A "tear the roof off" kind of faith

 

Yesterday was a good day.

Waking up several times through the early hours of Sunday to give attention to the very loud manifestations of my illness, I eventually decided to give up on any last vestiges of sleep and begin preparing myself for a day of preaching.
 
Smart shirt- check. Hair combed- check. Bible and notes in hand- check.  

Those were the easy things. The hard part was battling bouts of extreme nausea (which necessitated in several “pitstops” along Sunningdale Drive on the way to church), a cough that could wake the dead, as well as the creeping sense of fear and unbelief that I was in no way in the right frame of mind (or health) to be preaching on “A tear the roof off kind of faith” that morning. But the longer I get to walk with God, the more I’m realising the less and less it has anything to do with me. Elementary I know, but God sometimes has to get us to our end so that we can begin to allow him to do only what he can do. Faith is learning how to live by his faithfulness.

 

Someone we can take a few pointers from is Abraham, the father of faith. Way past the age of having children, Abraham and his wife Sarah are given a promise from God that they will have a son. But just like us, the enemies of faith often are given a louder voice of prominence in our lives than the call of abandoning our own resources (or lack of resources) and fully trusting what he has said. Here are the top 3 robbers of faith that we can pick out from Abraham’s journey and take heed of in ours:

 

-Circumstances (either too good or too bad...relying on our 5 senses alone)

*Faith is not a denial of the facts, it’s the acknowledgement of THE fact! In God’s economy, faith trumps reason everytime!

Abraham was told by God to go claim the land of Canaan, but he finds it drought stricken and in famine so he runs to Egypt where to save his own skin he lies about his wife to the Pharaoh there

-Compromise

*the root of all compromise is found in an underlying disbelief that God is good

Abraham promised many children, but at age 85 Abraham stops trusting God and takes matters into his own hands and sleeps with his female servant Hagar

-Critical Spirit

*whether at God or at others, very dangerous as it’s a sin of idolatory. It’s putting my reasoning above God’s by saying, “I will be God unto myself.”

At age 99 Abraham laughs in God’s face when God confirms the original promise (Sarah pregnant at 90?)

Strangely strengthened

Just reading in Acts.14:21-22, a most interesting couple of lines that hold a MASSIVE truth. Paul and Barnabas, two great apostolic figures amongst the early churches had been preaching the good news in the big cities of the day when they returned to Lystra, iconium and Antioch, cities they had already had great influence in. But on their way back through these strongholds, their aim was to strengthen the disciples and to encourage them to remain true to the faith. And this is what their encouragement looked like:

"We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God"

"Must" and "many hardships". Would you call that an encouraging message? The Holy Spirit seems to indicate that it was very much a part of the encouragement and strengthening that they brought to the churches because it is what He chose to highlight.

What Gospel are we embracing? What gospel are we proclaiming to those around us?
In our search for strength and encouragement, and in our dispersal of the same things, let not our remedy be a cheap, easy and temporary substitute that is full of shortcuts.
Walk through God's processes fully.
They may be hard, but true strength and courage will not be far away.