"Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness." Genesis 15:6
Last week our minister,
Craig, preached on believing. Since I
have the word Believe in some form all over my house, my ears perked up and my
heart thumped when I heard Craig start his sermon. At the top of the page of my notes for that
day, I wrote my favorite word . . . . . . Believe.
In the sermon, Craig talked
about Philip. There isn’t a whole lot in
the Bible about Philip. But we do know
that when Jesus told Philip to follow Him, Philip immediately went and told his
brother Nathanael to come with him, that he had found the One they had been
waiting for; the Messiah. Philip was one
of the disciples who spent a lot of time with Jesus. He saw Jesus perform amazing miracles and he
heard Jesus speak amazing things. Yet,
even after all that Phillip had seen and heard first-hand with Jesus, when it
came time to feed the 5000, Philip was unsure of what Jesus could do.
“When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming
toward Him, He said to Philip, ‘Where shall we buy bread for these people to
eat?’ He asked this only to test him,
for He already had in mind what He was going to do.
“Philip answered Him, ‘It would take more than half a
year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!’” John 6:5-7
As much as he had already
seen Jesus do, Philip’s response to Jesus’ question should not have been
doubt. What he should have said
was: “I don’t know how we’re going to
feed all these people but I bet You have a great plan. Let me line them all up and see what You can
do!”
In John 14 Philip doubts
Jesus again when Jesus says that He is God.
Philip says:
“Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for
us.”
Then “Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?’” (John 14:8-9).
Then “Jesus answered: ‘Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?’” (John 14:8-9).
It seems that Philip, like
me, had a hard time believing what he could not see.
There are a lot of things in the Bible that I struggle to believe. There are also a lot of times when I ask God
to show me first and then I’ll believe (how many times have I said “A burning
bush right about now would be really great, God!”). But there are also many, many things about
God and the Bible that I truly believe with all my
heart. This is what I believe:
-- I believe that Jesus is my
Lord and Savior and that He chose me and loves me beyond all reason. I believe this because I have witnessed His
love and strength. I believe this
because I have survived and healed from deep, deep heartache. I have been strengthened and pulled out of
dark places that I know without a shadow of a doubt that I could not have
gotten through in my own strength. I believe
because there have been countless times when a word from the Bible took my
breath away with its power. I don’t
imagine that or make it up – it just happens and it is real. I believe because so many times a word from
someone or a thought I have will be restated repeatedly in what I read in my
Bible, in something I read in a study I’m doing or in my daily devotional reading. So I believe that if part of the Bible is true,
it is all true. I believe because I physically
feel the presence of God and I see His beauty in the world around me.
-- I believe in Satan and the forces of evil that surround us. I believe that Satan is hard at work to break up families and friendships. And I believe that he is succeeding way too often. It is hard to miss the correlation between the evil that is happening in our world now and the warnings in the Bible. People killing and hurting each other, children being abused and sold into sex trafficking and marriages breaking up at an alarming rate. These are all the work of Satan.
Our world (and Satan) promotes
independence and every man for himself.
We convince ourselves that we can do everything on our own and only want
what’s best for us. Me, me, me. Mine, mine, mine. The Bible is full of warnings of Satan’s
ploys to isolate us from each other.
What better way to do that than to make us not trust each other and to
convince us that we are just fine by ourselves.
Even as Christians, we like to tell each other and ourselves that God is
all we need so we don’t have to ask for help or rely on others. What a great trick Satan has done to turn
this word from God inside out and use it to convince Christians that if we were
more mature in our walk and if we truly trusted God then we wouldn’t feel
lonely and we wouldn’t need others to help us.
This is such a lie! We do need
others. We cannot go through this life
alone. But Satan wants us to think that
we can.
I believe that Satan is real
because I have seen such evil in this world that I know that no human being
with a conscience or a heart could do what some people do. I believe that Satan is real because I’ve
seen really good people make really bad choices that destroy their lives and
the lives of others. I believe that
Satan is real because I have felt his darkness around me.
But I also believe that God can
and will chase Satan away from us and that God will prevail and defeat
Satan. I also believe that God will not
let Satan have me and that when I feel Satan bearing down on me, all I have to
do is call on the name of Jesus and He will protect me. Satan cannot win. Only God can.
There have also been times when I hear a
name from the Bible (Habakkuk & Hezekiah for example). At the time that each of these names came to
me, I wasn’t reading about them in my daily reading (in fact, in the case of
Habakkuk I didn’t even know who that was).
