Obedience our Altar of Suffering

CHAPTER 5

Ephesians 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Philippians 1:6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

Be honest with yourself, do you see evidence that these two verses are having an impact on your life?
Or do they contain words that just don’t seem to apply to your Christian walk.

Well, let me throw another scripture in the mix.

And check out ehat all this says about you and me!

Colossians 1:10

so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord,

to please Him in all respects,

bearing fruit in every good work and

increasing in the knowledge of God;

11 strengthened with all power,

according to His glorious might,

for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience;

joyously 12 giving thanks to the Father,

who has qualified us to share

 in the inheritance of the saints in Light.

Is that you?

Can God work that in your life so that it becomes you?

Does the very idea cause you to fear and tremble?

Isn’t it wonderful!

We all need to start somewhere.

Some call it their past, others call it their beginning.

Matthew 12:34 says…

 For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.

Go ahead and take some time to talk with Jesus about your stone.

Pour your heart out!

Tell Jesus all about it!

Don’t hide anything!

Tell Him your heart is doubtful!

Tell Him your heart is hard!

Tell Him your heart is wicked!

Tell Him your heart is a big fat liar!

Tell Him your heart is dead and it’s beginning to stink!

Be truthful about the condition of your heart.

Be truthful and then believe in Jesus and you will see the glory of God!

John 11:40 says…

Jesus said to her, Did I not say to you that if you believe,

you will see the glory of God?

If you believe?

What does that mean?

It means to hand yourself over to the care and protection of Jesus.

Jesus did the same with God every time He prayed.

Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.

What took place before Jesus said that?

The people removed the stone.

Why is our part so important to Jesus working in our lives?

Because removing the stone demonstrates faith!

If the people did not believe that Jesus could do the impossible, then they would have never removed the stone!

If you are not fully convinced that Jesus can do the impossible in your life,

then you may never attempt to remove your stone of fear and unbelief.

Experience any miracles from God lately?

So what did Jesus do next?

Jesus gave thanks to God for already hearing Him.

Take notice! Jesus just demonstrated what it means to believe as if you have already received!

It was after the people demonstrated faith by removing the stone, that Jesus demonstrated faith by thanking God for hearing Him.

This is all BEFORE Jesus told Lazarus to come out!

I must confess, I am being convicted to pray differently.

Faith is believing

as if you have already received!

Faith comes by hearing and

hearing by the Word of God!

You got to consider something here.

Jesus believed that He was going to be crucified.

Jesus believed that God would raise Him up on the third day.

I know that the faith of Jesus was great, but if He KNEW that He knew that He knew then where is the faith in that?

Was Jesus fully man? Did Jesus have to believe God or just obey God to accomplish Gods purpose?

In other words, was Jesus required to live by faith?

If He was, would that faith that He was required to live by be a faith in Himself?

The answer would be no.

What Jesus was required to live by was obedience…

That is how Jesus learned and that is how Jesus suffered.

Obedience.

Let me say that one more time.

Obedience.

I don’t like it just as much as you.

But if you love you will obey.

Jesus did it with the Father and we are to do it with Jesus.

You make a decision of faith in Christ resulting in salvation, once.

The rest of your life is then to be lived in obedience to Christ.

It’s pretty simple.

Faith in Jesus, results in obedience to Jesus.

You profess your love then you prove your love, how?

By obeying Christ.

Batteries for the Flashlight

CHAPTER 4

Let me share a story with you about a stone and a rock.

One is a stone of concealment, the other a rock of salvation.

John 11:39 Jesus said, Remove the stone. Martha, the sister of the deceased, said to Him, Lord, by this time there will be a stench, for he has been dead four days.

40 Jesus said to her, Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?

41 So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes, and said, Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.

42 I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I said it, so that they may believe that You sent Me.

43 When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.

44 The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, Unbind him, and let him go.

Death is one of the most difficult events we face in life.

Death seems so mysterious and final, and death is an experience that all of us will eventually take part in. We have all wondered from time to time about how and when we will die.

As believers, we can pray that God would prolong death. We can pray that God will heal a deadly disease, but can we ask God to put an end to death?

Remember when Jesus told His disciples that Lazarus’s illness was not to end in death, but for the glory of God?

