Strengthening Our Faith Muscle

"And without faith, it is impossible to please God" – Hebrews 11:6

Do you regularly strengthen your "faith muscle"?  All the time, we need strengthening of our faith.  Just as it’s healthy to go to the gym and build muscle mass, (it prevents osteoporosis) it’s spiritually healthy for us to build our faith muscle. (And, it prevents the drying of our spiritual bones, A.K.A. DISCOURAGEMENT!)  (Ezekiel 37:11)

But, sometimes in life circumstances can get the better of us.  When one thing happens after another, we lose the ability to BELIEVE.  When these times come, we need our brothers and sisters who do have faith for the situation to pray and believe for us.  This will strengthen our faith - even for the most languid in spirit.  We need to continually stay in a place of faith in order to allow God to work.  God cannot work in a situation where there is no faith.  Faith is the precursor to God’s action on our behalf.  It is the fertile ground necessary for the miraculous to occur.  It is in faith that we are "alive in Christ."

Gunnar Olsen, a Christian businessman in Sweden tells a story called "The Plastic Bag Story."  At one time he owned a packing business, and during this time he received a large order for some plastic bags.  After receiving the shipment, the warehouse manager had informed Gunnar that the bags were sealed shut!  On a Friday, they checked all the boxes of bags - and every one of them had melted together.

Well, as you can imagine, it caused quite a panic.  Gunnar’s brother who also worked with him became very upset and Gunnar asked him to go play golf. His brother was incredulous - but Gunnar knew it would not be a good idea for his brother to be around.  He needed to be filled with faith for the situation, and he knew his brother was afraid.

Gunnar and his family went to the warehouse the following Saturday and stood in a circle praying together.  After they had prayed his daughter spoke up, "I think we should pray for the boxes!  God wouldn't want these bags to be sealed." So they did.  They laid hands on all 3,000 boxes of them.

The following Monday, they checked the bags.  They were unsealed, as if nothing had ever happened. 

The enemy wants nothing more than to STEAL our seeds of faith.  If he does that, he knows he can discourage us, and make us feel completely devoid of hope.  But, this is not what God wants for us!  God wants us to be full of faith – all the time!  However, in order to have faith in our lives we must want it – and we must learn to activate it.

Are you strengthening your "faith muscle"?

Faith & Miracles

“So again I ask, does God give you His Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?”  -Galatians 3:5

Have you ever witnessed a miracle?  I can’t say that I’ve seen someone come back from the dead, though I have experienced what might be considered “smaller” miracles in my own life related to emotional healing, safety, and finances.  Our level of faith is often congruent with our experience.  The enemy’s purpose is to steal, kill, and destroy. He tries to get in the middle of our dreams by stealing our faith for our dreams.  But then, God comes in and shows us how “anything is possible to those who believe.” (Mark 9:23)

Let me pose a question to you:  What if our default was faith, where we simply believed all the time, but still had peace, trusting God for the outcome?  The Bible says that faith is “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”  (Heb 11:1)  How can you know for sure?  The wind is invisible, but we can feel it.  Likewise, faith is something that we sense in our hearts.  It’s the belief that yes, with God, all things are possible, to those who believe.  I believe if we kept our hearts like this, we would see more miracles than we ever thought possible.

One day a man came to our church talking about faith and the working of miracles.  He shared a story whereby a woman had conceived a child, but the father left her.  This woman, with her newborn baby girl became a Christian. Then, 20 years later, the same thing happened to her daughter.  She met a man and got pregnant, and the man left the country.  She was devastated. But, even more devastating was the fact that her daughter had been born blind.  Both the mother and grandmother were asking God “Why?”, but they kept on believing.  Five years down the road they went to a church service where this particular minister was speaking.  He prayed for miracles to occur in the lives of the people there.  The mother responded to the altar call in faith.  The next morning, at her home, she noticed her daughter acting rather strange.  Normally she would have been playing with her dolls looking around without any focus, as blind people do, but instead she was holding the sheet on the bed, looking at it.  She could see! 

Do you have faith for the possibility of miracles in your life? Are you willing to do your part and believe?  Pray today that God would give you faith in Him for your hopes & dreams, so that His purposes and plans for you can be fully birthed in your life, no matter how long they may take. 

Everyday Miracles

 

“You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples.” -Psalm 77:14

Have you ever had something miraculous happen to you?  We tend to think of miracles as big things such as winning a million dollars or getting healed from cancer.  When these types of big things happen, they are incredible!  And we should give God the glory.  But too often we forget to remember the everyday miracles that God puts right in front of us. 

We miss getting in a car accident by just inches, or, we gain the courage to try something new.  We find the perfect dress for the perfect occasion (for girls), or a butterfly flutters across our path – these are many a small miracle that we tend to take for granted.

The Bible says that not one sparrow falls without God knowing about it. ”Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.”  -Matthew 10:29

Things that may seem small really are miraculous. It is a miracle to me that we have so many jobs in America, even if the unemployment rate is high.  It's incredible that my Father in heaven takes care of my mom everyday, and there isn’t more crime and hated among people with everything negative that’s happened to each of us.  The presence of love is a small miracle in itself!  But I can also cite specific times when God did small miracles.  It helps me recognize His presence and activity in my life.

Can you think of a time when God performed a miracle in your life, small or big?  Reminisce on that today, and thank Him for it. If you can’t think of a time, ask God to reveal himself to you in this way.  We never know what can happen when we have faith in our unfailing God.