| |
Faith
Some Christians are all the time troubling themselves
about having lost their job of serving the Lord. Whenever
things are not just as favorable as such Christians think
they ought to be, they begin to question themselves. The
Scripture says, "Know ye not … that Jesus Christ is
in you, except ye be reprobates?" (2 Corinthians
13:5). He will not cast you off unless you turn away from
him. You will not lose your job of serving him, unless you
want to lose it. If you do something that causes him to
discharge you, he will tell you plainly what it is. He
will not leave you to guess and wonder. Obey him and trust
him, and you will be his.
He who has faith has both arms and armor. It is a
defensive armor to shield us against our foe. In I
Thessalonians 5:8 Paul calls it a breastplate. In
Ephesians 6:16 he says, "Above all, taking the shield
of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the
fiery darts of the wicked." By this he means that
faith is our principal protection. With his shield the
ancient soldier stopped the arrows of his adversary , and
with the shield of faith we may quench all the fiery darts
that are shot at our souls and turn aside all the other
things that would wound us. This is how we should use it
for defense: Disbelieve all that contradicts God –
circumstances, people, feeling, or whatever it may be. God
is true no matter who or what may testify to the contrary
nor how strong that testimony. If God is true, that which
is contrary to that which he says is false, and we should
treat it as being false. It is by faith that we stand
(Romans 11:20). We may be sure of one thing; that is, that
we shall never fall by faith. We may fall by unbelief, but
never by faith. No soul ever went down trusting. Take God
at his word. You need not worry about falling. Just
believe. God has promised to protect you. If you will
build a form about you with your faith, God will pour in
the concrete until he has made a solid, impenetrable wall
all around you.
Faith is not only our armor, but also our weapons of
offense. John said, "This is the victory that
overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that
overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is
the Son of God?" (I John 5:4, 5). In the eleventh
chapter of Hebrews we find a list of some of the wonderful
things wrought through faith. Through it armies were put
to flight, the dead brought to life, and great obstacles
overcome. It is our surest weapon. Let us arm ourselves
with it and go forward to victory.
There is one foundation upon which we can build which
will never yield. Jude speaks of it thus: "But ye,
beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy
faith" (verse 20). All other virtues must be built
upon this foundation. It is the only foundation for
Christian character or Christian attainment. There is no
solid foundation but this. It alone will stand the tests
of life’s storms. Do you want to live a victorious life?
Faith is the victory. As long as you have faith, you have
victory, and you will keep the victory until you surrender
your faith. Therefore hold fast your faith and confidence
in God and in yourself.
There are hindrances to faith. We may either hinder or
help our faith. One way in which it is often hindered is
by making the promise mean someone else instead of us. It
is often easier to have faith for others than for
ourselves, or it seems to be easier. It looks very
reasonable that God would answer the prayer of others. The
promise means other; of course it does. But it means us
just as well. We should not think that it is easier for
others to have faith than it is for us. We should not
think that God is more likely to answer others than he is
to answer us. God wants us to have confidence in our own
prayers. He wants us to believe that he will do as much
for us as for others, and that his promise means us just
as well as anyone else. His promise does mean us. God is
no respecter of persons. If our hearts are true to him, he
will hear us just as quickly as he will hear anyone else.
Do not let yourself get the idea that your prayers will
not be heard as surely as the prayers of others. If you
do, it will be a hindrance to your faith. It is not true.
God gives the promise to us as well as to anyone else, and
he wants us to look upon it that way, and act upon it that
way. Your prayers are just as acceptable as the prayers of
any other of God’s children. He will be as true to his
word in your case as in theirs. He will do for you what he
will do for them, if you believe. God makes no difference
between his children. He treats them all alike if they
believe him alike and obey him alike.
Another hindrance to faith is the idea that some people
have, that they must work themselves up to some emotional
state or have some particular feeling, in order to be
heard. There is a great difference between faith and
emotion. It is faith that brings the answer. God’s
promises are true no matter how we feel about them. They
are true absolutely and always, and they will be made
effectual for us according to our needs if we will rely
upon them. But God fulfills his promises in his own way.
We must leave the choosing to him. But if we ask in a
submissive way, he always answers more wisely than we ask.
We must remember this one fact: that God will not take
dictation from us as to how he shall answer. If we try to
dictate to him, we only put a barrier in the way of his
answering us. Therefore when you pray, pray submissively,
"Not my will, but thine be done."
Many people limit God in his answering, because they
are so sure just how it ought to be that God must answer
their way or not at all. Is our wisdom greater than
God’s? Do we know what ought to be better than he knows?
