STEPS 6 -- SEVEN STEPS TO THE HIGHEST GOD KIND OF FAITH !

STEPS 6 -- SEVEN STEPS TO THE HIGHEST GOD KIND OF FAITH (PART 3). I first discovered the truths of all the Scriptures as I laid in my prison cell for 16 months as a teenager. I did not understand the Scriptures the. At first they were a small gleam of light in a dark corner. I was having the same struggles many of you have two overcome problems in your life or health, you see I just had major surgery on my thyroid and still had the Staples in my neck. Reading my Bible, one day I came across (James 5:14--15): "Is any sick among you ? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed any sins, they shall be forgiven him." As I read, any faith that momentarilly flickered in my heart was quickly extinguished by the thought that what people called church didn't believe in healing or anointing with oil. And besides I was incarcerated. Then the Lord spoke to me and said, "It is the prayer of faith that heals the sick. You can pray that prayer yourself as well as anybody can." I was just a babe in Christ Jesus. I was 17 years old and had been saved only a few months, yet the Lord said I could pray that prayer ! But immediately my wrong thinking from religious thinking defeated me. I thought, Yes, I could --- if I were righteous. I was acquainted with all my short coming, and I knew I was a righteous; at least not according to my understanding of the word. Reading father in James, I read where Elijah is an example of a righteous man praying: "Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months" (James 5:17) as I studied about Elijah, I decided he was not my ideal of a righteous man. When the hand of the Lord was upon him, he could outrun the king's chariot. But when he learned that Queen Jezebel wanted to kill him, he ran and hid under a juniper tree, begging the Lord to let him die. Then he whined to the Lord, "everybody has backslidden but me. I'm the only one who is serving You, Lord." Such inconsistency is hardly the mark of a righteous man. I wondered, How could Jane have given him as an example of a righteous man prayed ? He was no more righteous than I ! Then I remembered James said Elijah was "a man subject to like passions as we are." Not only was he subject to these passions; he also gave into them. Even though he allow discouragement to dominate his actions, he was called a righteous man. A BETTER COVENANT: (Psalms 32:1--2). Blessed is he whose transgressions is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not in iniquity, in whose spirit there is no guile." Under the Old Covenant, the blood of innocent animals covered sin. God did not impute iniquity to people, even though they had sinned. He covered their sin, forgave it. It is imputed righteousness to them. In His sight, they were righteous. ". . . When I see the blood, I will pass over you," he said in (Exodus 12:13). If God did this for His children under the law, how much more will He do for us ? Under grace we have a better covenant, established upon better promises. The blood of Jesus Christ not only covers our sins; it cleanses us "from all unrighteousness." (Revelation 1:5) says, ". . . Unto him that loved us, and washes us from our sins in his own blood." As I read this Scripture, I saw that when I had been born again, all my sins were remitted, in my past life ceased. I saw that I had become a new creature in Christ, and I knew He didn't make any unrighteous new creatures.