Let go back to a little meeting Martha and Jesus had before He raised Lazarus from the tomb.

John 11:20 Martha therefore, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary stayed at the house.

21 Martha then said to Jesus, Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.

Martha was so upset about the death of her brother that she couldn’t wait for Jesus to come to her, she had to go to Him.

And what did she say?

If you had been here, my brother would not have died…

How many times have we questioned God about His mercy, knowledge and plan for our lives?

How many times have we put the blame on God because something  happened to us that we didn’t expect or want?

How many times have we wondered why our lives ended up the way they did?

We all tell God that we want to walk with Him, but when we get to the Valley of the Shadow of death we all check the batteries in our flashlights.

Walking with God can be difficult and sometimes hard to understand.

Especially when we equate walking with God the same as going with friends to church, or shopping, or out for coffee.

Walking with God implies two important things,

1. That we are at the same place that God is,

2. That we are moving at the same pace that God is.

With God is not leading or following.

Being with God is you being you and God being God

friends just hanging out.

With God, is all about the place and pace.

Jesus said in John 14:3 If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

Think about this for a moment…

Jesus is preparing a place in heaven for you,

are you preparing a place in your heart for Him?

Look at how Luke 1:37 puts the term “with God”

For nothing will be impossible with God.

Nothing is impossible with God?

What about rotting decaying flesh?

On the following page is a description of decaying flesh.

It is printed in italics, you may pass over it if you wish.

I only include it to add to the miracle of what Jesus did.

Although the body shortly after death appears fresh from the outside, the bacteria that before death were feeding on the contents of the intestine begin to digest the intestine itself. They eventually break out of the intestine and start digesting the surrounding internal organs. The body's own digestive enzymes (normally in the intestine) also spread through the body, contributing to its decomposition.
On an even smaller scale, enzymes inside individual cells are released when the cell dies. These enzymes break down the cell and its connections with other cells.
From the moment of death flies are attracted to bodies. Without the normal defences of a living animal, blowflies and house flies are able to lay eggs around wounds and natural body openings (mouth, nose, eyes, anus, genitalia). These eggs hatch and move into the body, often within 24 hours. The life cycle of a fly from egg to maggot to fly takes from two to three weeks. It can take considerably longer at low temperatures.
Bacteria break down tissues and cells, releasing fluids into body cavities. They often respire in the absence of oxygen and produce various gases including hydrogen sulphide, methane, cadaverine and putrescine as by-products. People might find these gases foul smelling, but they are very attractive to a variety of insects.
The build up of gas resulting from the intense activity of the multiplying bacteria, creates pressure within the body. This pressure inflates the body and forces fluids out of cells and blood vessels and into the body cavity.
The young maggots move throughout the body, spreading bacteria, secreting digestive enzymes and tearing tissues with their mouth hooks. They move as a maggot mass benefiting from communal heat and shared digestive secretions.
The rate of decay increases, and the smells and body fluids that begin to eminate from the body attract more blowflies, flesh flies, beetles and mites. The later-arriving flies and beetles are predators, feeding on maggots as well as the decaying flesh. They are joined by parasitoid wasps that lay their eggs inside maggots and later, inside pupae.

We need to recognize a miracle for what it is.

God is doing the impossible.

Lazarus was dead for four days. Martha said that he would stink.

His body was decaying. Its gross to think of what his body looked like yet Jesus restored both his soul and body.

It’s interesting to note that the body of Jesus did not suffer decay,

Acts 2:31 he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that HE WAS NEITHER ABANDONED TO HADES, NOR DID His flesh SUFFER DECAY.

For me, this passage on the raising of Lazarus from the dead is one of the atom bombs of faith. It’s a life shaking radical event.

The raising of the dead to the living is a wipe it all out then make it all new experience.

Question is, have you been raised from the dead?

Proof?

Has your life been radically changed?

Every born again Christian wants God to do something radical in his or her life, we all want to see God demonstrate His power and authority.

But isn’t Gods greatest miracle a heart that is turned back to Him?

Isn’t Gods greatest miracle a soul taken from the grasp of Satan and brought into the family of God?

We all have a part to play when God moves in our life.

That part is most often our response to God moving in our life.

God moves first and then we respond.

God makes a promise and then we move in His direction.

