Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Where is your Faith? part 1

Praise the Lord! God is good! I pray everyone is being blessed and enjoying Gods blessing in your lives. Unfortunately The great time I and my wife had together this past thanksgiving weekend is coming to an end as she prepares to return to work. Now I'm looking forward to the Christmas holidays. It was great going to church with my wife this past Sunday, I got to break in my new seat cushion and I really enjoyed the praise and worship and the sermon was tasty, rich and in season.

After months of praying my wife and I finally recieved the first fruits of our faith, God healed my body enough so that I was able to get out and worship with my wife. Over the past few years my wife and I's faith has been tested to the uttmost. The word of God says' in Matthew 17:19+20
19Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?
20And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

Eversince I became disabled I have  believed God will heal me. Even as I became progressively worse, even to the point of being in a wheelchair I have never waivered in my belief. I'm not talking about hope, I'm talking about believing God. Even though He has not completely healed me yet, God has delivered me out of the wheelchair and when my pain became unbarable to the point where I wasn't sure I wanted to go on, He has reduced my pain so that I can get around again.

I believed God for a wife even when many believed there was no way it could happen because of my disability, even my own mother did not believe it could happen. Praise be to God! after much prayer and preparation by Him I am now married to the woman I believe was ordained by God to be my wife from the foundation of the earth. In Habakkuk 2:4 it states: 
4Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.
By His faith it says, yours and mine. It's an individual thing, the word says we all have been given a measure of faith, what happens to it after that is up to us. I can remember times when I was struggling with trying to live for God and an addiction to crack cocaine. There were times I would put myself in harms way by getting drugs on credit knowing I had no way to pay for them, there was one time when the dealer was walking me to my apartment at three A.M. so I could pay him for about $200 worth of drugs. I knew I had no money at home but I had told him earlier that I did. While we were walking the dealer kept telling me what he was going to do to me if I didn't have his money at home. As we were walking I began praying  to God "please get me out of this and I won't get any more drugs on credit" I did not want to lie and say I'd stop using altogether so I left it like that. The streets were empty as we were walking and all of a sudden out of nowhere a police car drove up and I walked up to it and told the officer what was happening and he detained the dealer long enough for me to get away and I never saw or heard from him again.
I was just hoping God would help me that time when I prayed but after numerous simular incidents  over the years I have learned to believe. you have to exercise your faith in order for it to grow. Romans 4:3 says  
3For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.   17-19 also says  
17(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.
18Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.
19And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb:
This is the type of faith I'm seeking for myself, the kind of faith that moves mountains and speaks things that are not as though they were. The kind of faith that does not worry about how the bills will be paid or where my next meal is coming from because God said He would provide for all my needs. If we the body of Christ all had that kind of faith the Church would be the force we were meant to be in this world. The Gospel would be preached with signs and wonders following like it is supposed to be. We all need to take a long look at ourselves to see if we need to take our faith to the gym. The subject of faith has many facets and in my next post I'd like to talk about faith and works. Remember Hebrews 11:6
 . 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

                          God bless you all, Brother Darrell, A Watchman

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