Hebrews 13:7-9 “Remember
your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome
of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the
same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be carried away by all kinds of
strange teachings. It is good for our hearts to be strengthened by
grace, not by eating ceremonial foods, which is of no benefit to those who
do so."
I read this book
where this man wrote how he is sick and tired of hearing people talking about
how they experience God and he finds it sometimes discouraging because it makes
you wonder “what about me God?” Then he went on explaining to his readers not
to worry about these people because God’s grace is what makes Him decide who to
reveal Himself to and in the end this author seems to be saying that God
basically does some “mini ma nimo” I paraphrased there, but that’s the gist of
it. I have to say through reading his books I know he is a man of God and a
child of God because he has true faith in God. This man has status coming out
of his ears and you can see that from how he gave a glimpse into his life, the
kind of job he held and his financial success etc. You can also see it in the circle
of friends he included in the book as they provided him with testimonies which
he included pages of them in the back of his book. The funny thing is, as I was reading those
pages of testimonies about him I still do not understand why he needed to
include so many of them and it felt like a display of stars on the red carpet. One
of his friend’s testimony included in the book was Billy Graham who talked
about how this author and friend is a man of faith. The point that I am trying to
make is that, according to the world standards, this man has it all.
I used to struggle
with the fact that I experience God so much. In fact at the beginning, even
though I did not know God well, I begged Him to stop revealing Himself to me
and I even prayed fervently that He would take this gift of Himself away from
me and reveal Himself instead, to the senior pastor of the Church that I used
to attend. God knew I was not making it up, I felt wholeheartedly that if God
was to reveal Himself to my pastor in the same way that He reveals Himself to
me, there would be a revival in the Church, because people loves this pastor
and he is so eloquent and when he takes the podium he is truly electrifying. I remember
having a conversation with his father in law about that and the work
electrifying was exactly what he used to describe proudly his son in law. I had
to concur with him.
When I was praying God
to transfer the give of Himself to my pastor, I remember I used to find so much
joy , knowing that people would come to God with all their heart and God would
be pleased. My prayer was totally selfless. Keep in mind that my pastor was one
of those people who used to see me as a big idiot because I was not wearing masks
in the Church like everyone else. But through my prayer, you can tell I was not
spiritually mature enough, so God did not reveal to me right away the main
reason why He could not do the same thing with my pastor.
Faith is a gift from
God. I totally believe that. I am also aware that there is a controversy that
exists for centuries now, around this verse found in Ephesians 2:8-9 “For it
is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this is not from
yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”
There is a division between scholars, pastors and well known authors about these
verses because a group of them believe that faith is not a gift of God and some
believe yes it is a gift. Each one of these intellectual people usually goes on
and on about how believing the wrong thing about faith would affect our walk. First
of all, as far as I am concerned, I find these two verses the simplest things
that God ever said to us, because I do not have the natural strength, abilities,
skills and intelligence to think anything else, hence why I would rather do as
God said which is having a childlike attitude and ask my daddy directly. I
know, since His word tells me to believe with a childlike attitude, I can’t be
wrong, if I ask Him, He will tell me. This is where it is good to say and truly
believe in our heart that “GOD CANNOT LIE” – In this context, I am not trying
to cheat my way through salvation nor that am I trying to hoard everything He
has for me while giving nothing back.
In fact when I went
to Him with a childlike attitude and asked Him how do I get through this mess
out there where everyone seems to hold on to a partial truth? This prayer was
prayed only a few months after I surrendered all to Him. He then told me, the
first thing you have to do is to learn to get to a place where the Bible ceases
to be a history book to your heart. I
understood that I needed to relate to those people that I was reading about in
the Bible. I needed God to come alive like He used to be with the Israelites. I
was surprise to see that even though I did not think God was a dead God, but my belief and my life
reflected that I was serving a dead God who no longer talk to us. I was shocked
to see that God is as active in our lives and He is still talking to those who want
to hear Him. Another thing I needed to
do was to start living out this life as if Christ truly ascended to Heaven.
When we set our mind
to believe in this fashion, all of the sudden we find that we are hearing with
our heart and what we are hearing whether is through our pastors from the podium
or we are just reading, we realize what we are doing, is using the little faith
we have to build on it. At first, it is so foreign to you because you actually
venturing out on what He says. All your senses will be on alert mode screaming
you are crazy. But, you have to mentally, spiritually and physically take the step
to align with His authority and literally act in accordance to His spoken word.
God finds much joy when He doesn’t have to force us to the point of dragging us
to hear His word with our heart, trust what we hear in faith take the steps to
put into practice what we hear. I tell you the truth, the moment we take the
steps to trust and obey He comes along and carry us through it so we can do
according to His desires.
Years ago, I opened
up a bank account where the bank would give clients $25.00 to open a bank
account with them. But in those days, I was not mature enough to acquire about
fees for the administration of the account, the bank put my $25.00 and I went my
way, never bothered about anything not even putting any money in there. One day
I received a letter telling me to settle my bank charges because the account was
accumulating so much. So, not only I lost the original $25.oo now I owed money.
As I understood faith being a gift from
God, He taught me that the faith that I received in order to start this walk
with Him is like a bank account where He made a deposit on my behalf so that I
can start this walk with Him. But, it is my responsibility to administrate what
I already received from Him in order that He can keep giving me more. Then He
said, don’t worry about the responsibility to administrate the bank account because
I am going to show you that too.
