Monday, November 6, 2017

Faith Is Believing Without Seeing - God Can And Will Do More Than You Imagined



Do you believe this? —John 11:26

{CHAMBERS} “Martha believed in the power available to Jesus Christ; she believed that if He had been there He could have healed her brother; she also believed that Jesus had a special intimacy with God, and that whatever He asked of God, God would do. But— she needed a closer personal intimacy with Jesus. Martha’s theology had its fulfillment in the future. But Jesus continued to attract and draw her in until her belief became an intimate possession. It then slowly emerged into a personal inheritance— “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ…” (John 11:27).[…] Allow Him [Jesus] to drive His question home to you— “Do you believe this?” Are you facing an area of doubt in your life? Have you come, like Martha, to a crossroads of overwhelming circumstances where your theology is about to become a very personal belief? This happens only when a personal problem brings the awareness of our personal need. […] in intimate personal belief I commit myself spiritually to Jesus Christ and make a determination to be dominated by Him alone. Then, when I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and He says to me, “Do you believe this?” I find that faith is as natural as breathing.”

{ELGIN} You only know what you have experienced.  Martha knew what she had seen Jesus do, but what He was about to do was beyond her imagination. But God can do more … much more.  In this case, He raised Lazarus from the dead.  (Ephesians 3:20-21) “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”  What is it in your life that you have accounted as hopeless and even beyond God to resolve?  Martha told Jesus what He should have done to prevent Lazarus from dying.  She was clueless.  She did not realize that Jesus had waited, intentionally.  Are you willing to let God do that in your life?  To allow a hope, a dream, a circumstance to “die” and trust that God will be glorified through it?  I quote songs a lot, but they are often a reflection of a life event.  Don Moen wrote a song “God will make a way” “God will make a way Where there seems to be no way. He works in ways we cannot see, He will make a way for me. He will be my guide, Hold me closely to His side. With love and strength for each new day, He will make a way.”

It may not be the road you would have chosen to travel or the solution you would have picked.  (Isaiah 55:8-9) “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  That is what living by faith is all about.  “The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Can you trust God in everything?  Even when things don’t go as you had hoped or planned or imagined? It’s a daily endeavor.  We must keep our focus on Jesus and not our circumstances.  So to be like Paul, we are convinced that nothing can separate us from Him. (Romans 8:35-39) “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So Jesus is asking you, today “Do you believe this?” You should because it is true!

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