The Reading Plan is designed to guide you through daily scriptures and reflections, helping you deepen your understanding and strengthen your faith. Simply follow the daily readings provided, meditate on the scripture, and reflect on how it applies to your life. You can revisit previous days or jump ahead to future readings at your own pace. Stay consistent, and watch your spiritual growth unfold as you engage with the Word daily.
- Resources
- >
- Reading Plan
- >
- True Faith
5Day Reading Plan
True Faith
- Faith
Creflo Dollar
Faith is essential to receiving from God. We are all taught to believe, but for our belief to be effective, we must base it on the finished works of Jesus, not on our own striving. Under grace, we never have to add our own performance to faith to get it to work. Our faith in God’s love gives us rest from our labors; resting in Him is a sign that our belief is real.
How to Use the Reading Plan:
About the Author:
Creflo Dollar serves as the Senior Pastor of World Changers Church International in College Park, Georgia. He has authored transformative books like Radical Life of Grace and Why I Hate Religion. His award-winning television broadcast, Changing Your World, reaches nearly 1 billion homes globally.
Day 1The Gift of God’s Faith
Faith is essential to receiving from God. We’re all taught to believe; however, for our belief to be effective, we must base it on the finished works of Jesus, not on our own striving. We don’t have to add our performance to faith because Jesus did all the work necessary. He doesn’t need any help from us.
The only reason we have salvation is because of Jesus; our own works aren’t part of the equation. When mankind was hopelessly mired in sin, Christ went to the cross and took all of our sins—and the penalty for them—onto Himself. His body and blood became the ransom paid to redeem us. God made Him who knew no sin to become sin, so that we could be made the righteousness of God in Him.
At the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, John immediately recognized who Jesus was; he called out to the people to behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. His announcement wasn’t something he’d figured out on his own, but a revelation from the Holy Spirit. Simon Peter also received this kind of revelation from God, prompting Jesus to exclaim that flesh and blood hadn’t revealed this to him, but the Father in heaven.
Both John and Simon Peter had received the kind of faith that allowed them to see Jesus for who He really was. His is the only true faith, because Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. Our own faith is sporadic and imperfect; what makes us righteous and justified before God is the faith of Jesus Christ.
Faith in Jesus is good, but the faith of Jesus is better. His faith is all we need. Knowing the difference saves us from useless works.
Scriptures:
2 Corinthians 5:21
John 1:29
Matthew 16:15-17
Hebrews 12:2
Romans 3:22
Galatians 2:16
To help you uncover the depths of Jesus’ faith and how it applies to your life, check out Life Saver Sermon Notes: The Faith Edition or the Resilient Faith 4-message series.
Day 2The Faith of Jesus Christ
Most of us have memories of receiving valuable gifts from loved ones who seemed to know exactly what we needed. God has done the same thing, only to a greater degree. As our heavenly Father, He sees us struggling to develop our own faith but continuing to fall short. This is why He gave us His own faith that helps us receive from Him; the great thing about this gift is that we don’t have to earn it or even deserve it.
There’s a difference between our faith and God’s faith. Christians have been taught the importance of faith in Jesus Christ, but our own faith is continually being developed and remains imperfect. By contrast, His faith is already perfect and fully developed, and He’s offering it to us. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights; we can’t get faith any better or purer than His.
God wants to give us good things; our own works and self-effort to earn them cancel out the grace He wants to show us. Going by this definition, faith is therefore a “non-work.” We receive from God because of His kindness, not because of our good works. If our efforts did matter, then His grace wouldn’t be what it really is—free and undeserved.
We can’t trust in our performance because salvation doesn’t come by our own works; God saved us not because of the righteous things we’ve done, but because of His mercy. By grace, we’ve been saved though faith, but not of ourselves: it’s a gift from God. Before Jesus’ death and resurrection, salvation came by rigidly following a long list of rules and commandments; now, it comes by simple faith. Believing this spares us from endless works.
Scriptures:
James 1:17
Romans 11:6, NLT
Titus 3:5, NLT
Ephesians 2:8
Matthew 19:16-19
Acts 16:30, 31
To help you uncover the depths of Jesus’ faith and how it applies to your life, check out Life Saver Sermon Notes: The Faith Edition or the Resilient Faith 4-message series.
Day 3The Faith God Offers Us
Christians have traditionally been taught in church the importance and value of faith. Although belief in Christ is important, we must be careful not to turn it into something we work for; just as grace is a free and undeserved gift from God, so also is faith. Religion presents this to us in the wrong order and says that we must labor, first, to earn God’s favor; the truth is that we were saved by faith in His grace.