But I knew that there was something in their story that God wanted me to
know. So I believe that at those times,
I need to get out my Bible and listen for God’s word to me.
-- I believe that God keeps
His promises. And I believe that God
would not give me a word or place something in my heart that isn’t true. I know the heart can be deceiving and that I can
get my wires crossed and get the message wrong.
But I know that God won’t confuse me or put something in my heart that
isn’t true.
-- I believe that God is
always with me. I believe that He knows
what is best for me (even though I may think I know better than He does). I believe that since the day God chose me, He
has never, ever left me ~ not even for a second. There are times when I have turned my back on
Him and times when I have not felt His presence, but that doesn’t mean He left
me. He will never leave me, not ever.
-- I believe that God makes
it cold and windy just to annoy me. Ok,
not really. But I do believe that He allows
us to be annoyed, hurt and afraid so that we will lean on Him. I believe that He allows us to go through
unbearable hurt so that we know that He is God and that He alone will carry us
through it. I believe that He will use
those dark times to show us His strength and to bring us closer to Him. I also believe that He uses those times to
show us what we’re made of; to teach us that we are stronger or braver with Him
beside us than we ever thought possible.
And I believe God sometimes allows heartache and pain to come our way in
order to break our pride and self-worth.
When we grow overly confident in our own abilities and our own
importance, I believe God brings calamity to us to lay us low and strip our
pride so we will re-direct our hearts and lives to Him.
-- I believe in love and
marriage. I believe that God wants us to
find true fulfillment in Him but that He also wants most of us to be joined to
another in true love. I believe that
true love exists and I refuse to give up on it.
I believe that God has given me this desire so I don’t harden my heart;
so that I will allow myself to feel love.
I believe that God’s timing is perfect even though I’m sick to death of
waiting. But I believe that when the
time is right, God will fulfill my desire for a husband. I believe that I would have given up on this
a long, long time ago if God had allowed me to.
It has been God’s love and assurances that have enabled me to persevere
during this endless waiting. I believe
in love of all different kinds and I refuse to give up on it or close my heart
to it.
-- I believe that God has
blessed me beyond what I could have imagined.
He has blessed me not only in the good times but even, more so, during
the bad. Even in my loneliest, darkest
times, He blesses me. He has blessed me
with the love of my family and friends. Most
particularly, He has blessed me with the most amazing and loving person I know, Megan. He blesses me with
breathtaking displays of beauty in sun rises and sunsets. He blesses me with spring flowers, fall
colors and patches of warm sunshine to sit in.
He has blessed me with a trip to Italy, family trips to Hilton Head and,
my favorite family time, the annual Turkey Open. I believe that all these things are not just
happenstance. They are blessings that come
straight from the hand of God because He loves me that much.
-- I believe that Jesus has
the power to heal both physical and emotional wounds. And I believe that He especially likes to do
the impossible.
-- I believe in the power of
prayer. I believe that God is so pleased
when we bow our hearts in fervent prayer.
I believe with all my heart that prayers can move mountains and rock
worlds. I believe that prayer is an
amazingly, incredibly powerful thing. I
pray big because I completely believe that God can and will do big things. I don’t usually pray sedate, wimpy
prayers. I pray big, bold prayers
because I know God can. I pray big, bold
prayers so I can watch God in action and be amazed! I
ask God for the impossible because I believe God can do the impossible. I pray it because He can do it. I’ve seen it happen too many times to doubt
it.
Believe. It’s my favorite word because there is so
much I believe but also so much that I struggle with believing. I believe because my heart thumps when I hear
His voice. I believe because I have seen God and I have felt Him.
What is it that you
believe? What is it that you struggle
with believing? What is it that God
wants you to believe that you just refuse to?
Whatever it is, ask God to reveal it to you and to give you the courage
to believe it.
Remember: “Jesus
told him, ‘Don’t be afraid; just believe.’”
Mark 5:36
And
“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so
became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him . . .” Romans
4:18
Our Father in Heaven, thank You
for helping us to believe so many wonderful and exciting things about You and Your world. Thank You for being
patient when we struggle to believe.
Father, reveal to us the things You want us to believe that we are not
and give us the courage to believe them.
Help us to know what is true and what is not; give us the discernment to
believe what we need to and discard what is false. We thank You so much for your love and for
Your truth. We are so very grateful to
be Your beloved children. ~robin
