Why It Pays To Live An Intense Life of Faith

Would it be fair in your thinking to acknowledge that Jesus followers should be intense people of faith? We focus quite a bit on faith and that’s good and right – the Bible mentions faith and it’s synonyms over 500x. But, what about the adjective intense to describe our faith? Not just faith but intense faith. Would that adjective describe you? Oswald Chambers was a Scottish Baptist minister who wrote an extremely well-known devotional called ‘My Utmost for His Highest.’ On the subject of sanctification, he wrote the following. Chambers said, ‘sanctification means intense concentration on God’s point of view. It means every power of body, soul and spirit chained and kept for God’s purpose only. Are we prepared for God to do in us all that He separated us for? And then after His work is done in us, are we prepared to separate ourselves to God even as Jesus did? “For their sakes I sanctify Myself.”’¹ I like that. Sanctification is an intense concentration on God’s point of view. What about faith? Shouldn’t the life of faith have an intense concentration on trusting God? Does that thought register in your thinking? Well, that’s what we are going to focus on in this podcast: Why It Pays To Live An Intense Life of Faith — all on this week’s Light on Life.

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The world is full of lackadaisical people. It’s unfortunate because the Christian life is anything but that. It is an intense life of focus and faith.

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Testimony is vital to a believer’s life. We overcome by it (Rev. 12:11). Each week’s podcast also contains a question designed to encourage testimony.
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Question: Do you have a conviction about your life in God? Do you desire to walk with Him in the fulness of an intense trust in God? Please share what your commitment looks like in the comments section so others can be encouraged.

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About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 48 years ago and has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. He and his wife Sharon of 44 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

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Well, again welcome.
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We praise you Father God, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. Open your Word to our understanding in Jesus Name, Amen.

Intense Life of Faith: Lackadaisical Men

The world is full of lackadaisical people.
It’s unfortunate because the Christian life is anything but that.
It is an intense life.
Jesus did not go casually to the Cross.

Luke 9:51 (ESV) — 51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.

Jesus ‘set’ His face to go to Calvary.
The Greek word ‘set’ means to fix one’s face” to do something.
It expresses an absolutely firm resolve, an unshakable decision or attitude, a definitive intention.²
- Be intense.
- Now, think about some of our more recent podcasts.
- We talked extensively about the word ’steadfast.’
James 1:2–4 (ESV) — 2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing…
- Staying power — refusing to quit power — ‘hypomonē’ endurance.
- Isn’t this word ‘intense?’
- Then we looked at the word ‘fight’ in First Timothy.
1 Timothy 6:12 (ESV) — 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
- The Greek word ‘fight’ means to strive to do something with great intensity and effort—‘to make every effort to, to do everything possible to, to strain oneself to.’³
- There’s that word intense again.
- Fighting in faith implies great intensity.
- All of this shows that Jesus followers are supposed to be a people who are intense people.
- C.T. Studd was a British missionary to the nations of China, India, and Asia.
- It was said that.
No one can doubt C. T. Studd’s zeal for his Lord. He lived by his own words, “We do need to be intense, and our intensity must ever increase.⁴
- Now, intensity can be felt.
- Do people feel your fire?
- We use the term ‘on fire for God.’
- What does that mean — well if you tap into some of these words that drip with conviction, fire will be the natural outcome.
Intense Life of Faith: The Shema