Sometimes people will accept an answer only in the way
that they want it. God sees that they are self-willed, and
so he must deny them. We cannot make God work according to
our plan; we must work according to his. When we pray
without submitting to his will, or give him the privilege
of answering in his own way, we are wasting our time. Not
only so, but we are developing rebellion in our hearts
against God. He hates self-will and stubbornness. It shows
that we have more confidence in ourselves than in him.
Confidence is the basis of faith. John says:
"Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we
confidence toward God. And whatsoever we ask, we receive
of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those
things that are pleasing in his sight" (I John 3:21,
22). We cannot have faith over sin in the heart. Sin is a
barrier to faith unless there is repentance. The heart
must be right or seeking to be right before faith can be
effectual. Any unwillingness in our hearts to do all we
know of the will of God or any drawing back from his
commandments will act as a barrier to our faith. If our
hearts bear us witness that we are doing the will of God
so far as we know it, this will bring to us confidence. In
this confidence we can approach God, knowing that he will
hear us. Disobedience, or rebellion against anything that
we know to be the will of God, is ruinous to faith, so
that she cannot soar upward. Hezekiah could pray to God
with faith for his healing, only because of the fact that
his heart testified to his uprightness of character and
his whole-hearted obedience.
Sometimes there are other things besides sin that
hinder our confidence in ourselves before the Lord. Doubt,
or anything that makes us question our standing, will
hinder our faith. When anything comes up that makes us
question ourselves, we ought to have it settled
immediately, and not let it drag along to trouble us. It
is our privilege to have such things settled without
delay. When our good judgment tells us that we have not
sinned against the Lord, we ought not to let ourselves be
troubled about other things. If God, for our profit, has
chastised us, or Satan has brought a feeling of
condemnation upon us, or whatever it may be that troubles
us, it is our privilege to look to God through it all and
count ourselves victorious. Such things need not be a
hindrance to us if we will keep our confidence and our
integrity steadfast.
We also must have confidence in God. We may know from a
reasonable standpoint that all God’s promises are true
and true for us, and still we may not have that assurance
and that confidence in him which enables us to lay hold up
on his promise and make it ours. Sometimes we cannot bring
ourselves to feel the reality of his promises. This does
not change them nor render them untrue. The question is
not whether we feel that his promises are true, but
whether we will believe they are true and appropriate them
for ourselves.
Looking at ourselves or our failures is also a great
hindrance. There is reason for every failure, but some
things that are called failures are not failures at all.
It is only God answering in a different way. There are
many failures because people give up too soon. They are
too quick to think that if others have failed they also
are sure to fail. If you have failed in the past, it is
not proof that you will do so now. If you know a reason
for failure, get that reason out of the way; if you can
find no reason for failure, press right on till you get
what you desire.
Another hindrance is trying to force faith. When we try
to force it beyond its natural limit, we weaken it. We do
not need to nerve ourselves up to the highest pitch in
order to have faith. In fact, that has nothing to do with
faith. When faith works at all, it works easily and
naturally, without any straining or forcing. God is true,
he has promised, and we simply take it for granted that he
will do as he has promised, and rely upon that. That is
faith; that is a natural operation of faith; that is the
way faith reaches results. We have to develop faith. Faith
is not accidental. The conditions favorable or unfavorable
to it are often of our own making. Spirituality is one
necessary condition. A careless life is poor soil in which
to develop faith. Anything that we can do to develop our
spirituality and draw nearer to God will make faith work
more naturally and will make it stronger and more
effectual. Carelessness in our living, neglect of prayer,
and various other means by which we are made less
spiritual will react upon our faith. We may build a good
foundation for future action of faith by reading the
Scriptures and impressing forcibly upon our minds that
‘"this promise is true." Whenever a doubt
comes to your mind, challenge it and overbalance it with
the assertion that "God is true and his Word is
true." This is the way to cure your doubts. You know
that God is true. Meet every doubt with a positive
assertion of his trueness. Make this your daily habit.
Whenever the Word of God comes to your mind, refresh
yourself with the thought of its absolute truthfulness.
God is true, and God is true to you. Never give place to a
suggestion to the contrary, for it is not, and cannot be,
the truth. Follow out this plan of impressing upon your
heart and mind that God is true and that his Word is true,
and you will find him becoming more and more real to you.
Seeking should always be definite and persistent, and
always with a definite goal. To seek for a little while
and then without an answer to give up seeking, weakens
faith. Do not pray haphazardly, just saying words to fill
space. We can commune with God, speaking out to him all
that is in our hearts; but when it comes to the
concentration of faith on some particular point to bring
results, there must be earnest and definite action. The
best way I know to increase faith is this: When you feel
anything to be necessary or to be the will of God for you
to have, go to asking him and keep right on till you get
an answer. One answered prayer is worth more than a
thousand prayers unanswered. Do not pray at random; always
make your prayers definite. Put faith into them. Many
prayers are prayed that people do not expect to get any
answer to. They would be very much surprised at getting an
answer. Why do they pray such prayers? Are not such
prayers an insult to God? Do not play the fool with God.