In the case of raising Lazarus from the dead, what did Jesus tell the people to do?

Remove the stone.

Already, we have one of the great mysteries about Jesus.

If Jesus had the power to raise someone from the dead, then didn’t He obviously have the power to remove a stone?

Why didn’t Jesus impress the crowd by telling the stone to remove itself?

May I suggest that removing the stone is your job?

But Jesus,

The stone is too big.

The stone is too heavy.

You don’t know what I have been through.

You don’t know the pain that I have experienced.

You don’t know the sad memories and betrayals.

You don’t know the deep dark secrets.

You don’t know the horrible things that I have done.

You don’t know all the evil sinful thoughts I have.

You don’t know the greed and envy and lust and deceitfulness that live’s within my heart.

And to you Jesus replies, excellent!

You are closer to resurrection than you know!

A big problem we Christians have is the struggle between wanting to live godly in Christ Jesus and facing the truth about our fallen nature.

Our relationship with Christ starts out with the confessing of our sins and then we spend the rest of our relationship with Christ wrestling with our conscious.

Hopefully, this next verse will reveal what God already knows and it will stop that wrestling match in your heart and mind.

Jeremiah 17:9 and 10.

9 The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?

10 I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds.

Is this a punishment or a reward?

What does God means by “result of our deeds?”

Are we supposed to be able to predict the future?

Remember something about love and obedience?

Philippians 2:12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;

13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

Wait a second here, WHO is doing the work in your heart? God?

14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing;

15 so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world,

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling? Why?

For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

This fear and trembling is not what we would think it is.

This fear and trembling is a result of knowing that God is working out His will in us, that God is doing His work in us!

This is wonderful!

This is awesome!

This is overwhelming!

You don’t want to mess this up so you need to really be on your toes! You need to listen carefully, you need to walk purposely, you need to speak anointedly and you need to submit everything within you to achieve God’s good pleasure!

Don’t work for your salvation, work out your salvation.

Be careful about what you take into yourself.

Be careful how you represent Jesus.

Be careful that you don’t go back to your old ways of thinking, acting and living. Lift the weights of faith and trust. Bench press fear, row on the waters of tribulation, jump rope through the doubt, Work out your salvation.

Remember, God is doing a work in you too, and it is for His will and His good pleasure.

Faith and Jesus stuff....

CHAPTER 3

ROLLING WITH JESUS

Psalm 37:5

Commit your way to the LORD,

Trust also in Him,

and He will do it.

Combine together with the Lord your ways and your works.

Trust means to feel safe (and this is important) IN HIM.

He will do it means to bring it to pass, God will make it happen.

Simply put,

IF YOU

1.    Roll with Jesus.

Include the Lord in where you go and what you do.

2.     Know

(believe) that Jesus has everything under control.

3.    Trust

(feel safe) that the Lord is causing things to happen.

4.    Then Jesus guarantee’s that He will finish the work that He has begun in you.

5.    Then Jesus guarantee’s that your thoughts, purpose and intentions will become and remain firm and stable.

I need to make a point here.

In every case you will find that it is always God who is and remains faithful. Us, well, we get up and keep running the race to win.

We need to take note of a simple but HUGE truth stated in Matthew 17:20

if you have faith the size of a mustard seed,

you will say to this mountain

Lets read that verse again…

if you have faith the size of a mustard seed,

you will say to this mountain

What we have here is simple cause and effect.

Most everything that God does or will do will depend on you.

That is, if you have faith.

Guess what? No matter what you think, you have faith.

Romans 12:3 For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.

The measure of faith that God gives you is determined not by God, but by the size of the container that faith will fit into.

EVERYONE starts with a small container.

EVERYONE starts with a small portion of faith.

BUT

If you have faith, you will say…

You will say means, you will agree.

To confess your sin means to agree with God that you are a sinner.

So the question is, how much do you agree with God?

Speaking out loud is how you confess.

Speaking out loud is how you agree with God.

If you have faith, you will say to this mountain…

Is your cup so small that you have to say, sprinkle it on God?

Or, are you a very thirsty 5 gallon jug that cries out,

POUR IT ON GOD, POUR IT ON!!

And since it was Jesus who brought up the subject of mountains, ask yourself what is your mountain?