Matthew 22:37–38 (ESV) — 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment.
- The intense life of faith is a life of extreme love for God.
- This first great commandment is known as the Shema and comes from Deuteronomy 6:4–9.
- Shema is the Hebrew word for ‘hear’ — ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one.’
- The word ‘hear’ or Shema is the first word in Deuteronomy 6:4 and this entire passage all the way down to verse nine became known by that one word.
- So when you say the Shema, you’re talking — Deuteronomy six, verses four through nine.
- This is how it goes.
Deuteronomy 6:4–9 (ESV) — 4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
- That’s the Shema.
- The Jews would recite these six verses as their confession of faith.
- Jews would declare these words — they would pray these words.
- They would do it morning and evening.
- Jews would hear the Shema recited when they went to the synagogue.
- Jewish boys were taught the Shema as soon as they can speak (b. Sukkah 42a) and it is to be recited at the end of one’s life.⁵
- So, when the lawyer asks Jesus what is the greatest commandment — you know lawyers were experts on the Jewish law — Jesus responds by quoting the Shema but with a bit of a twist.
- Jesus adds two things to the Shema.
- We will talk about those two things in a moment.
- But first,
The Intense Life of Faith Starts with Loving God
- Start with the command to love God.
- The scripture says you shall love the Lord your God.
- After that, you have the breakdown of how you are supposed to do that.
- With all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.
- To get a clue of what ‘all your heart means,’ we need to look at loving others in Old Testament times and with that thought, here is the Historical Background of the Day.
- This background is on how love kings loved each other — you know king to king.
- So, kings would make treaties with one another — with other kings.
- These Kings would also make land agreements with their subjects.
- These land agreements was an economic system where the king owns all the land. But divides out the land to loyalists, who in return, owe him a part of the land’s wealth, as well as military muscle and loyalty if the king should be attacked.
These kings expected the land owners to love them, not merely in a legal way, but with fervor and emotional commitment. Correspondence between the great kings of [the Old Testament] era is full of expressions of love — one king — toward another. The Kings of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, etc. exude mutual brotherhood, loyalty and love to one another. In Hittite language the land owner and his lord were to love each other as they loved themselves. Love unto death, the greatest love, was expected toward the King from the landowner. Furthermore, those [subjects] surrounding the king were to love the king as they loved their own lives. The land owner was to hate the enemy of his lord and the lord was to hate the enemy of the land owner. The subjects of the king were to love him.⁶
- So, this concept of love and loyalty to a king was already floating around in the world.
- And so all that the Spirit of God did in Deuteronomy six was say, ‘Hey, if you understand what it means to love an earthly king because he gave you some land how about loving the King of Kings, the most high God, who gave you life itself.
- God is number one — there is no higher than He.
Intense Life of Faith: How to Love Your God
- But now, how do you do it?
- With ALL your heart, soul, and mind.
- Emphasis on the word ALL — we’re talking intensity here.
- Loving the King of Kings, starts with the word ALL.
- And that word ‘all’ is repeated three times.
- All your heart — all your soul — all your mind.
- Three times — why three times?
- You must know that the number three is a big deal in the Bible.
- How many patriarchs are there in the Old Testament?
- Three: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
- How many members are there in the Godhead?
- Three: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — that’s why they are called the Trinity.
- Three is a big deal in the Word of God.
- Jonah was three days in the heart of the great fish.
- Jesus was three days in the heart of the earth paying the penalty for sins.
- You see, the number ‘three’ is pivotal.
Isaiah 6:3 (ESV) — 3 And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”
- The angels cry ‘holy’ three times — why three times?
- Well, the number three means something.
- Three stands for completion.
- God is completely holy.
- Man is three parts, not two as some have suggested.
- He is spirit, soul, and body — that’s 1 Thessalonians 5:23.
- In Hebrew, the number three means.
harmony, new life, and completeness.⁷
- You shall love God with three ALL’s — all your heart, all your soul, all your mind — that’s three times — that means completely.
- Look at the Hebrew word for ‘ALL,’ and with that thought, here is the Definition of the Day.
- Let’s look at this definition of ALL in both the Hebrew language for the Old Testament and the Greek language for the New Testament.
- The word ‘all’ in Hebrew means whole.
- You shall love the Lord your God with your ‘whole heart.’
- The Greek has the same meaning as the Hebrew but some of the lexicons include the words ‘complete or undivided.’
- You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and a whole heart is an undivided heart.
- You shall love Him with your whole soul and a whole souls is an undivided soul.
- The same thing goes for the mind — whole and undivided.
Joshua 24:15 (ESV) — 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
- That commitment is whole, complete and undivided.
- Now that’s the Old Testament.
The Intense Life of Faith: Jesus Raises the Standard
- We come into the New Testament and what does Jesus do?
- He adds to the standard.
- You can see it by comparing what it says in Deuteronomy and what Jesus says in Matthew.
- You shall love God with ALL your heart and ALL your soul — that’s the same for both but the last part is different.
- Deuteronomy 6:5 says — you shall love the Lord your God with all your might.
- Jesus says as quoted by Matthew, you shall love the Lord your God with all your mind.
- Let’s look at these two words, ‘might’ and ‘mind.’
The Intense Life of Faith: Loving God with Your Might
- The Hebrew word ‘might’ here is a noun but 99.9 percent of the time this word is an adverb translated ‘very.’
- You shall love the Lord your God with all your ‘very.’
- Another dictionary — The New American Standard Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Dictionary says that this word means muchness, force, or abundance⁸
- You shall love the Lord your God with your undivided very’ — you shall love the Lord with your undivided ‘muchness.’
The Intense Life of Faith: Loving God with Your Mind
- The Greek word ‘mind’ means the faculty of thinking, comprehending, and reasoning, understanding, and intelligence.
- Love God with undivided thinking.
- Do you think about God as He sits on His Throne?
- What are some of the thoughts you think concerning Him?
- Do you know that great numbers of people talk to God all over the Planet?
- Even people who wouldn’t darken a church door talk to God.
- Many unchurched people exhibit a desire to interact with their Creator. In 1992, Newsweek magazine featured a cover story called “Talking to God” in which it observed that 91 percent of American women and 85 percent of men pray.[Discipleship Journal, Issue 83 (September/October 1994) (NavPress, 1994).]
- But here, I am not referring so much about talking to God as I am talking about Him.
- Does God come up in your daily conversations or only when Sunday rolls around?
- Are there questions that you have — are you curious about certain aspects of His person?
- Do you have Bible questions?
- Are you discussing any of those questions with others?
- Is God on your lips?
- Think about an earthly person that you love intensely for a moment.
- Maybe you are having to be separated from this person for a few weeks because of a business trip.
- Are you thinking about this loved one as you count the days towards this business trip being over?
- How intense are you thoughts concerning this person?
- Well hopefully, you miss this person and can’t wait to be reunited, right?
- This tiny illustration is part of the dynamic of walking with God.
Ecclesiastes 5:2 (ESV) — 2 Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.
- God is in heaven, you are on earth.
- The Father is sitting on the Throne, you are navigating life on Planet Earth.
- That’s part of walking with God.
- It’s a faith walk and a faith walk is an intense walk.
- Of course, the Father has given you plenty of assistance in this faith walk.
Ezekiel 36:26 (ESV) — 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
- When you gave your heart to God and said yes to the Lordship of Jesus, the Father recreated your heart and put a new spirit within you.
- That spirit is the Holy Spirit.
- And He is your constant companion and guide as you navigate your earth-walk physically separated from the Throne.
- God is in heaven, you are on earth.
- So, we’re talking about an ongoing relationship with a God you cannot see.
- We are talking about loving this God with your mind — with an undivided mind.
- A mind centered on the Throne of God.
- A mind filled with wonder.
- I wonder what God is doing today?
- I wonder how He is able to keep track of little old me?
- I wonder what God is up to globally today?
The Intense Life of Faith: Conversations about God

