Good Day, My Friends: Pam and I had a great end to last week by spending Saturday with two friends, Candy and Andy, on their boat at Lake St. Louis. Then I had a great beginning to this week by spending it with The Saint Louis Wind Symphony as we prepared the opening concert for our 16th season next Sunday, September, 22; 3:00 p.m. at Chaminade College Prep School, 425 S. Lindbergh Blvd. Everyone is invited to come as my guest. Just go to the ticket table and tell them you are a friend of Pastor Dan and your admission will be free. See, the blessings I am about to write about are already coming to pass.
Last week when I wrote about developing faith, I referred to a specific kind of faith: evidential faith as opposed to blind faith. Blind faith is accepting something at surface level; perhaps it “seems to make sense to you” or perhaps someone told you “it was so”. In other words you accept information without testing its validity (or experiencing its truth). Evidential faith is based on our experience with the object of our faith.
I ended last week’s message by presenting a life situation involving a burglar alarm. The story began with the realization of increased burglaries in your neighborhood; then a decision to take action; and finally the feeling of security with the implementation of a security product. At this point you believed you had taken the appropriate steps to increase your security, and you had hope that the product would work. The only thing standing between you and evidential faith was experiencing the product in action, (i.e. doing what the advertisement claimed it would do)!
The same is true when it comes to developing faith in God. To repeat again Neil Anderson’s insightful statement found in “Victory Over the Darkness”; You cannot have faith in something you do not know anything about”, he surmises you cannot have faith in God if you do not know God. Therefore, to come to know God and to develop a relationship with him, we have to spend time and effort learning what he says; what he says about us; what his standards are; what his promises are; how we can achieve his promises, AND we have to learn about his nature – God is love. (1John 4:8) Knowing his nature is vitally important because if God is love, he can only beget good (1John 1:5…God is light [goodness] and there is no darkness [evil] in Him at all).
Since God is love; and since he wants a relationship with us; and since he has chosen a way to reveal himself to us so we can enter into that relationship, his desire is for us to experience His truth. That’s what the Word of God is…God’s Truth. (the term “word” comes from the original Greek word, “logos”, meaning logic, rational thinking or “the truth”.) Romans 10:17 says, “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”. The source of everything we need to know about God is found in The Holy Bible, or the “living word” as it is sometimes called. Every word spoken by the prophets or written by scribes was inspired by God. 2 Peter 1:21-22 states “…you must understand that no prophecy or scripture ever came about from the prophets themselves or because they wanted to prophesy. It was the Holy Spirit who moved the prophets to speak the word of God.” 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “ All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.”
1 Chronicles 28:9 states: “And Solomon, my son, learn to know the God of your ancestors intimately. Worship and serve him with your whole heart and a willing mind. For the LORD sees every heart and knows every plan and thought. If you seek him, you will find him.” The highlighted part of that verse is a promise from God, and like almost all promises it begins with the first two words, “if you”. (Sidebar: I will refer back to an earlier message, “Does God Have a Plan for My Life?” August 26th. In that message we learned that at creation Man (mankind) was spiritually connected to God. That connection was severed by Man’s act of disobedience and sin entering the world. Remember…God gave us free-will; He does not impose his will on us. Therefore it is up to Man to restore that original spiritual connection with God by choosing to enter into the process of restoration by seeking Him. God’s promise to us is, “if we seek Him, we will find Him”
The Bible meets us wherever we are in our spiritual journey. If you are a newcomer, you reap what you are ready to reap from the initial experience. But the more we grow in our knowledge of God through our effort to seek Him, the more spiritual truths are revealed to us. It is through that process of revelation that we can start connecting the spiritual dots that opens the door to God’s plan for our life.
Now we can begin building our faith. Through the study of His Word, prayer and meditation we have built a foundation of God’s truth on which we know we can stand! Now the Bible has become the “living Word” because we are standing on the scriptural principles (truths) that are positively affecting our life. Just like the story of the burglar alarm last week, when we experience the truth coming alive in our life, our faith grows.
The 12 Step program of Alcoholics Anonymous states this principle in a very user-friendly and succinct statement: Step III: “We became willing to turn our will and our life over to the care of God, as we understand Him.” Notice this statement also begins with willingness (or choice) on the part of the participant. But the part I find appealing is the key word “care” of God. Not control but care!! When someone has a caregiver, what does the caregiver do?… they look out for their clients best interest; they keep them safe; they make sure their needs are met. This is what God wants for us! We are his proudest creation. He wants to care for us; to meet our needs just like in the Garden of Eden, which, by the way, was paradise.
And what is God’s will for our life? It is for us to have an eternal relationship with Him in paradise. But as you know from previous messages, the only stumbling block for mankind since creation has been the issue of SIN! The good news is…that problem was solved 2000 years ago by a loving God who was willing to sacrifice his son, Jesus Christ, for the sin of all mankind. Now we can come boldly before God with no fear of condemnation, (Romans 8:1) because when we have accepted God’s gift of Grace (the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.) God said “I will remember their sins no more!” (Hebrew 8:12).
Everything I have written about in this message is available to anyone who accepts Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. When we accept His sacrifice for our sin, we are a new creation in Christ. We are filled with the Holy Spirit (more on that later) and we are now a Child of God. What’s more…we inherit all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly realm AND we are heir to all the promises in the Bible. That, my Friends, is good news! This was all made possible because we chose to grow in the truth of God’s word. As a result of our willingness to participate in this growth process, our faith also grew.
I would like to leave you today with three promises from God. I will encourage you to pray and meditate about these truths throughout this coming week. Ask yourself, “How will this affect the way I live my life?”
“Anything we ask for, that is in line with God’s will for our life, will be given to us.” 1John 5:14-15
“God works for the good in all things for those who love Him and are called to his purpose.” Rom. 8:28
“The Spirit in us (Holy Spirit) is God’s guarantee he will give us everything he promised long ago.”
Ephesians 1:14
May God bless ya…and HE WILL!
Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
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