What was a mountain to the apostles?

What was the mountain that they faced?

A mountain is an immovable object.

Understand that a mountain that moves without the presence of an earthquake is an impossibility.

But guess what, that earthquake that moves that mountain is your faith.

It’s your faith that shakes things up!

How do you shake things up with your faith?

How do you move a mountain with your faith?

YOU SAY IT!

YOU SPEAK IT!

YOU PROCLAIM IT!

YOU LET IT BE KNOWN!

Speak your faith in God to that impossibility that faces you.

James, the writer of the book named after him had a nickname,

He was called “old camel knees” because he spent so much time in prayer that he had the knees of a camel.

And here is what James has to say about faith.

James 1:2 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,

3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

6 But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.

7 For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord,

8 being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Trials, tribulation and testing are all faith builders.

They are the dumbbells of faith.

Grab a dumbbell and exercise your faith in Jesus TODAY!

Who wants to be double-minded and unstable anyway?

Double-minded is a mind that is doubtful and uncertain.

Unstable is a heart that is restless and inconsistent.

How do you know if your mind is not made up and you heart is unstable?

Are you restless? Consumed with worry and impatience?

Are you finding it difficult to live in harmony with God?

What is asking without faith?

It’s being uncertain of the outcome; it’s a faith that is not fully confident.

Read the following list of character traits.

Double-minded,

Doubtful,

Uncertain,

Unstable,

Restless,

Inconsistent.

Do you realize that these words describe the born again Christian who prays without faith?

For those of us who are like me and need someone to spell things out for them, let me put it this way…

Do you realize that those words describe you when you pray without faith?

Double-minded,

Doubtful,

Uncertain,

Unstable,

Restless,

Inconsistent.

Let’s take a short look at prayer in the Bible.

This first passage is possibly about the first gentile convert named Cornelius. Interesting enough his name means, “horn”, as in blowing a horn. Hard to pray quietly and without faith when your name means “horn”…

Acts 10:1 NOW there was a man at Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian cohort,

2 a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, and gave many alms to the Jewish people and prayed to God continually.

3 About the ninth hour of the day he clearly saw in a vision an angel of God who had just come in and said to him, Cornelius!

4 And fixing his gaze on him and being much alarmed, he said, What is it, Lord? And he said to him, Your prayers and alms have ascended as a memorial before God.

We know that prayers and alms are acts of kindness and charity. A memorial is something intended to celebrate or honor the memory of someone or something.

Simply put, Cornelius did not just pray to God. Cornelius acted out his faith in God by performing acts of kindness and charity. Kindness is doing favors, charity is doing favors when you know that there is no pay back. It was Cornelius’s prayers and acts of kindness that celebrated and honored God.

This is what James meant when he said, “let me show you my faith by my works.”

Think Paul had an effective prayer life?

Here is a small insight into the way Paul prayed.

Philippians 1:3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you,

4 always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all,

Excuse me for interrupting, but did Paul say “offering prayer with joy”?

Ask yourself, do you pray only when you are desperate and needy or do you pray with joy?

Take a good look at what Paul says in verse 4 about how he prays…

4 always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all,

always offering…

prayer with joy…

in my every prayer…

for you all…

Does every Christian you know cause you to always pray with joy

IN EVERY PRAYER YOU PRAY?

How did Paul do it?

How could Paul have joy when he prayed for everyone and remain sincere? Here’s how.

5 in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now.

6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

Paul was confident in his prayer life.

Confident of what?

That He who began a good work in you,

will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

What was Paul so confident of that it caused him to pray with joy?

Paul knows, that he knows, that he knows, that God isn’t through with any of you until the day you come face to face with Jesus.

What did Paul believe?

What did Paul know?

What was Paul confident of?

That there is always hope for every one of us!

Paul’s life truly demonstrates believing as if you have already received!

What caused Paul to pray this way?

Where did Paul get the strength?

Because of what was in his heart…

7 For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart, since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me.

8 For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.

Excuse me a minute, I need to pray…

Father, forgive me for not loving those whom you love.

Father, forgive me for judging and condemning those whom Jesus suffered and died for.

Father, forgive me for wishing vengeance on my fellow fallen brothers and sisters.

