27/11/07

Faith is Tested

"If you have faith as a mustard seed . . . nothing will be impossible for you" Matthew 17:20.


We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, and it may be so in the initial stages. But we do not earn anything through faith; faith brings us into the right relationship with God and gives Him, His opportunity to work. Yet God frequently has to knock the bottom out of your experience as His saint to get you in direct contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of emotional enjoyment of His blessings. The beginning of your life of faith was very narrow and intense, centered around small amounts of experience that had as much emotion as faith in it, and it was full of light and sweetness. Then God tests you to teach you to "walk by faith" (2 Corinthians 5:7). And you are worth much more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight with your thrilling testimony.

Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God's character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds. Faith being worked out into reality must experience times of unbroken isolation. Never confuse the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, because a great deal of what we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith, as the Bible teaches it, is faith in God's Word coming against everything that contradicts Him; a faith that says, "I will remain true to God's character whatever He may do." The highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15).


[ Prayer for the Day ]

Father God, mold me like potter molds clay. Build me in Your character which You have shown to us in Your Son Jesus. Help me to understand and apply Your Word in my life, by which I will grow in faith. This prayer I ask in Jesus' Name. Amen.


[ Reference Scriptures ]

2 Corinthians 5:7 [AV]
⁷ (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

Job 13:15 [AV]
¹⁵ Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.

The Word of God was given free to us, therefore we should also share it freely with others. (All rights are with God)