Thursday

Related Verses
John 1:12-13
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name,
13 Who were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Rom. 12:3
3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to every one who is among you, not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think so as to be sober-minded, as God has apportioned to each a measure of faith.

2 Cor. 6:14-16
14 Do not become dissimilarly yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership do righteousness and lawlessness have? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?
15 And what concord does Christ have with Belial? Or what part does a believer have with an unbeliever?
16 And what agreement does the temple of God have with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, even as God said, “I will dwell among them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they will be My people.”

John 3:15-16
15 That every one who believes into Him may have eternal life.
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that every one who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.

1 Cor. 15:22
22 For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

2 Cor. 5:17
17 So then if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away; behold, they have become new.

Related Reading
The designation believers designates those who have believed in[to] Christ as the Son of God according to God’s New Testament economy…Anyone who does not have faith in Christ, who does not believe in[to] Christ, is certainly not a believer. 

The believers are those who have received Christ as their generating life for them to become the children of God. Believing into Christ equals receiving Him. When we believe into Christ, we receive Him. We receive Him by believing into Him. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 1133, 1137) 

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We are God’s regenerated new creation, united with Christ in His divine life, joined to Christ as one spirit (2 Cor. 5:17; 1 Cor. 6:17). We are not merely generated persons in the old creation. We have been generated twice. The first time was by our parents to be the old creation. We were generated to be the natural man, but one day we were regenerated. Our birth certificate is an important and official document that records the date of our physical birth. Our second birth certificate of our spiritual birth is seen in Romans 8:16, which says that the Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God. Our birth certificate is a double spirit, the Spirit with our spirit. (CWWL, 1994–1997, vol. 5, “The Vital Groups,” p. 88) 

According to Romans 10:17, faith comes out of the hearing of the word. Thus, the source of faith is the word…There are three aspects of the word. First, there is the written word of God—the Bible (John 10:35). Then there is the living word of God—Christ (1:1). Finally, there is the applied word of God—the Spirit (Eph. 6:17; John 6:63). 

The Bible is the written word, and Christ is the living word. Without the Spirit, however, the living word cannot be applied to us. The living word becomes the applied word through the Spirit. God has only one kind of word. First, He spoke, and what He spoke was written in a book. That is the Bible. 

We have such a word, but not many have really been benefited by this word. This is why we have to either read or hear the Bible. Every week we gather together a number of times just to read, speak, and hear the word. When the word of the Bible is spoken to us and heard by us, right away the written word becomes the living word. That is Christ. When the living word is applied to us and received by us, it becomes the word of the Spirit. Then this word of the Spirit heard by us is the source of our faith. Faith comes from the hearing of this applied word by the Spirit through the living Christ out of the written Bible. 

If you think you are bigger than Paul in the quantity of faith, you are crazy. You are not sober-minded [Rom. 12:3]. If you are really sober-minded, you will say, “Brother Paul was a big mountain. I am just a small stone.”…To think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think without a sober mind is to annul the proper order of the Body life. 

In Romans 12 Paul deals with the practice of the Body life…God has not only allotted but also apportioned faith to us. He gave us the same faith in quality but not in quantity. The matter of quantity depends upon how you grow. If you grow today as the apostle Paul grew, the portion of faith you receive will be greatly enlarged. God first allotted faith to us in quality, and then He apportioned it in quantity. What kind of faith you have depends upon God’s allotment. (CWWL, 1994–1997, vol. 1, “Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans,” pp. 286-287, 311-312) 

Further Reading: CWWL, 1994–1997, vol. 5, “A Word of Love to the Co-workers, Elders, Lovers, and Seekers of the Lord,” ch. 2; Life-study of Galatians, msg. 14