All in Faith, Prayer, Work
You are a believer in Jesus Christ, and received the Holy Spirit who has given you certain gifts. Yet our tendency as human beings is to take this relationship and our gifts, and to keep them private between God and ourselves. Is this how you are in your faith? Do you have a relationship with God that is private and personal? Have you taken the instruction of Jesus to pray in secret, and applied this to the entirety of your faith? If so you are missing the fullness of living the faith.
The act of Jesus healing and casting out demons is scripturally a rather mysterious process for us, but there are clues put forth in Matthew, and Isaiah that give us some insight into it. It is not mysterious as to whether it actually occurred or not, but rather, in how it was accomplished. When we have a child that is ill we often pray that if it were possible that God allow us to become sick in place of our ailing child. Did you know that in praying this way you are praying with scriptural backing... that you are asking (perhaps unknowingly) to be granted the power to heal as Jesus did?
Are you a loner in your faith? Do you feel like you can take the Bible and journey to a mountaintop on your own without regard for the Church or the body of Christendom? Do you look at bible characters such as Elijah the prophet who was sent to the mountain to wait in a cave for the Lord God to appear and say “this is me! I am meant to be alone!”; do you think that is what Jesus did? Well if so, you had better rethink your position of faith, and your approach to religion. We are all meant to be one, just as God calls us to believe as one, He then joins us to the body of faith to become one with it... one Church.
Every country has a beginning. Some were established so long ago that the exact dates have been lost, and they just seem to have always been, but the United States is young enough that it still remembers its birthday... July 4th, 1776. So happy Birthday USA! Religion is no different than countries, or peoples, in that regard, and the Christian faith is the same. We argue about the exact date of Christ’s birth, because the precise day has been lost to conjecture, and antiquity. Is it December?... September?... the discussion continues. What is important though is our own beginning and personal history with Jesus Christ.
Faith, do you desire it, do you seek it, do you accept it? Can you recognize faith when you see it in others? At its inception faith is ethereal in nature and we can’t hold it in our hand, but when we have a touch of it within ourselves we suddenly begin to see evidence of it all around us. When we have accepted faith it can suddenly be measured. So I ask... do you hold a mustard seed in your hand?
Do we look to Jesus to heal us? Do we depend upon Him to come to us in our times of illness and to lay His healing hand upon our head? Do we wait for Him to say rise and walk, or return our eyesight, or restore our hearing with a bold touch? Well sometimes the healing comes when we go to Him. He is more than a healer... He is the healing itself, and all that needs to happen is for us to come into contact with Him.
Have you ever healed someone by praying over them? Perhaps not, but if you are a believer then someone certainly prayed with you as the confession, and contrition for your sins were lifted up, and you were healed by the acceptance of your faith... healed of the wretched sin-filled soul you once harbored, and joined with Jesus as a joint heir of God. Sickness comes in all forms, and so does healing.
Even before you waited on the LORD He was waiting on you. I know a man who would like to think that God’s mercy and grace is bestowed cart blanch to even those who do not believe in Him... the one true God of Abraham, Moses, and Isaac. This man would like to think that he can obtain the grace and forgiveness associated with Jesus without believing in Him as the Son of God, or obeying His commandments and teaching. This is not so, and yet God waits on this man with open arms.
Are you listening to the voice of Jesus in your life, and in your Church? Do you obey His commandments, and do the will of the Lord? Are you loosely attached to the gospel of Jesus Christ and susceptible to being shaken free of it? If so then redouble your efforts towards Him, and become one in Him because the shaking comes to all.
How does your life fit together with your faith? Does your life contain your faith, or does your faith contain your life? The answer to this question dictates how you will approach the Holy Spirit, and even more than that, what your perception of faith is. Will there joy flowing from your faith, or will you study its details looking for perfection, and fail. Perhaps you have solved the mystery... that by living within our faith we find perfection and joy through Jesus alone. We are imperfect yet live encapsulated by the perfect sacrifice of Jesus, and surrounded in grace by the will of God.
In the name of Jesus Christ rests great power. We call upon it in faith, and by so doing it heals, saves, and provides for our forgiveness of sin. No other name has such strength in it, or reaches the Father’s ear, but before we can call on His name we must believe in the man, the Son of God, and obey. We can add nothing to it that will improve upon it. Call His name, but call it in faith, precision, and certainty.
Have you ever been living out your life and suddenly realized that something you were doing wasn’t what Jesus would have done? In our early years of faith this might be an obvious diversion from a major teaching of Jesus, but as we grow in faith it will most likely be subtle... yet the blessing we gain from this realization, and changing how we behave to be in obedience to Christ in it, is just as strong as when we first believed. The sin of disobedience just as abhorrent.
Is your life so disjointed, and your spiritual journey so up and down that you often are brought to doubt that God is at work in you at all? If this is you then you need to lean on the Word and listen as scripture reassures you that God is absolutely desiring to be the focal point of your life, and to give you His joy, and overwhelming rest, peace, and comfort in Himself.
Are you bold enough to ask God for those things you need? Do you dare to mention the trivial items that you are lacking? So often we hold back things in prayer because we feel that the timing is inopportune, or that we think we know the mind of God, and that He will not want to deal with something so minor, or something that we can do for ourselves. Is this you? Well friends, don’t presume to know the mind of God, and listen to his Word as we are told to ask boldly, and faithfully in the name of Jesus, and for whatever we need.