Over time, I learned that
my faith will ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS be tested by God. And that goes for all of
us Christians. Some of us will have faith in Him worth $2.00 and some will have
$2000 or 2 million worth of faith in Him, and so on. Even the one with $2.00
worth of faith will be saved. There are some who never even bother to use the
first deposit and it does not matter how God try and try to get them to go
forward inwardly, they just do not want Him in this way, like the Israelites in
the wilderness. But God has shown us
over and over again, when we decide to live outside of His goal of redemption
for us, we get comfortable with our sins under the misguided idea that because He
loves us we will be okay, that is our own presumption. Living outside His goal
for redemption has direct consequences that we have to deal with. It is not
like God brings things down on us or He is not true to His word, but rather the
consequences of our sins find us.
But, the more faith
you have, the more you have to learn to be a child in His hands. For almost a
decade now, I keep seeing myself like a child between 6 -8 years old whenever
God is dealing with me in the matter of faith. I always thought He was the one who portrays
me like this. But this year in 2013 He finally answered me. I asked again why
is it that I am growing spiritually with you, yet you always look at me as if I
am a child between 6-8 years old, I said I find it weird that you see me this
way and I need to understand why? I said why is it I am not aging with you? He finally told me, I do not choose to make
you look like this my child, you never aged because you have learned to believe
in me as if you were a child expecting me to care for you. Without Him saying
it, I could tell He was pleased with me not wanting to age.
Only then I remember
the best years of my life when I was around that age, I did not know better, I
always expected my mom and dad to look after me. I never wanted to escape them,
escape life, etc. By the time I turned
10 years old I had a different awareness of life and I learned to view my
parents differently. So, when I read the Bible and I wanted to please God with
a childlike attitude that He demands of us, in my heart and soul, I set out to
model this innocent, curious, trusting and eager to learn child when it comes
to God’s word and my relationship with Him.
Having experienced
God in the way I do, I learned how much delight it brings His heart when we
exercise faith in Him. In fact, early on when I was getting to know Him, I felt
like a child playing with my daddy. I remember saying wow! God is a sucker when
it comes to faith. I know He knows that I used the word sucker with no intend
of malice or disrespect in my heart because it was the only way I could explain
all that I was living with Him. Yes, it was the time when I was in the worst
shape of my life and I was losing everything I ever owned. During that time, I
understood how awesome Adam and Eve had it. To have God come down just because He
is seeking your company is phenomenal.
At one point I had
doubt that God does not play favouritism, so I went with Him to understand why
is it if He does not play favourite, yet, some can see you and be with you so
much and some don’t? Why is it you keep saying in the Bible that you love those
who love you on several occasions, and one that I can think of right now is Proverbs
8:17? What’s up with 2 Chronicles 16:9? Strangely, God does not see it as favouritism,
but simply because He starts the reward process even down here. That’s when He
showed me, some Christians that I see might look so big and mighty down here,
when we are all in heaven it will be surprising to see someone like me will be
bigger in heaven than someone who is considered a pillar of your Church and actually
sees you as being insignificant. My
point here is that Salvation is actually receiving a fortune from God. To
unlock the gate of the treasure house, we have the key which is our faith in
Him. God set it that way in His plan of Salvation.
It does not matter
the amount of fasting, the amount of prayer and activities we do on his behalf.
While they are all good things, at the end of the day, the main ingredient that
is truly pleasing to God is our faith in Him. When we have faith in Him, we
bless Him. Just like unbelief is like a cancer and affects every choice we
make, faith affects each choice we make. The more you have faith, the more God
is no longer a guest in your heart, it
is His Dwelling and He enjoys being there. Faith is the catalyst that brings
this endless intimacy in your life with Him, no matter how hard this life is,
you feel like you are living an endless love affair with Him.
Yes I poke the bear,
I am always asking for more faith and because I know that God is going to take
me at my word I already know the test will be harsh so when I pray for more faith
I can’t pray for it without crying because of the anticipated pain. But, you know why I keep praying for more
faith in Him? Because I know we can have endless faith in Him and there will
always be room to expand we will never be filled to capacity. Secondly, I know
in my heart because of who He is, that it is my ongoing faith in Him that will
keep fuelling this love affair that I am having with Him. Thirdly, I do not
want to ever put God in a position where He feels betrayed by my faith in Him
where He would evoke our love as a thing of the past. It is so easy to
backslide, I am not interested in finding out how far I can backslide away from
him. When you make faith your first goal, it does not matter whether you
understand things well enough because as you look around you, the house is being
built for you, in you and all around you, while you never lift a finger.
I can see from the
unusual amount of hits that I have, a lot of people are reading the faith
posts. So, I apologize for yesterday, between soar throat, endless coughing to
the point where I lost my voice all day, I could not sit for long, hence why I
did not put the post out.
I pray that all of
you would go forward in knowing Him through the depth of your soul.
Imagine having
someone who loves you so much that He would rather die than living without you.
That’s what He did for us. Doesn’t He deserve the gratitude of your heart? Give
Him the honour that is due to Him, give Him yourself.
I truly love you guys
and sometimes it makes me smile because I ask God how can one go on, loving
people that you have never met, yet in your heart you can only see them like a
close and precious family member? May the God of peace sanctify you through and
through.
Take care
