Gotta Have Faith

Okay, I think I keep saying this,
but...it just keeps feeling like it's true.

I've realized that I'm just beginning to understand
what it means to follow Jesus.

What I'm learning is that Jesus should be real and tangible
in my life, simply because He is real and because He offers
me a real experience with Him.

When He says He offers peace, that we don't need to worry,
that He always provides, that He see us as holy and blameless,
that He is mighty to save, that He works everything for our good--
He means it.

He is a God of His word.
And we can live in these truths.
"We can make our theology a reality."

I've been doing a study by Beth Moore where she says something
that really is sticking with me:

"We see little of God because we believe little."

She said with laugh: I wonder if sometimes God looks at me
like, are you talking to Me? Your prayer, your hope--are you
talking to Me?

Because we pray to Him as if He is powerless.
We have come to believe that He is powerless to change
our lives, and our day.

We pray vague prayers so that we won't be disappointed.
We also pray prayers without conviction, with a fear of how
we will feel if we don't get what we ask for.

But I know God wants to do the miraculous in our day,
and in our lives. So I want to start believing God
to be the God that redeems the most
seemingly lost and dark things of this world.

I want to remember that I'm praying to the God
that defeated death, that makes all things new, that has authority
over all earthly powers, that can soften the hardest heart.

Lately, I've been reading the miracles Christ performed.
And when He performed them, He often did so according
to the person's faith.

"Your faith has made you well."

The only thing to conclude from this is that He often
acts according to our faith.

It is also evident that at times the disciples don't see
God's power because they don't believe.

When the disciples failed to cast out a demon in a boy,
they asked Jesus: "Why could we not drive it out?"

And Jesus replied, "Because you have so little faith.
I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a
mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move
from here to there' and it will move.
Nothing will be impossible for you." (Matthew 17)

Seriously. How cool is that?!
"Nothing will be impossible for you."

And the truth of this passage is that God granted
the disciples the power to cast out the demon.
They simply did not have the faith to do it.

I really don't what to miss out on what God can do
simply because I don't have the faith.

So my constant prayer lately has been: "Lord, I believe.
Help me overcome my unbelief." --Mark 9:24

I'm learning to pray with conviction. If God doesn't move
according to my faith, He is still God. He is still faithful.
And His thoughts and ways are always higher, deeper,
and more wonderful than mine.

I will rest in the fact that I know who He is,
and in the knowledge that even though I won't receive everything
I believe for, it wasn't because of a lack of faith.

In honesty, I only sort of know what I'm doing, and I'm counting
on Him to teach me. But I'm convinced that He gives more
when we believe for more. He is pleased with our faith.

"Without faith it is impossible to please God,
because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He is,
and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him."
--Hebrews 11:6

"The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead,
lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead,
He will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you."
--Romans 8:11

"If you remain in me and my words remain in you,
ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.
This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit,
showing yourselves to be my disciples."
--John 15:7-8