Malachi 3:16 (ESV) — 16 Then those who feared the LORD spoke with one another. The LORD paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the LORD and esteemed his name.
- The Lord paid attention, is what the ESV says, to the conversations of those who reverenced the Lord.
- I ran across this Hebrew translation of this verse and it spoke to me — maybe it will speak to you as well.
Then fearers of YHWH spoke with each other, each with his companion, and YHWH listened and heeded, and a book of remembrance was written before him concerning the fearers of YHWH and the esteemers of his name.⁹
- Conversations that you have about God are being recorded in a Book of Remembrance.
- He wants to save your words for the future.
- And with that thought here is the Quote of the Day.
All holy thoughts and all holy words belong not only to the present, but to the eternal future as well. Never a holy thought has been lost in the history of the world, nor can be lost. Never a holy word has disappeared. They are all preserved. It is not the cleverness of an idea that gives it immortality, but its Divineness. There are clever things that will pass away with contempt, to the astonishment of the clever people who uttered them. It is not eloquence that can ensure immortality. It is holiness and purity and truth. And while many an outburst of eloquence from silver tongues shall pass away as empty sound into space, the broken, earnest words spoken by a poor illiterate Christian man to his Christian friend by the wayside will never die, for they are written in the Book of Remembrance.¹⁰
- Think about what is not recorded in the Book of Remembrance.
- Certainly not the issues that politically minded people go nuts about.
- Those conversations are not recorded in God’s book.
- Conversations about the latest block buster superhero movie are not recorded.
- Conversations about sports, criminal cases, and social media influencers are not recorded.
- Those conversations are not about the Lord.
- They are about the stuff of life.
- Many get caught up in the stuff of life until it becomes their life — and an unfulfilling life it is.
- No, the only that lasts are divine things — the things of God — the the things of the Spirit of God — the holy things of righteousness, faith, and prayer.
- The testimonies of God’s deliverance — those conservations that we have are the entries that God records in His Book of Remembrance.
- Do you recall in the book of Esther how the king of the Persians had a book of deeds.
Esther 6:1–2 (ESV) — 1 On that night the king could not sleep. And he gave orders to bring the book of memorable deeds, the chronicles, and they were read before the king. 2 And it was found written how Mordecai had told about Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, who guarded the threshold, and who had sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus.
- The Persian king had such a book.
- So does the Lord.
Psalm 56:8 (ESV) — 8 You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?
- Precious to God are the talks you have with others about Him.
- Precious to God are the deeds you do in His Name.
- Talk about God — speak often about Him.
- The more you do, the more real He will become to you.
- You will hear all these words again for one day when you walk in glory the Lord will have the books opened and your words spoken in reverence for God will be read to you.
- They are forever recorded.
- How intense is the life of faith.
- Did you get anything out of this today?
Now, Father God, thank you for the opportunity to walk in the land of the living. Thank you for allowing us to be a testimony to your grace. How we love to trust you and to speak of you often. We give you all the praise, glory and honor in Jesus, Name, Amen.
- Why It Pays To Live An Intense Life of Faith.
- You guys have a great God week and we will see you next time for another edition of Light on Life.
The First Commandment: God’s Demand to Exclusive Allegiance

