Test Your Faith

Testing Your Faith

I know I have touched on this before, but I think it is something that needs to be constantly revisited. I hope that this approach will give you some new insights on faith and what it means. 

Luke 17: 5-19

5The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” 6He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you. 7“Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’?8Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? 9Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ "11Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” 14When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed. 15One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan. 17Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Have you tested your faith recently? I mean truly tested it. This is not falling backwards into someones arms, that requires faith in man. I mean your faith in God? If you haven't then why not? And if you have were you rewarded for your faith?

This is a hard question to answer for all of us, and not something to take lightly once you undertake it. It is a hard action to even do, to live by faith, to rely completely on God and all that He has to offer, to trust in Him 100%. Wow, I think I just blew my own mind there. That is true faith, that is what God wants us to have with Him. That undying and unending faith and trust in Him. But here is the hard part, we are human and we are bound to fail in this area. We can strive for it but all of us have fallen short of it at one point or another.

This is the thing though, faith is a daily thing. You wake up each morning and pray to God saying, "God, I will have in you, in you and all you have in store for me today. I put my life in your hands." Each day you can start over, each day you can say that prayer even if you fell short the day before. 

Faith can do great things, even the smallest of faith can do great things. The key to faith is that it has to be for the glory of God. You can ask a tree to be moved into the ocean all you want too, you can have the greatest faith in it, but if it is not for the glory of God it is not going to happen. What rhyme or reason is there for you to put a tree into the ocean? How can God's glory be shown in it? Are you doing it just because you can or you told someone you could do it? That is not for God's glory. Or it can happen but if it is against what God wants you might end up losing it anyway.

I heard this story of a pastor once. (I can neither confirm nor deny that this story actually happened. Google it and come up with your own conclusions. :) I for one believe it.) This pastor's wife passed away, and the pastor prayed and prayed and prayed that she would be raised from the dead, he had the faith and it happened! She was raised from the dead. A week or so later she passed away again, he did the same thing again and she was raised from the dead a second time! It happened a third time where his wife passed away and lo and behold he did it again. Three times he raised her from the dead! This time though the wife had something to say about it. "Stop raising me from the dead! It is my time to go and God is calling me home." She passed away later that night. Quite the story huh? Faith can do anything, even raise people from the dead. Only when done in God's will and with his glory in mind.

God has a plan and a purpose for everything, His design is the greatest design, His picture is more beautiful than anything we can paint. We can have faith in God and all that He is going to do for us, we can have faith for someone to be healed, for the dead to be raised for that promotion that you have always wanted, or that perfect item that you have always wanted, but remember that Jesus taught us to pray saying:

"Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil."

Be blessed and remember to keep the faith!

Tried, tested and true?

Would you come out on top if God tested you? How would you get through it? Why does God test us, or better yet a question that is asked by Christians and non-Christians alike is why does God let bad things happen to good people?

I have been going through my own series of tests and tribulations the past week, and it has seemed nearly impossible to get through it all. I have endured a week without my wife and family, and the thing that is keeping us apart seems like it is not even going to happen. I guess I should explain this a little better.

I received a promotion from the company that I work for, and it has taken me out of town, to Cranbrook BC, which is 3 and a half hours away from Lethbridge. It’s not bad you say, it’s not that far away, but it is far enough that I cannot commute every day, so that leaves me in hotel for this week. We prepared for all of this in advance, put our house on the market, started packing and getting ready for all of to leave hoping and believing that God would sell our house in time so we would not have to spend time apart. A month went by and nothing came, the deadline came closer and closer to where I would have to be away without my family during the week. Still we kept praying and having faith that God was going to sell our house in time.

As you can see from earlier in the post that I am currently away from wife and kids, it is just for this past week but the deadline is in only 2 weeks before I am up here full time. I have been so mad at God for this, I have prayed so hard, I have had faith in Him and believed that He would do it and I have received nothing. No answers, no sale of our house and one of the hardest weeks I have probably ever faced. No sleep, no one to talk too, all alone.

Needless to say I am not coming out on top right, I am beaten and defeated, Satan has been whispering words of despair and fear in my ears and I have been listening to it all. Why, why is it all going wrong, why is he not answering my wife’s and my prayers? Why is it so hard, why am I being tested and why is all going wrong? WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS!?

Nothing, these are the whispers in my ears, the doubts that Satan in putting in head and on my heart. The easiest way to break us as Christians is to divide us from our God. “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”  Philippians 4:13.

So why are we tested? Because in testing we find strength and we learn to trust and rely on our heavenly father.  A popular song by Mercy Me goes like this : 

“I can count a million times

People asking me how                                                                                                                                                               I Can praise You with all that I've gone through

The question just amazes me

Can circumstances possibly

Change who I forever am in You

Maybe since my life was changed

Long before these rainy days

It's never really ever crossed my mind

To turn my back on you, oh Lord

My only shelter from the storm

But instead I draw closer through these times

So I pray

Bring me joy, bring me peace

Bring the chance to be free

Bring me anything that brings You glory

And I know there'll be days

When this life brings me pain

But if that's what it takes to praise You

Jesus, bring the rain

Mercy Me: Bring the Rain

It is through our hardships that our faith in Christ grows, it is through our struggles that we become better people and it gives us the ability to witness to others when God pulls us though on top of it all.

That is the point of testing, look at Job. He is the perfect example of testing. God did make bad things happen to Job, he allowed them to occur but only because he knew that Job could persevere though it all. ”Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” Job 1: 8  

My mom used to say this when times were tuff, “God never throws more at you than he knows you can handle.” I thank God that my mom was given such wisdom and it has helped me though a lot of hard times.

If you are going through hard times, if you are being tested and all seems lost. Keep your head held high, stomp your foot down and shout out: “SATAN YOU CANNOT DEFEAT, I DENY THE DOUBTS THAT YOU PUT ON MY HEART AND I DENY YOU!”

God is with you though all things, and he will never let you fall.

Be blessed and remember to keep the faith.