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:
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