Father, cause me to love others like Jesus loves me.

Father, give me a godly affection towards my fellow man.

Father, forgive me for I have sinned against you and worked against the forgiveness that You have freely offered to all.

I am sorry Father, please, forgive me.

9 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment,

10 so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ;

11 having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Paul even tells us specifically what he prayed for.

1. That your love may abound more and more

2. That your love may be founded in real knowledge.

3. That your love may overflow with discernment.

4. That you may recognize and up lift all that is excellent.

5. That you may be and remain sincere.

6. That you may be and remain blameless.

7. That you may be filled with the good fruit of righteousness.

8. That you may never disconnect from Jesus.

9. That your life may result in glory and praise to God.

When Paul prayed, what was on his mind?

That same thing that is on Gods mind,

You.

What motivated Paul to be this way?

1 Timothy 1:5

But the goal of our instruction is

love from a pure heart  -your pure heart

and a good conscience   -your guilt free mind

and a sincere faith.        -your real motivation

Jesus said to the people who followed Him,

if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say…

So, I ask you my fellow follower of Jesus,

what do you say?

John 14:1 says,

Do not let your heart be troubled;

believe in God,

believe also in Me.

What Jesus was saying is look you guys are Jews, you believe in God. You know the stories of the Old Testament; you believe it to be your heritage, it is a part of who you are. You know about Abraham and faith and righteousness, now believe that I am the fulfillment of all of that. Believe that all of God is wrapped up in me.

Have you ever prayed in Jesus name?

If you have, what you were saying is that this prayer is said through and accomplished by Jesus, by His will, by His authority and by His power.

Trust God that Jesus is the cure for your troubled heart.

Trust God that Jesus is the Way,

Jesus is the Truth, and

Jesus is the Life.

Look at what a tiny bit of faith can do.

Look at the amount of faith that it takes to move a mountain and to accomplish the impossible.

According to Jesus doing the impossible takes a mustard seed sized faith.

A mustard seed weighs about 2 milligrams. 

That is 0.000 070 548 of an ounce.

The usual dosage of aspirin is 200 milligrams, that one aspirin is 100 times bigger than a mustard seed!

Think about that for a moment.

The problem with faith is that the faith required to do the impossible is so small that you can barely see it!

Yes, you can quote me on that one. Thought it was rather nifty myself.

How important is properly placed faith and belief?

2 Corinthians 4:17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, (something yet unseen)

18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; (like our faith) for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen (like our faith) are eternal.

Does it help you to know that

faith is eternal

faith has no beginning

faith will never come to an end

faith is a gift from God?

Actually, it shouldn’t help at all.

If it did, you would already be praying with faith and you would already be moving the mountains in your life!

Possessing faith is not what is important.

Using the faith that you already possess is when the miracles take place, and prayer is the first step of using faith.

According to James, faith without works is dead.

But if you dare to place your faith in Jesus,

what you will find is a miracle in the works!

Faith may be found under a heavy stone,

but faith will always end up on the rock.

REALIZE REALITY

 I have already reread this one several times. I thinks it packed.

CHAPTER 2

REALIZE REALITY!

Its time that we Realize Reality.

To realize is to gain and obtain.

Reality is something that exists independently of ideas concerning it.

If you will believe, then you will call on Him and if you will call on Him, He will listen to you.

If you will believe, then you will be seeking and searching after Him and if you will seek and search after Him, with all your heart, then you will FIND HIM!

This find is a discovering, a possessing, a reaping more of God in your mind and your soul and your heart.

Understand?

You call, God listens.

You seek, God reveals.

If you will, God will.

Its time that we Realize Reality.

To realize is to gain and obtain.

Reality is something that exists independently of ideas concerning it.

Jeremiah 29:10 For thus says the LORD, "When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.

Do you realize that God has a plan for your life and right now He is pulling out the weeds and the hard rocks that litter the soil of your heart?

Do you realize that God has an appointed time when He is going to show up and you will see Him face to face when He has fulfilled His good work in you?

Its time that we Realize Reality.

To realize is to gain and obtain.

Reality is something that exists independently of ideas concerning it.

11 "For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, "plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.

Do you realize that Gods plan for you is better than a check from Publishers Clearing House on earth?

