WITHOUT FAITH

By:Milan Ford

The conversation began around 11:30pm. And it ended around 4:15am. I was sharing with my wife the other night how for the past few weeks, something rather unusual has been going on inside me. While I could not adequately describe to her what it was, I told her that it felt like it was a combination of extreme restlessness and interestingly enough, a sense of peace. And then, after hours of emotional rambling, I said these words to my wife: "I feel like I have gone as far as I can possibly go...WITHOUT FAITH."

I sincerely believe that where many of us are in life today is not actually a testament of our faith in God, but rather a testament of our individual skills and talents. And there (for many of us) lies the problem.

As believers, we tend to exercise our faith only in areas that we have seen God move before.But when it comes to the unknown, our faith remains still. Which as Hebrews 11:6 indicates, is not faith at all. "But without faith it is impossible to Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."

Sometimes I wonder if we find more security in knowing who we are or have been in times past, than we do in believing who God is. As we enter this final stretch of the year, many of us have come to the end of some rather long roads in our lives that now require faith to move forward.

As we examine our hearts and lives today, many of us must come to the realization that the skills and talents we so heavily relied on in the past can no longer move us forward. Neither can the resumes (and perhaps associations) we worked so hard to build.

What lies before many of us now is a faith in what seems to be impossible. A faith that fosters a sense of restlessness, yet at the same time, a sense of peace.

May you and I lean hard into that peace today.

HIS VISION, HIS WAY, IN HIS TIMING

TGIF Today God Is First
Volume 2, by Os Hillman10-27-2009

"Then God said, 'Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about'" (Gen 22:2).

Have you ever wanted something so bad that you would do almost anything to get it? Have you ever gotten so close to fulfilling a dream only to have it disappear right before your eyes? Such was the case for Abraham.

God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. He would have a son. However, Abraham panicked when Sarah aged beyond child bearing years and tried to help God by birthing Ishmael through Sarah's servant, who was not the promised son. Eventually, Isaac was born, who was the promised son.

However, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his only son on an altar to demonstrate his obedience to God. Truly, this is one of the hardest instructions given to one of God's people in all of scripture. It compares only to the Heavenly Father sacrificing His own Son. God intervenes and allows a ram to get caught in the bushes nearby, symbolizing the Lamb of God as a prophetic sign of what is to take place in the future.

God often births a vision in our lives only to allow it to die first before the purest version of the vision is manifested. This has happened several times in my own journey. Oswald Chambers observes, "God's method always seems to be vision first, and then reality, but in between the vision and the reality there is often a deep valley of humiliation. How often has a faithful soul been plunged into a like darkness when after the vision comes the test. When God gives a vision and darkness follows, waiting on God will bring you into accordance with the vision He has given if you await His timing. Otherwise, you try to do away with the supernatural in God's undertakings. Never try to help God fulfill His word."*

When God's vision is finally birthed, nothing will stop it. Our job is to allow God to birth His vision through us His way and in His timing.

GIFTS TO MEN

But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says: "When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men."

Ephesians 4:7-8

The gifts of God in a person's life are not merit badges signifying that person's consecration, wisdom, or 100 percent doctrinal truth. You might interpret the meaning of Ephesians 4:7 like this: out of unmerited grace, each person is given gifts for the purpose of being used to bless others. Gifts of the Holy Spirit, whether they are in the form of manifestations of power and revelation or in the form of people given as ministers, are for the purpose of blessing the church. Yet, most of us can hardly avoid the temptation of seeing supernatural power gifts working through an individual as a symbol of God's approval of that person's life, spiritual maturity, and doctrine. The more significant the giftings and power, the more approval from God—or so it would seem. If we understood that the manifestations of the Spirit are for the common good and not for the good of the individual whom God uses, we would be less likely to stumble over the idea that God uses imperfect, often immature people to bless the church.

{ PRAYER STARTER }

Father, use me to bless others. Display Your spirit and Your giftings in my life in such a way that no one sees anything of me, but sees only You.

Out of unmerited grace, each person

is given gifts for the purpose of

being used to bless others.