem loving Him so entirely, that you can say to Him right now, you can do anything you want to me right now God, and not even be worried. You know, my children could look at me, any time and say dad, do anything you want with me right now. And, all they know is I'm going to laugh, give them a hug, hand them some money, take them on a trip. There's nothing in me that would hurt them, abuse them, and God is a million times greater than me at loving us as His kids. So we have to believe the love of God. If you do not believe the love of God fully persuaded in God's love that He is a love. And then it goes on to say this. That God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
Love is the very beginning that I want to start on this process of having incredible faith. A growing faith that is, it's always growing and developing. I mean, most Christians tell me well Leon, you know, when I first gave my life to Christ, I got so many miracles, and things happened but you know, that was God giving me, doing me a favor and as I got older and more mature I recognized, no, no no. When you first got saved, you understood faith and grace. You just had to, you just had to believe in His grace, that you didn't deserve it. And as you started getting into the Word, you started thinking you deserved it. You started thinking you could earn it. And we've forgotten that we've got to stay in this love. This love that goes, He loves me as messed up as I am. He wants only good for me.
Even though I've got habits and addictions and wrong thoughts, and I need to, I'm not treating people rightly, I'm not speaking rightly. He still loves me. So, you must, literally, be persuaded of God's love. So, many of the doctrines that are taught today like the sovereignty of God, God allows, you know, God knows better and if bad things happen, you know, there's a reason for it. I hear people all the time well, there's a reason for everything. No. That's totally untrue. If you think that God has a reason for everything, no. Everything Jesus shows us and teaches us in the New Testament is that every storm comes to kill you. It doesn't come to strengthen you. The storm that hit the house on the rock and the house on the sand never strengthened either of them. Destroyed the one and couldn't the other.
So, we've got to deal. Many of you who want to grow in faith must first deal with how you see God, and His love. Now, verse 17 says, that love has been perfected among us in this. That we may have boldness in the day of judgement. Because as He is, right now. Well where is He right now? He's seated at the right hand of the Father, in all authority, all power, and He has an agreement with, between Him and God representing the human race. So, as Jesus is right now, authority over sickness, disease, every demonic spirit, Jesus' work is a finished work. It's a completed work. And so, verse 17 says, of 1 John 4, as He is, right now, so are we in this world. So, we are the body of Christ, Jesus is the head.
We've got to really dive in, and so many people do not dive in and gather the correct evidence of to prove of what is God, and who am I, and what does He think about me? In verse 18 it says, there is no fear in love. But, perfect love casts out fear. Because fear involves torment. Now, he who fears, has not been made perfect in love. When you begin to look at God, and go God has no negative thoughts about me. God is not going to change His mind when He gives His word, and you know, the New Covenant in the Bible, is God's word to us. The New Covenant, we are New Covenant believers, not Old Covenant believers. Don't even call yourself a Bible believer, I mean, we are. But you better get more specific and know that I'm a New Covenant believer, or you can really mess up.
And so, we've got to understand that when you look at God, and you know that God is always with you in the storm. Never is He just allowing things to hurt you. And in fact, as you dive into this, the power to stop, to do, to allow, has actually been handed to you. So, God allows anything you allow when it comes to your personal life. If God has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, then prayer is getting to know Him, and love Him, and spend time with Him, and to learn the New Covenant so you can speak to mountains, prophesy to your future, declare what will be, believe it at the heart level, and you have literally, he has made this world to respond to your faith. It doesn't say you speak to mountains if you do it right and God will move it for you. No, it says you speak, it moves. God and His, when God spoke, it created. It moved things. And when you speak, you have the God-kind of faith. And that happens.
So, then it talks about love here, because I'm back on love. We love Him. Because. He first loved us. Let me say this. The people who have a truly deep love for God, are, it's not the people that can just cry. I mean, I used to sit in worship services looking around and see people just crying as they were worshipping God. And, as I got to know them, I found out how broken they were, they were crying because their life hurt, they had no money, their husband was beating them, and it was more of a cry of oh Jesus, help me. Than it was of oh I'm so love with you. I found out, that the more I understood the finished work of Jesus in this New Covenant, His death, His burial, His resurrection, His ascension to the right hand of the Father. As I begin to understand that and see that, I begin to love Him deeper. And I begin to trust Him more.
As a teenager, I would never pray. God whatever You want to do, You just do to me, because I'd heard too many messages from pastors that when they said that, God took their car. He killed a loved one. You know, they lost their marriage. Their kids got sick. But you know, I, and go, when you believe that, that is one screwed up way to believe. You can entrust yourself to the grace of God. You can entrust yourself to the love of God. He will never hurt you. Ever, ever, ever. So, we love Him, so my love for Jesus grew. My love for God and grew as my trust grew. As I saw in the New Covenant, that a lot of this teaching was hooey. It was baloney. It was not true. My confidence grew greater and greater, which was needed because as a pastor and, the CEO of television channels, and schools, and churches, and the things that we're doing around the world.
You know, I had to believe God for millions, and I've got five kids, and they've all married and they've got grandkids. And my, I had to begin to believe God to raise them and that they were going to be amazing in this world. All these things I wanted to believe God for. First start with this, doctrine. God loves you. And I want to take apart a couple things, so you can begin to love Him as well. You know, in Lamentations 3:22 and 23 says, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness. He is faithful to His word. He is faithful to love.
And so we've got to understand that. It says, as Moses lifted up the serpent, in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him, shall not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. See this word love, for God so loved this human race. Then verse 17 says, for God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world. But that the world through Him might be saved. It says he who believes in Jesus, is not condemned. But he who is not believed, is condemned already. Because he's not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. To be condemned means to be judged guilty. See, God loves human race so much, that He sent Jesus to this world. And He didn't send Him to condemn the world, but to save the world.