Do not ask a thing unless you mean it and want it and are
willing to throw your faith into the seeking to get it. If
you do not mean business, you had better keep quiet; and
if you do mean business, keep on till you accomplish what
you set out to do, or find a good reason for not doing so.
If God shows that it is his will not to grant what you
ask, that is reason enough; but get an answer of some
kind.
Some get into trouble, and their faith fails, and they
wonder why, when the real secret lies in their careless
habits of prayer. They have formed a habit of praying for
things a while and then giving up without an answer, and
when they come to a place of real need, the habit of
giving up asserts itself and faith fails. Continuity is a
necessary quality of the faith that wins; continuity can
be developed only by continual practice. Do not expect to
develop faith in a crisis of need. God is often pleased to
give us special faith for a special need; but in general
he expects us to develop the faith we need through the
daily use of what we already have. Do not look upon strong
faith as a thing that is to you unattainable. It is
unattainable only to those who are too indolent or too
careless to do what is necessary to attain it. You will
never find faith as you might find someone’s lost purse.
It will never come to you by accident. It is a thing that
must be developed, and we must work with God to bring
about that development.
There are some people who were naturally strong in
faith, but who in some way have become baffled in their
faith. A reaction of some sort appears to have come upon
them. They seem unable to rely upon the promises of God as
they formerly did. In a way, they believe them just as
much as they ever did, but they seem to have lost the
power to grasp them and make them their own. Whatever may
have been the cause of the weakening of their faith, the
important thing now is the restoration of that faith. This
is sometimes very difficult. People in this condition
ought to be treated with the greatest care and
consideration. Condemning them or blaming them will never
help them out. The important thing is to find where the
trouble is and to help them build up their faith again. I
know something of this relaxation of faith by personal
experience, and I know that it cannot be regained by
radical action. As a rule, the recovery is gradual. People
in this relaxed condition need our sympathy and our help
rather than our condemnation. Their faith needs
encouragement, and it is only through this that it can
overcome and rise to the normal again.
There are two ways in which God answers prayer. One is
that he hears our requests and gives immediately that
which we desire. The other is that he grants our request
and gives us the consciousness of such granting, but does
not bestow the thing asked until a later time. To
illustrate: A boy comes to his father and asks,
"Father, will you let me have your knife?" The
father says, "Yes, my son," and takes it from
his pocket and gives it to him at once. Another child come
sup to him and says, "Papa, will you get me a new
hat?" He says, "Yes, my son," but perhaps
he does not purchase the new hat for a week or two. In
both cases the request is granted, but in one instance the
asker gains immediate possession of the object desired,
while in the other the asker does not receive the desired
object at once. So sometimes when we come to God, he gives
us immediately what we ask of him; we obtain possession of
it at once. At other times we have the consciousness that
he has granted our petition, but possibly we may have to
wait some little time before the thing wanted actually
comes into our possession. When it is granted, it is ours,
in one respect, just as much as though we had it, but we
do not have the joy of possession nor the use of the
object until it is actually bestowed upon us. It is at
this time – when we realize that our petition is granted
and still we do not possess that which we desire – that
we "have need of patience, … that we might receive
the promise." Sometimes in praying for healing there
is the assurance that God hears, the he is pleased to
heal, and a consciousness that he is granting our request;
but at the same time there may be no manifestation of the
healing power in our bodies. At such times we can
confidently wait, looking forward to the coming of the
healing. Of course, we do not have the healing in our
possession until the work is wrought in our bodies, but
the answer to our prayer may be granted. At such times we
need only to have faith, and God will manifest himself in
power to us when it is his good pleasure to do so.
Faith and Testimony
Overlooking the fact just stated, people sometimes get
the evidence or assurance of their healing and testify
that they are healed when, in reality, there has been no
change in their bodies. People look upon them and perceive
no difference. They seem to be exactly as they were
before, and they act the same as they did before, and
still they claim to be healed. We are not really healed
until the work is done in our bodies, though if God has
answered our prayer, we are just as sure of the healing as
if the work were already done. We ought, however, to be
wise in our testimony. If God has given us the assurance
of healing, let us testify to that assurance. We can
testify to what we have, and look with confidence and
expectation to the coming of the healing power. We ought,
however, to be careful as to the extent of our testimony,
and not let it go beyond the mark. When God says yes to
our prayers, we can rejoice in that, just as the little
boy could rejoice at his father’s promise to buy him a
new hat; but he could not rejoice in its possession, and
neither an we rejoice in possession until the thing
desired is actually bestowed.
|
|
