THE REST OF FAITH

THE REST OF FAITH



                In recent decades faith has morphed into something that is not really biblical faith. I used to operate in a faith that tried to use mental pressure to force a certain answer. There was no rest in that kind of praying, because the answers and results depended upon my will rather than His.



                But according to Hebrews 11:1 faith is the assurance of things hoped for. We give a thing to God and then we rest in the calm assurance that from this point on God will cause all things to work together for good. His answer may not be my answer. His way may not be my way, but we can have the calm assurance that our heavenly Father already knows our needs even before we ask and because we have come to Him with our need, He can be trusted to answer our prayers according to His plan for our lives.



                One of the reasons I could never enter into His rest is because I already had the answer in mind that I wanted Him to give and so I would try to mentally push for my will to be done rather than His will. I didn’t trust Him with His will. I wanted it to go the way I saw it and the way I wanted it to go and so there was always an internal battle being fought in me between my will and his will. But that is not faith.



                The Word of Faith movement has some good qualities as long as we use our faith in a fully biblical way, but like I said, our idea of faith can morph into something more self- serving than God serving and when they do we may end up praying according to the idols in our heart rather than according to God’s omniscient will for our lives. Of such is the “name it claim it” kind of faith that has derailed the true faith of many. Our faith is in our will rather than in God’s will.

                “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”  James 4:3

                 “And this is the confidence that we have in him that, if we ask any thing ACCORDING TO HIS WILL He hears us….” 1 John 5:14.



                Do we really want God’s will? Do we really want His answer to our prayers, or do we want Him to conform to our way of thinking?



                Hebrews chapter eleven gives us a list of many Bible characters that did great exploits for God. They were the mountain movers of their day. They changed history. They accomplished phenomenal things, but in every case they were doing God’s will and obeying God’s commands…. And as we can see, it didn’t always lead them into pathways of prosperity and luxury and ease. Hebrews 11:37 says:



                “They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (of whom the world was not worthy) they wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth.”



                Now this would definitely not be our definition of prosperity. Abraham prospered and became rich, but not by our standards. He left Ur and spent the rest of his life living in tents in the wilderness.



                Today we want to stay in Ur and believe God for the best house, the best car, the best job and a life of comfort and ease. We want to have it all in the here and now. Our focus is on the present moment simply because we no longer live by the big picture… the prophetic picture… God’s agenda for preparing us to reign with Him in the age to come. Like Esau, we want it now and we are willing to sell our birthright to get it now.



                Like I have said so many times, the study of Bible prophecy is not so much about charts and graphs and trying to figure out which prophecy will be fulfilled next… it is rather a matter of getting on God’s agenda and coming into agreement with Him in His plans and purposes. It may not always provide times of comfort and ease and prosperity in the here and now, but it will hold in it the eternal weight of glory… the things that eye has not seen nor ear heard… things that have not even entered into the mind of men what God has planned for His children. Do we have faith for that?



                When we come into agreement with God’s plans, then we can rest in the assurance that the things hoped for will come to pass in His perfect timing and we can be absolutely convicted of things not yet seen. All things work together for good to them that love god and who are called according to His purposes.” Romans 8:28



                John gave us instructions on answered prayer and we take part of it and run with it, but we ignore all the rest and so we skew faith into something self-serving. Listen to what John says in 1 John 3:21-23



                “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment that we believe in the name of His son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He commanded us.”



                Well, where did Jesus command us to love one another? For an answer to this, we can look in John 13:34-35 where Jesus gave His disciples a new commandment… a commandment fit for the New Covenant, for as we discussed the other day, the Old Covenant could only produce a Phileo kind of love based on the Law. But in the New Covenant we are commanded to Agape one another. This is a God kind of love that the Law could never produce in us. The Agape kind of love can only be placed in our hearts by God Himself through the indwelling of His Holy Spirit. This is the kind of love that God is looking for in our lives today. It is a New Covenant kind of Agape love that truly fulfills the Law, but goes far beyond all that the Old Covenant could produce.



                And so Hebrews chapter 11 ends up by telling us that all of these Old Testament men and women of faith who gained God’s approval did not receive what was promised, ”because God had provided something better for us so that apart from us they should not be made perfect.” Heb. 11:39, 40.



                What was that something better that we have that they didn’t have? It was the New Covenant brought to us by the true Lamb of God… by the infinite blood of the Son of God and by the Holy Spirit of God that came to dwell in our hearts. And as Hebrews chapter 12 explains, we are no longer standing at the foot of Mt. Sinai and a law on stone; but we have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven and to God the judge of all and to the spirits of righteous men made perfect and to Jesus, the Mediator of a New Covenant and to the blood that speaks better than the blood of Abel.”



                We have far more to place our faith in today than did the men and women of old and yet, instead of holding to a big picture view as they did, we are now focusing on the here and now and to our own will instead of God’s will and we are often not keeping Jesus commandment to Agape (to love



unconditionally) our neighbor as ourselves. We have in many cases focused on all the wrong stuff and so our idea of prosperity has changed to fit our lust.



                In many parts of the world God’s people are already facing persecution. Their faith is much stronger than ours is for they are learning how to trust God in times of adversity and suffering. We have become like spoiled children who want what we want and so we are unwilling to trust God for His answers because they don’t usually satisfy the lusts of our hearts. His answers usually tend to tear down our idols and we don’t like that.



                It is time to press within the veil and to seek God for who He really is. What good is it to worship a god of our own making? Should we not cry out to know Him? Should we not find Him in His Word rather than in the opinions of men? Should we not cry out for the Holy Spirit that Jesus sent to us, rather than the false spirit that is now invading many churches and many hearts?



                “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.”



                If we submit to His will today, He will cleanse our temples. He will burn out the wood, hay and stubble so that all that remains in us is the gold and silver and precious stones. This is the work of God in us that could not be accomplished in the men and women of old. They served God with external laws, but we today serve a living God who actually dwells inside of us and does His work from the inside.



                “My son (or daughter), do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor faint when you are reproved by Him, for those whom the Lord loves He disciplines.” Hebrews 12:5-6.



                If we live in this kind of faith then we can truly enter His rest, for it is His work that prepares us for His kingdom… not ours. So learn to trust Him with your life.