What things do we allow in our own lives to become bigger than God? My heart hurts this morning for a friend who so believes that darkness that his current forest has that he has forgotten the light of our Father. The forest branches are indeed overwhelming, intimidating and overgrown in his life right now…..its understandable that he cannot see past them….yet….if we give in to the things we can only see past, well, satan will rejoice once again.
We go through so many paths in life that we simply cannot figure out where the path is going or how to get off of it sometimes. …other times we cannot even find the path. Whether its being lost on what to be when we grow up, or lost in the myriad of how to lose weight, or lost in the belief that God directs our steps, or lost in the sea of echoes around us that “God may heal us on this side or the other side of heaven” be careful what you believe……we have alot of pretty people on this earth that will commiserate with you, tell you “yes yes, we don’t know why” but the Bible tells us an entirely different story.
Kenneth Copeland says this is the place where we have to step over the spiritual line. That line that is set by our own knowledge of what we can do and to step into the belief of what God can do. I know this line. When I came home from teaching in a public school, it was not without kicking and screaming, after all, we had bills to pay, debts to handle….and I didn’t want to heed God’s demand that I come home …..despite having a mom gravely ill with cancer, a husband who wanted me to take care of our family and mom, and a child who wasn’t making it in private or public school. That line was very real to me…the line that said if I trusted God for our finances….well, humanly I knew we were headed for bankruptcy. Finally after months I relented my position to trust God….and there was no answer as the resignation hit the table….I went home dejected and knowing I “did right” but knowing the cost of such a move….and angry that I would have to pay. Yet God in his glory, knew things I had no idea about….knew how to apply and make sure that my husband was hired for a job we never applied for, knew that the very day my teaching paycheck ended would be the very day he received bonus for hire money to move to this new job, which paid almost exactly the amount I had given up….knew that my obedience in believing Him opened knew avenues for my faith to allow his work.
We can be content to believe that whatever situation we are facing is bigger than God. Its our right.
I so challenge each of us to examine in our lives what it is we are truly giving more power to than we believe our God in heaven has power and authority to overcome….its an uncomfortable question isn’t it?……I can very quickly focus in my own life the areas of my life I am obviously not allowing God to be in charge…..or believing Him for…..I have searched the Bible over and I cannot find one single time where God didn’t not heal folks who came to him, or heal those whom others came on their stead to heal…..never once was it said that the glory was in the sickness….
Its alot easier to believe that God will heal some on the other side of heaven……but I ask you to show me in the Bible where it is that Jesus said “by my stripes you are healed…..sometimes only in heaven” or any other verse that tells us God does not always choose to heal us. I have an acquaintance that is indeed questioning that God is God and therefore may choose not to heal us…yet I have no Biblical defense to say that God’s will isn’t always to heal us, in fact I have struggled to find anything that allows to me to say to myself “well, God didn’t choose so and so to be healed” but my Bible doesn’t substanciate that at all.
God is God…..it is our faith or the faith of others, or to induce faith that he is God that heals us for His glory, it is a relationship in believing that allows God to be God at times, at other times it is a relationship of experiencing God’s healing power that allows for the belief in his healing, for He has given us our own will….it is our obedience and desire to believe the things that cannot be seen and having faith in that which is beyond us that allows God to be God….for ourselves or on our behalf. Think of all the instructions that have been given by God throughout the Bible….do you think those folks had any easier time believing what they were told? Seas parted, pregnancies occured, Pharaohs were faced with words, hard to do if you know Pharaoh can kill you with his own words…..God will not lie…has not lied….so which of his promises are you willing to set aside to believe whatever it is you’re facing today is bigger than God?