Now, the world was already condemned. Because we're all born into this world of sin. We're all born citizens of the kingdom of darkness. And so, every body is. So God's not condemning you, you're already condemned. We're all condemned. But He sends Jesus because He loves us. And as we believe on Him, we begin to sense and know this love. So, don't think for a minute that once you give your life to Jesus, that God is judging you and condemning you and finding fault with you like so many of us grew up thinking. Not at all. He is not condemning you. He is coming to love you. For God so loved the world, that He said He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever should believe on Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Now, this everlasting life that we're talking about, everybody just thinks that it's long. Everlasting. And they forget that the word life actually there's different words for the word life. This one, means God's life. It's not an ants life, it's not a dog's life, it's not a cow's life. It's not, you know, a sinners life. It's not a broken person's life. It's not, it is God's life. Two things always are in everlasting life. Yes, it's forever. And it's always God's life. Which is superior in quality and innumerable in quantity.
As you dive into this kind of teaching, you've got to recognize. You need to hear this over and over and over. Because you're sure God is condemning you. That God is looking at your little details. You're not thinking right, you've got an addiction, you gave your life to Jesus but you're, you're, listen. Stop. The Holy Spirit is on the inside of you when you get saved. And, once you get saved, His job is to convict you of righteousness. To convince you that you're righteous. So, God is here loving you and I. And until we understand this love, you'll never be able to walk in a consistent faith, because you don't trust Him. And because you don't trust in love, faith worketh through love.
If you don't establish that God loves you, He'll do nothing bad for you, all of His thoughts are good. And that, even if you do things that are bad, He is not going to condemn you. Because He sees you through the gift of righteousness, of Jesus. He sees you as Jesus is. Now, if you do go out and rob a bank, there's consequences. But it's not God bringing those consequences. Life does. You go ahead and punch the first big guy you see in the shopping mall, and it's not God that made him beat you up, it's not God that allowed him to beat you up. These are just consequences down here.
So there's real wisdom to learning to flow in the principles of God. But you need to understand that God is in love with you. And He's not condemning you, or He's not judging you guilty. Even in the things that you're doing wrong, the Holy Spirit, the presence of God that is within you as a believer, is not here to judge you guilty. He's here to continue to get your eyes to look to Jesus. Because as Jesus is, that's who you are. And as you look to Jesus, you become more and more like Him. And as you look at your sin, you become more and more convinced this is who you are. And, that's where you're destroyed.
And so if you want to walk in great faith, if you want to learn to work this process of faith, every day, and we're going to talk about because we've been talking about this already. But the one of the very foundational things is God is love. He's not condemning you. He's not even condemning the world. He is pointing the world to Jesus, because even that unsaved person when they hear the Gospel, God's not trying to convince them that you're an adulterer, a fornicator, a liar, a cheat, and all of the different sins they've done, no. It's just you need to accept Jesus. And when you do that, now you are as Jesus is. So as He is, so are you in this world. And as you begin to believe the Word of God, something happens to you.
And as I convince people in our church and those who are watching on this channel or wherever you are. That every time you study the Word, and you learn and grow in the Word, you're gathering evidence towards truth. You know, some people can read the Word of God and just see judgement everywhere. But you've got to begin to recognize that the very foundation of your life, God is love. And He's a rewarded of those who diligently seek Him. That's what it says in Hebrews 11, He is a rewarder. He is not a condemner. He is not a judger, He's not an attacker. He's not bringing your chickens home to roost. He's not going to bring the things you've done wrong.
Someone says well Leon, you're going to sow what you reap. No. That's an earthly thing that takes place, but God is not going to go oh, so you made a sin over there, well I'm going to bring your reaping now. No, no, no. Jesus took the reaping of your sin. And He bore your punishment, the curse of the law, all of that. And so, we must believe. As believers, in the love of God. Dive in deep and recognize you can trust Him. He'll never hurt you. And this is foundational.
And I'm going to encourage you to spend time looking through that. And I want in your heart to challenge every person, every message you've heard, that God's going to get you, going to get you, going to get you. If you sin, God's going to get you. God's got to clean up His church and He's going to clean up His church by taking you out. And all of these things sound correct, but they are contrary to the New Covenant. And when you teach people this, they have no confidence in God's love.
And so you must believe in the love of God. Love, if faith works through love, we must establish how much God loves you. That He is not changing His word. He made a promise to you that, Jesus qualifies you for all the promises, but you know, in your case I'm sovereign, I'm going to change it. I'm not going to keep my word. No, one of the things about loving somebody is to trust them to keep their word that they made to you. The wedding vows that they spoke. The things that they say every day, you can count on their word. Makes you love them even deeper because you can trust them. Most people do not trust God, because they're pretty sure He's going to cause the things they're doing wrong, He's going to hurt them. He's going to, or He's going to step back and allow it, whichever dumb doctrine you've got.
And you've got to recognize, that God is a rewarder. God is in love with you. And this is something you need to clarify before you'll ever walk in great faith. We're going to continue from here next time, if you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior, just right now say Jesus, come into my heart. I give You my life, I'm following You for the rest of my days. Teach me, in Jesus' name, amen. Alright, now. Keep watching, all the time, and get into God's Word. Find a great church if not, keep watching this. Go to our social media, Facebook, YouTube, and just learn the Word of God. You've just started a brand new life, and it's an amazing one because God is absolutely in love with you. We'll see you next time.