Good day everyone. Here is a question for all of you. How is your faith walk? I know that this comes out of the blue but it’s the question I asked myself this morning and it reminded me of things others have said to me about how I serve the Lord. I’m going to share some things I have learned in my faith walk.
Today’s Prayer
Father, Open our eyes that we may see every divine appointment You prepare for us. May we study Your Word and spend time in prayer and fellowship with You and take time to be still and know You, so that we will be aware and prepared for those special opportunities and appointments that come to us. Please forgive us for our failure to be consistent. Help us to grow in faith and goodness as we seek Your face and live each day…and to grasp every opportunity to work for Your kingdom. Thank you, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Let’s eat.
Avoiding Self-Based Faith
We live by faith, not by sight. ~ 2 Corinthians 5:7
Over the years I have run into many people who make the statement, “Whenever I get things in order in my life, I want to get more involved in ministry.” What are these people (you may be one of these people) really saying? They are saying that as soon as they can get the amount of money that creates security, they will trust God. They are saying that what they have been doing to date has not been ministry.
This separation of “work and faith” is common among our culture. We fail to understand that life is sacred to God and there is nothing “holy” and nothing “sacred” in itself.
I would love to hear one wealthy believer say, “I have spent my life in this business. The Lord has blessed me with great resources. However, now I want to see His faithfulness in this stage of my life. That is why I am willing to share my wealth with those who are truly in need and start trusting God to provide for me through new ways.” Wouldn’t that be a novel concept?
Whenever we seek to plan ways of ministry that depend on our ability to manipulate and plan outcome, this is not faith. The ministry that comes from this will be minuscule. Faith that bears fruit is faith that is born from experience with a living God. It is faith that says, “I don’t know where the next check is coming from. All I know is that God told me to do this and I trust Him for the next step.” That is faith that moves mountains and moves God’s heart. HE rarely allows His servant to see beyond the next faith step. However, those who are willing to take the first step and leave the outcome to GOD see His works.
We should all be striving to get to that level of faith.
Quote of the Day
The nominal Christian pays homage to something about Jesus, rather than worshiping the man himself. For this reason, nominal Christians will extol the moral teachings of Jesus, the faith of Jesus, the personality of Jesus, the compassion of Jesus, the world view of Jesus, the self-understanding of Jesus, etc. None of these worships Jesus as the Christ, but only something about him, something peripheral to the actual flesh-and-blood man. This is why when the almighty God came into the world in Jesus, he came as the lowest of the low, as weakness itself, as a complete and utter nothing, in order that men would be forced into the crucial decision about him alone and would not be able to worship anything about him. ~Robert L. Short~