[N]or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God’s work—which is by faith.

1 Timothy 1:4

The church, and all the work of God, are administered by one thing only, and that is by faith.

The work of the Kingdom is administered only in the realm of faith.  While that will always involve practical works, including maintaining property and book-keeping, it is always done to maintain and to keep that which is primarily authored in the realm known by faith.

When we operate out of a aspect of faith in His Kingdom, rather than by program or pattern, form or ritual, we see the progress of Heaven begin to come into our lives.  We see advancement for the purposes of God, and for His desires.  We see breakthroughs in people’s lives, in the Spirit-led endeavors to which we have been lead to either in church-life or in business life, or in home or elsewhere.  We see the progress of the life of the Spirit overtaking and overcoming every obstacle in our life.

When the life of the church, however, is propagated by something other than faith, we see the opposite.  In situations such as these, we see decay and the corruption of this world and the culture around us creeping into every facet of our religion.

The flesh profits nothing, it is only the Spirit that gives life.

When we administer the Work of God by Faith, we first must hear Him.  We must be in the habit of spending our time with Him, of listening to Him, and being ready at any moment to respond to Him.  He must always be first in our lives.

Second, we must believe Him.  Any Word from God, not mixed with faith, actually brings a greater condemnation and shame upon those who do not obey.  Even as the Israelites in the wilderness, who, not having mixed the promises with faith, perished in the wilderness.  It would seem apparent then that, had the Israelites truly believed what God originally said, the obstacles and the difficulties would not have been reason to doubt the entirety of the process.  Had the true faith been in the promise, they would have come through the pressure to it, rather than grumbling.  In the same way, both Jesus and Paul both had heavenly encounters where they were shown what they were to suffer, and the great and lasting reward that would come about through it.  It is always through great and lasting difficulty that anything great before Heaven is done.  This is a rule always, for it it were easy, it would be about us, but it is always about faith.

And, as we all being at one measure of faith and grow with that, from the first word of Salvation which saved us, to the increase in knowledge and the fear of the Lord that comes through growing up in Christ, eating the pure milk of the Word, we all can see that we must never despise the day of small beginnings in any other person as they grow.  No one is where we are at spiritually, they are all always somewhere further or somewhere lesser, but it is their faith that matters before heaven, and not their level of attainment.  True faith will always grow, produce, and yield a harvest, if let to grow without distractions, and will ultimately overtake every other thing, becoming the largest of all plants, but if we stomp upon the sprout because it has only just sprouted and not yet produced grain, we have scattered, not gathered.

So, it is a work of faith, from start to finish.  The administration of this work must be by faith, or it will only every be an empty form or ritual.  Those things that are done not with the Spirit of Faith and of God are sin, and those things which are in following after Him are right, even in the smallest, seemingly insignificant arenas, such as giving one of His disciples a drink of water in Christ’s name.

The house of faith follows the leading of heaven, whether to this way or another.  But, the house of ritual, tradition, or program continues in a form long after that form has ceased to be beneficial   It produces the outward act of the thing, having neither the life nor the heart.  It is truly a bloodless thing, for the life is in the blood.

But, the living active agency of faith, when it moves upon each of us in that body individually proceeds then to energizes us corporately, to the end that we might see the thing not seen, and to call those things not as though they are, we are alive.  For faith alone sees when others cannot.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God.  To do God’s work, we must be those who live by the Faith of the Lord Jesus Christ.