Friday, October 30, 2009

Faith

Faith
Without faith it is impossible to please Him . . . —Hebrews 11:6

Faith in active opposition to common sense is mistaken enthusiasm and narrow-mindedness, and common sense in opposition to faith demonstrates a mistaken reliance on reason as the basis for truth. The life of faith brings the two of these into the proper relationship. Common sense and faith are as different from each other as the natural life is from the spiritual, and as impulsiveness is from inspiration. Nothing that Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, but is revelation sense, and is complete, whereas common sense falls short. Yet faith must be tested and tried before it becomes real in your life. "We know that all things work together for good . . ." ( Romans 8:28  ) so that no matter what happens, the transforming power of God’s providence transforms perfect faith into reality. Faith always works in a personal way, because the purpose of God is to see that perfect faith is made real in His children.
For every detail of common sense in life, there is a truth God has revealed by which we can prove in our practical experience what we believe God to be. Faith is a tremendously active principle that always puts Jesus Christ first. The life of faith says, "Lord, You have said it, it appears to be irrational, but I’m going to step out boldly, trusting in Your Word" (for example, see Matthew 6:33 ). Turning intellectual faith into our personal possession is always a fight, not just sometimes. God brings us into particular circumstances to educate our faith, because the nature of faith is to make the object of our faith very real to us. Until we know Jesus, God is merely a concept, and we can’t have faith in Him. But once we hear Jesus say, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" ( John 14:9  ) we immediately have something that is real, and our faith is limitless. Faith is the entire person in the right relationship with God through the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

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wow...I thought this one was really insightful.
when he mentioned stepping out in faith, it reminded me of P.Paul's sermon Sunday about how even though Peter was the expert fisher and they had not caught fish all night, because Jesus said so (even though He was known as a teacher and carpenter), he let down his net and something Amazing happened. They had SO much fish that they called the other ship over and they were both sinking haha
Before reading this, I've always thought faith was something God gives you automatically when you ask. But it made a lot of sense what Oswald Chambers wrote,

"God brings us into particular circumstances to educate our faith, because the nature of faith is to make the object of our faith very real to us."

I think just as God does not make our decisions for us so that we can grow by making decisions and help others to make decisions later on(P.Min),  He probably also does not automatically give us faith when we ask but trains us so that we can grow in our faith:)
Lord I want to GROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please help Your children to grow in EVERY way in YOU!!!

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