12/22/2025
Are you struggling with whether you will give yourself to Jesus, and fully believe in God? Have you been reasoning and reading scripture without moving an inch closer to actually believing? If so, then quit listening to your own intellect, and still your mind... then open your ears to the still small voice of God that has been calling you to “Come” and which now asks you to determine what has brought you to this place. Hearing God isn’t a matter of intellectual reasoning on your part; it is being inexplicably drawn by His voice alone. So… what are you doing here, and will you come to Him?
“And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"”
1 Kings 19:13 ESV
To surrender our own intellect and will so that we can believe in something purely out of faith is contrary to human nature. Faith in something unproven and unseen flies in the face of what the world teaches us and our own academic and intellectual pride; it demands that we give ourselves over to something other than our own reasoning and understanding... it requires us to lean on a mysterious calling. Yet this is exactly what Jesus tells us we must do in scripture...
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, 'And they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—”
John 6:44-45 ESV
So, for our faith to ignite and move us to believe we must first listen to God’s voice as He draws us to Jesus and then through Him to Himself. In this moment of self-release and vulnerability, we remove the earthly clothing of intellectual reasoning we have worn for so long and come to trust in God alone. In this moment of faith, we find ourselves trusting that we will be clothed completely by Him and have no need any longer for our own worldly attire. This is incredibly hard for us to do as people who are ruled by intellectual reasoning alone, but for those who trust in God with all their heart it is amazingly fulfilling, wonderful, and easy.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
Proverbs 3:5-6 ESV
What I find interesting is how many new Christians will momentarily set aside their earthly selves and reasoning to answer the call of God only to begin, almost immediately, to pick it back up once more in an attempt to justify by scientific or by personal reasoning the spiritual call of the faith they just received. This is akin to our attempt to see air, because by trying to do so it only leads us to discontent or quite possibly the abandonment of our faith that it is real. On the other hand, it is perfectly natural to take what has happened as fact and then base our future reasoning on it. Pastor Oswald Chambers spoke of understanding our conversion when he wrote these words:
“Every man is made to reach out beyond his grasp. It is God who draws me, and my relationship to Him in the first place is a personal one, not an intellectual one. I am introduced into the relationship by the miracle of God and my own will to believe, then I begin to get an intelligent appreciation and understanding of the wonder of the transaction.” - Oswald Chambers
We can never doubt that we are clothed by God... else we become ashamed as we face our nakedness once more. When we doubt our faith we will return to a worldly nudity, as our belief ceases to clothe us, and our reliance on the physical world is reinstated. Sadly, this happens quite often as the world overrules a believer’s spirituality. This is the work of he who rules the world and is part of his counterattack against our faith in God. It is the dark one using our conditioned intellectual dependence to argue against the existence of God; it is the intellect that, from childhood, we have been trained to value above all else as it attempts to place itself first in our lives once more.
“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.”
John 15:4 NLT
So, let’s keep ourselves safely in Jesus Christ, and not allow worldly reason to destroy our spiritual faithfulness. Let’s answer “Here am I” to God when we hear His still small voice… and then hold to the wonders of our belief in Him. The spiritual things we cannot see are just as real as those we touch every day in the physical world. Believing this leads us to answer God’s call and to grasp that which we can’t see… it is the spiritual air which is our faith in Jesus Christ, God’s Holy Spirit, and Him.
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life.”
John 6:44-48 ESV
Prayer:
Father I thank you for calling me to believe in Jesus and you. I thank you for the ability to abandon my own intellectual will, which is founded solely in the world, and then for expanding me through faith into the spiritual realm that surrounds me. I thank you for your Son Jesus Christ that you have led me into a relationship with, and the lessons He teaches me regarding you and faith. Holy Father, I hold tight to my belief in you and resist my own intellectual vanity that seeks to draw me away from you by replacing my seed of faith with worldly reasoning. Keep me Jesus and lead me safely down the treacherous path between godly spirituality and my desire to see myself solely through the eyes of the world. Strengthen me Abba as I hold to you and place my own self-reliance behind me. Into your hands I have committed myself, and now deny any reasoning within me to overrule you. Blessed are you Lord Jesus, and mighty is our Father who rules both heaven and earth. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you Lord who was, and is, and is to come, for you are our God and rule over all things. Holy are you who by your love for us has drawn us through your Son Jesus to you. In you I believe and have faith, now and forevermore.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
7 Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
8 It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.
Proverbs 3:5-8 ESV
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Amen!
Rich Forbes