Do you realize that Gods plans for you includes your soul being complete, your mind being sound and your heart being filled with love and peace, I mean real peace while you are here on earth?

Do you realize that Gods plan for you does NOT include misery, distress or injury on earth?

Do you realize that God has a future for you on earth?

Do you realize that this means that whatever you are going through right now is NOT how you will end up? AH HA!

Its time that we Realize Reality.

To realize is to gain and obtain.

Reality is something that exists independently of ideas concerning it.

12 "Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.

13 "You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

Do you realize that what you are going through right now is to cause you to draw closer to God? to pray more  to God? to seek harder after God? to search deeper after God?

Do you realize that what you do reveals what is already in your heart towards God?

14 "I will be found by you,' declares the LORD, "and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,' declares the LORD, "and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.'

Do you realize that God can be found?

Do you realize that God is telling YOU that He can be discovered and possessed by you?

Do you realize that God is in the restoration business?

Just like an old rusted out piece of metal that was once a car, your old rusted out heart is in a process of being refreshed, renewed, revived and restored!

Notice the last line of verse 14.

"and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.'

The place where you are headed is the same place where you came from…

Where is that place?

The Heart of God.

You came from God and for trusting in Jesus, you will return to God.

David, an adulterer and murderer, David, a man who overlooked incest in his own home, David, a man who’s own son sought to kill him and take his kingdom from him, David a man who spent a lot of his life fighting or running, and a man who knew what it was like to be in the presence of God.

David knew that sometimes the presence of God brought great joy and sometimes it brought great pain, but even so, though joyful or painful, David could not escape his great need for Gods love and presence in his life.

Psalm 139:7 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?

8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.

9 If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,

10 Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.

11 If I say, Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,

12 Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.

13 For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb.

14 I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.

15 My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth;

16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.

17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

Did David write this in a state of joy and relief or did David write this in a fit of exhaustion and surrender because he finally realized that no matter how hard or how far he ran, he could never escape a God who simply loves him?

We need to be convinced in our heart that the only way out of a tough situation is to believe God wants to accomplish the impossible in your life.

Like every great man or woman of faith, we are not alone in wanting the easy way out of trials and tribulations.

Take a good look at Jesus because Jesus wanted an easy way out too.

Let’s accept the fact that when the bible says that Jesus was tempted, He was tempted!

Jesus was not ignorant of what it meant to be crucified.

No one, not even Jesus enjoyed physical pain.

Yes, even more painful was Jesus knowing that He would be separated from His Father and experience sin for the first time in His life, but we can’t really relate to that. We were born into sin. What we relate to is avoiding pain, loneliness, suffering and separation.

Remember, the cure for a troubled heart is to believe in God. And believe is for the umpteenth time to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so.

Belief in God is a spiritual function that takes place in the heart.

The heart mentioned here is not just the physical organ; the heart is the center of your emotions, desires and passions.

It’s the center of the physical and the spiritual.

It’s who you were, are and will be.

It’s where belief starts and where faith exists.

It’s where God comes to live in you.

Your heart is where God’s action is!

Let’s go back to the apostles not being able to cast out this particular demon.

 Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 17:20 And Jesus said to them, Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, "Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

Did you read that? What Jesus said to His apostles?

Because of the littleness of your faith

Just a little question, what did that verse make you think of?

Being able to move mountains or having faith to move mountains?

If you thought of moving mountains then may I suggest that you are missing the forest for the trees?

The mountain that is in your life, is just a mountain.

But the faith that you have can be mountain moving.

What I mean is, mountains can be moved, and faith is the mountain mover. So which has more power, influence and impact in your life?

Which is more threatening?

That which is before you, or that which is within you?

Can I suggest something that I can’t prove?

I suggest that the “littleness of faith” that Jesus is talking about is not an overall, this is all you got to work with littleness, this littleness is pure unbelief.

Unbelief means weakness and unfaithfulness, unbelief is a faith that is weak and unfaithful.

Were the Apostles failures because of their unbelief?

Did they give up in frustration and say to one another, why are we even trying this? Let’s face it we will never be like Jesus. We will never do the things that Jesus does. We will never get it right. God hasn’t called us to cast out demons. We have the sin of unbelief!