___________
References:
1. Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year (Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986). ↩
2. Ceslas Spicq and James D. Ernest, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 293–294.
3. Jesus ‘set’ His face — that’s a decision that shows intensity.
4. We should set our face to obey God as well.
5. We are not to go about leisurely building up the Kingdom of God.
6. With that thought, here is the Illustration of the Day.

It is always fascinating to read of wholehearted human endeavor—amazing stories of total dedication. For example, the U.S. Marines conduct a super-secret sniper program in Quantico, Virginia. The school admits 25 men for an eight-week course of 16-hour days. Very few pass. To graduate, each goes on a mock mission into a well-defined area where instructors search for the sniper. If they can find him, they can fail him. To get in range of the target, a sniper may move forward at a rate of one inch per hour. He may sit for days absolutely still, despite cold, rain, insect bites, and fear. No one gets out without singleness of heart (“School for Snipers,” U.S. News and World Report, 21 April 1986, p. 61). We expect that kind of intensity from Olympic champions, concert pianists, doctoral candidates, and everyone else at the highest levels of human achievements. Likewise, God expects it when we come back to Him. God deserves singleness of heart because He is God! Most of us intend to come back to God—sometime. But we fail because our intention never becomes intense.[3. AMG Bible Illustrations, Bible Illustrations Series (Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 2000). ↩
. Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 662. ↩

Galaxie Software, 10,000 Sermon Illustrations (Biblical Studies Press, 2002). ↩

Douglas S. Huffman and Jamie N. Hausherr, “Shema, the,” in The Lexham Bible Dictionary, ed. John D. Barry et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016). ↩

Craig S. Keener and John H. Walton, eds., NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016), 306. ↩

https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/bible-study/what-does-the-number-3-signify-in-the-bible.html ↩

Robert L. Thomas, New American Standard Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Dictionaries : Updated Edition (Anaheim: Foundation Publications, Inc., 1998). ↩

James Pohlig, An Exegetical Summary of Malachi (Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1998), 177. ↩

James Hastings, ed., The Great Texts of the Bible: Jeremiah-Malachi (New York; Edinburgh: Charles Scribner’s Sons; T&T Clark, 1915), 490–492. ↩

emeryhorvath.com

Equipping people to pursue God's glory

Why It Pays To Live An Intense Life of Faith

Podcast: Light on Life Season Twelve Episode Twenty-Three

by Emery Horvath

Listen to the Audio

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Read the Notes

Accept the Challenge

Join the Conversation

Episode Resources:How Jesus Style Perserverance Can Make You a Winner

We are currently teaching on the subject of Divine Healing. You can click on the links below to listen to more podcasts or read blog posts along this line.

About Emery

Subscribe to the Podcast

Share the Love

Prayer

Intense Life of Faith: Lackadaisical Men

Intense Life of Faith: The Shema

The Intense Life of Faith Starts with Loving God

Intense Life of Faith: How to Love Your God

The Intense Life of Faith: Jesus Raises the Standard

The Intense Life of Faith: Loving God with Your Might

The Intense Life of Faith: Loving God with Your Mind

The Intense Life of Faith: Conversations about God

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Listen to the Audio

Click to Listen | Right Click to Download |Subscribe to PocketCasts

Read the Notes

Accept the Challenge

Join the Conversation

Episode Resources:How Jesus Style Perserverance Can Make You a Winner

We are currently teaching on the subject of Divine Healing. You can click on the links below to listen to more podcasts or read blog posts along this line.

About Emery

Subscribe to the Podcast

Share the Love

Prayer

Intense Life of Faith: Lackadaisical Men

Intense Life of Faith: The Shema

The Intense Life of Faith Starts with Loving God

Intense Life of Faith: How to Love Your God

The Intense Life of Faith: Jesus Raises the Standard

The Intense Life of Faith: Loving God with Your Might

The Intense Life of Faith: Loving God with Your Mind

The Intense Life of Faith: Conversations about God

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