All in Faith, Prayer, Work
Prayer and living make up a two lane road. When we pray we know enough to listen for God to answer, but that conversation isn’t the two lane road we will speak of today... we will consider the impact our life is having on our faith, and prayers. How we pray influences how we live, and how we live has an incredible affect on how we pray. Can you have a terrible fight with someone, and then pray a sweet prayer? What we do in life each day sets the tone for our relationship with the Lord.
We begin our journey with Jesus by believing in God because if we have no faith in the Father then how could we possibly believe in His Son? Then, as our faith in God increases, and we believe the scripture is His Word regarding our existence with Him, we see the prophesy of the coming Messiah and find the promise of Christ. Every Jew in the day of Jesus made it this far, but it is here that they were separated; some believing that the scriptures were alive, and some that they were at best stagnant, and that they would remain in eternal expectation of a Messiah who, although prophesied, would never be accepted by them to have come. In what state is your faith? How far has your belief come? Where is it going?
God hears our prayers; He gives each of them audience and provides us with all those things we have prayed within His will. The question for us who pray is this... “Do I have confidence that God hears me as I pray and that He will answer me?” Confidence in the Word of God is of the utmost importance to he who prays. Put more simply, we must trust in the fact that God will do what His Word said He would do.
Are you satisfied with the state of your spiritual life? Does living water pour from you as Jesus said it would, or do you pray for it, and feel like your words are drawing nothing out of you? If this is true of where you are in faith, then do not be disappointed, and have patience as you divine the water that is within you.
How often we view the strife and tumult of daily life as an encumbrance to our abiding in Jesus Christ, in God, but that should not be so. In the vineyard the wind blows, the leaves rustle loud, and the sound of the storm grows intense, but at the root, the vine never moves, and the nourishment continues unabated. Every storm provides rain that is drawn into us as strength from the wet ground, and what appears as a raging flood becomes the watering can of our faith.
Are you suffering through something today and as a child of God find yourself wondering if it is because you have failed God in some way? Do you find yourself asking Him why He would allow you to feel such pain, humiliation, illness, deformity, grief, mourning, or other unpleasant form of distress? Well there is a mystery and a revelation in our suffering that brings us where happiness can’t, in it we find the reflection of Christ, and we find holiness.
There are many who study the Bible, and upon reading of the healings and other miracles come to the conclusion that those days must have been the “times of miracles”, and convince themselves that we are not living in such times today. Friends, there is no biblical foundation for such thought, as a matter of fact Jesus taught by using miracles, just as we see in the Old Testament, and He teaches us that we too will perform and receive miracles today.
When we are young we have a certain amount of confidence in our bodies, and lean more on their ability to perform, but as we age our faith in them wanes, and our trust shifts more and more towards God. When we are sick and have access to a doctor our confidence is in the practice of medicine, but when we do not, then our cry is to God. The challenge for the young is to have the faith of the old, and the hardship of the patient in hospital is to deliver the prayer of the poor and unfortunate. Is your hope and faith in God strong... always?
Are you someone who is flirting with the idea of accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and are fearful of committing because you don’t know if you have within you the ability to stand by that commitment for a lifetime? Or perhaps you are already a Christian and worry that your faith isn’t strong enough to carry on in the face of the temptation that surrounds you. Well, do not fear, and trust in the Holy Spirit to sustain you, and build your faith.
Have you given up on certain desires because you prayed for them once, twice, three times, and they were not given to you? Have you resolved yourself to the fact that God just doesn’t want you to have this thing, or that He just doesn’t hear you? Well, if you are praying rightly in the will of God and not asking Him to go against His character and Word, then neither of these assumptions are correct. Persistent prayer leads us into the very crux of faith.
Do you dwell on who Jesus Christ is? When asked about Him do you tell of what He did, how He redeemed you, and taught you things like loving your neighbor as yourself? These things are all true, but do you also tell them that He is the jar that holds the essence of your life, the container in which you dwell? Do you reveal to them that He has so changed you that He has become engrained in your very DNA; so completely intertwined that to extract Him would certainly certainly destroy you? If you can tell them this, then your faith has become the fullness of Christ, and you are no longer about Christ, but in Him.
What shape is your home in? I am not talking about the condition of the physical house you live in, but rather the spiritual roof you and your family live under. Are you providing a sound structure of faith that will shelter and protect you and your family for generations to come? As parents we must first look after our own faith and salvation, but then we must provide an example and instruction for our children. What shape is your spiritual house in today?
Do you think God has abandoned you when you are in a season of suffering in your life? Do you look to Him and cry out in anger at your pain? Does doubt come from your strife, or, even the mere endurance of hardship... or do you trust in Him all the more? There is a mystery in suffering; we wonder why God uses adversity and pain to teach us some of faith’s most valuable lessons.
Can we perform miracles today? I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that question asked, but by merely posing the question we are pointing to the reason why so many ask it in the first place... faith, or the lack thereof. Have you reconciled yourself to the fact that miracles were a thing of the past, or do you grasp hold of this gift and see them performed today?