Going one step further, without receiving this gift of perfect and complete faith from Jesus, we’d be struggling with our own imperfect faith. It would be strong one day, weak the next. Thankfully, as born-again believers who have Christ living in us, we can base our faith on His. Having the faith of Jesus Christ makes us the righteousness of God; it justifies us and makes us saints.
Understanding the distinction between “in” and “of” as it pertains to faith turns it from an empty work to receiving from God. We don’t have to try to manufacture our faith because God’s true faith is already in us. Jesus, full of grace and truth, is a gift from a God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. This elevates our lives to a whole new level.
True faith is based on the finished works of Jesus, who delivers us from useless self-effort to perform perfectly. This is a radical departure from life under old-covenant law; under that dispensation, faith wasn’t required, only works. Jesus lifted that burden from us, so that we no longer have to be tired, worn out, and burned out on religion. Accepting His faith gives us a real rest and teaches us to live freely and lightly.
Scriptures:
Ephesians 2:8
Romans 3:22
Galatians 2:16
Revelation 14:12
John 1:14
John 3:16
Matthew 11:28-30, MSG
To help you uncover the depths of Jesus’ faith and how it applies to your life, check out Life Saver Sermon Notes: The Faith Edition or the Resilient Faith 4-message series.
Day 4The Gift of Christ’s Perfect Faith
Change is a part of life, and embracing it keeps us moving forward so that we won’t stagnate. This especially applies to our faith living under the current covenant of grace. What was true under the law may no longer be true under grace. In the Old Testament, mankind had to rely on his own faith; now however, we can use Jesus’ faith.
The Bible commends a number of Old-Testament believers including Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Moses, and even Rahab the prostitute. They all pleased God because of their acts of faith, but none of them received what God had promised. This promise came later in the form of Jesus, who is faith in human form. Paul wrote to the Galatians that the law was man’s schoolmaster until faith came; by “faith,” he was referring to Jesus.
The law was a shadow of good things to come, but not the actual image of them. Under the old dispensation of the law, there was no opportunity to get born again and receive Jesus, but now there is. Under the present dispensation of grace, when we’re in Christ and He’s in us, His perfect faith becomes our faith. This is a vast improvement from when the people had to rely on their own imperfect faith.
Without faith, it’s impossible to please God. However, the focus is no longer on trying to manufacture our own faith. Under grace, Jesus—not us—is our source of true faith. No one receives God’s perfect righteousness as a reward for keeping the law, but only by the faith of Jesus.
Someone who promises a gift but doesn’t give it is like clouds and wind that bring no rain. God has already given us the gift of faith. We simply need to employ it.
Scriptures:
Hebrews 11:1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 24, 31, 39, NIV
Galatians 3:23, 24
Hebrews 10:1
Hebrews 11:6
Galatians 2:16, TPT
Proverbs 25:14, NLT
To help you uncover the depths of Jesus’ faith and how it applies to your life, check out Life Saver Sermon Notes: The Faith Edition or the Resilient Faith 4-message series.
Day 5Trusting in God Instead of in Ourselves
The finished works of Jesus have changed how faith impacts believers’ lives on several different levels. One of those changes focuses on the type of obedience pleasing to God. Under the law, obeying was defined as strict adherence to a specific set of rules and regulations prescribed by the law. Now, it’s defined by having faith in God’s grace.
Grace and faith go hand-in-hand, and we mustn’t misunderstand the connection between them. Works are important, but they become empty works if they’re not born out of faith. James explained that faith without works is dead, and asked the believers what profit there was in having faith without works. Genuine faith is eventually expressed through our actions.
Faith is unique to the covenant of grace. Paul wrote to the Romans that we’re justified by faith, without the deeds of the law. He explained to the Galatians that a man isn’t justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Unlike under the law, it’s now about trusting and believing, not about the fear of punishment or retribution for failing to perform perfectly.
We have nothing that God hasn’t given us; therefore we can’t brag about what we did or didn’t do. This includes bragging about “our” faith, which is a gift from God. Acknowledging that faith—along with grace and salvation—are gifts that weren’t anything we worked to develop on our own keeps us from boasting.
When the people saw all the miracles Jesus did, they asked what they could do to work the works of God. He told them that the work of God is to believe in the One He sent. Obeying God no longer requires working hard; it’s now demonstrated by faith in what Jesus did for us.
Scriptures:
James 2:14, 17, 26
Romans 3:28
Galatians 2:16
1 Corinthians 4:7, NLT
Ephesians 2:9
John 6:28, 29
To help you uncover the depths of Jesus’ faith and how it applies to your life, check out Life Saver Sermon Notes: The Faith Edition or the Resilient Faith 4-message series.
Continue Your Spiritual Journey