Jesus didn’t condemn them, Jesus told them that their problem with faith is not that they lacked faith, but that their faith was weak and not able to perform up to its true potential.

Jesus did not say that their faith was bad or sinful He just said that it was “small”.

I mean come on, look at what they were attempting to do!

Think about this for a minute, is casting out demons a miracle?

It all depends on your faith.

A miracle is an event that is considered “supernatural”.

Super-natural.

The super mixed with the natural.

God is super and you are natural.

Casting out demons may be super for you, but it’s natural for God.

Faith may be super for you, but it’s natural for God.

Faith is super-natural isn’t it?

Doesn’t that make faith a type of miracle?

The mixing of a super God with the natural you?

Is your God small?

How do you know?

Ask yourself, is your faith small?

Remember, smallness of faith implies unbelief and unbelief is a faith that is weak and unfaithful.

If our faith is in God, then what or who is weak and unfaithful?

Seriously.

The answer is life changing.

If our faith is in God, then what or who is weak and unfaithful?

Lets examine faith.

Faith is assurance, faith is hope, and faith is conviction.

Hebrews 11:1 NOW faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Think of faith this way.

When you came to faith in Christ and you accepted Him into your heart and life, did you accept all of Jesus or just certain parts of Him?

Namely, did you accept Jesus the Savior and not Jesus the Lord?

Did you accept the loving forgiving Jesus and not the suffering, self denying, learned obedience through the things that He suffered Jesus?

Did you accept the make me feel good inside but don’t deal with my character Jesus?

Do you think that it is possible to be part Christian and part pagan?

Can you be part saved and part not saved?

Can you live your life with one foot in heaven and the other firmly planted on the earth?

Come on, if you start running in a race and you don’t intend to cross the finish line, how much effort are you going to put into it?

Do you actually think that you can live the Christian life that way?

To commit your life to Jesus means to bind and obligate, to consign to the custody of, to pledge oneself to a position.

There are 2 main verses in the bible that refer to commitment.

Psalm 37:5 Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it.

Proverbs 16:3 Commit your works to the LORD And your plans will be established.

The word commit used in both of these verses actually means “to roll together”. Seriously, that’s what it actually means.

Is that the way YOU roll?

It has countless rooms and each one makes you feel like you are at home. My Fathers house is not a place where the furniture is covered with plastic and the floors are cold and the walls are colorless! There are pictures of you guys up on the walls already! Matter of fact, My Father planned it so that my earthly father would be a carpenter, so that I would learn the trade because when I go home to Him, He wants me to remodel the place so you will feel even more at home!

I am getting to know you right now so I can get a real feel for you and what you like, what makes you feel comfortable and relaxed, and when I am finished preparing a place for you that is when I will come back for you, that where I am, there you may be also.

According to what Jesus was saying, what is on Gods mind?

It’s you and just like we would clean our house before company comes, Jesus is preparing a place for you…

Even so, on earth our hearts become troubled and agitated and according to Jesus, what is the cure for a troubled agitated heart?

Believing that God can and God will and God wants to.

Just like the Jews in captivity in Egypt had to believe that God was “I Am”, we need to believe that “God Can, Will and Wants to”.

Can God lead you, Will God lead you, does God Want to lead you out of captivity to your future home in heaven with Him?

Which is easier for you to believe? That God is preparing a place for you in heaven, or that God is preparing you for a place in heaven?

If we could only begin to understand that we already possess a future and a hope. Just like the Jewish people when they were brought into captivity for 70 years and it was never God’s intention that they would lose hope…

Jeremiah 29:10 says, For thus says the LORD, "When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.

11 "For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, "plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.

Has you life been riddled with fears and failures?

Have the seeds of regret not only been planted in your heart, but have they taken root?

Read Jeremiah 29 with me again, and then permit me to point out a simple truth…

Jeremiah 29:10 For thus says the LORD, "When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.

11 "For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, "plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.

Think something through for a minute or two.

Has God made a promise to you that He has not yet kept?

Has God dropped you off in a strange land and have you lost your way?

Do you believe, even when your brain tells you that it’s foolish to do so, that God will fulfill His promises to you?

You need to really trust Him on this.

God works on faith, and not God’s faith in you, but your faith in God.

God knows the plans that He has for you…