Reality hits home when someone very close to you is hurt.
Our grandson was rushed to ICU a week ago. I rocked, shocked and shook our family. His brothers and sisters ranging from 7 to 16 were confused and shaken. So as a family member there is not only support practically but also a valuable time to answer questions, seek stabilize faith and set a standard for life.
So my wife, Callie and I had the privilege of talking to our eldest grand-daughter about faith. It is one thing to be a loving, confessing, church going Christian – all good then suddenly a family member is hit unexpectantly. Somehow faith is challenged.
So we sat with the little tribe and went over some truths.
James says “Consider it all joy when you encounter various trials knowing it is the testing of your faith”.
- Consider it all joy: how do you see joy, where has it gone in all this?
- when you encounter: not if – when!
- various trials: all sorts of tests…life is full of it.
- testing of your faith: aha, so its a test of what YOU believe.
Then we took a look at Hebrew 11:6
“Without faith it is impossible to please God, first you must believe He exists and He is a re-warder of those who diligently seek Him”
- Without faith..impossible to please God: God has a very high value on faith, and seems to be looking for it in you.
- Must believe He exists: well in trials we tend to look at everything natural and forget the supernatural, and tend to put God at the “last resort” category … and even wonder where is He in all this chaos, confusion, pain etc?
- Reward and diligence in seeking is tied together: so yes, He does exist-and He is valuing faith above circumstances … and watching your response.
Conor, our grandson is in the bull pen with sickness, and we are not silent spectators waiting but now raucous participators, or partners commanding God’s perspective over nature. When God’s word-holders of Light, start marching down the corridors of lymphatic highways, pulsing arteries and veins, into spongy glands, through rubbery tubules, every red cell spins with joy, every leucoyte bulges in anticipation, every thrombocyte glows in expectation, and every foreign substance cringes, looking for dark corners to hide in – BUT to no avail…He sent His word to heal them … yes Conor, it is written.
I later found this while sitting next to my grandson Conor while he was in an ICU unit in a hospital in Johannesburg. It comes from a book I was reading on Kindle: “The REAL Faith” by Charles Price. Sold for 1$ in its day. Last copyright 1940.
“There is a difference between belief in the power of God to heal (which belief even the devils have) and the faith of God which brings victory.
There is a great difference between what we call, the faith of man in God, and the faith of God that is imparted man. Such faith is not the child of effort, neither is it born of struggle. If it is the faith of God, then we get it from Him, and not from our mental attitudes or affirmations. Jesus did not say, “If you have the power to believe that God will remove that mountain, then He will do it.” Neither did He say, “If you can believe hard enough that it is done, then it will be done.” But He did say, “Have the faith of God”.
That is get some of God’s faith; and then when you have that, you will have the only power with which mountains can be moved and cast into the sea..
He does say believing in the heart and having no doubts – the second is impossible without the first. You simply cannot believe without the scent of doubt until you have the faith of God. It takes God’s faith to clean up these human hearts of ours of all the debris, the fears, misgivings and doubts.
Seek the healer not the healing.
Of what good is it to seek a ray of light and not the sun?
On the Jericho road:
- Bartemaeus,
- Woman issue of blood.
- Canaanite woman,
- Nobleman.
- Centurion,
- All they did was: to get to Jesus,
- Crowded into his heart-rending cry the story of their own helplessness, and their belief in the love, power, and compassion of Jesus of Nazareth.
- Even though He told them their faith made them whole, I am sure that what faith they had was given them by the Lord Himself.
- Can a man generate enough faith to find healing in walking a few feet on a dusty, Jericho road? The presence of the Nazarene was the source of faith in the days of old; and it is the presence of Jesus that is the source of our faith in these days of doubt and unbelief.
- He said “Without Me you can do nothing”. “All things are possible to them that believe”.