Aspects of Faith

Another post on faith, but that is only because faith is the one of the fundamental keys to our belief as Christians. Hebrews 11:1 says

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

God has called us all to have a great faith. For his passion is that not on single person will perish. This is mentioned in Romans 10:9

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

 If we have a faith in Jesus Christ, will we have eternal life with our father in heaven.

Faith has the power to release God's miracles and awesome power. Hebrews 11:6 talks of how we cannot please God without faith.

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

We must believe and seek after him. Faith is the currency in heaven, it is what please God. It is by faith that great things are able to happen in our lives. But sometimes in our walk we can reach a spiritual plateau. But God calls us never to be still, but always to keep taking steps by faith. So I wanted to talk about five aspects of faith that were shared in service a couple weeks back.

Desperate Faith
In not enough to just have faith in Christ, but we need to get desperate with God. No matter what our circumstance, we need to get desperate with Jesus. For it is in our most desperate circumstances that the greatest miracles can occur. One example of this is in Mark 5:25-35, where we see the story of a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. But she was desperate for healing and she fought her way through the great crowd that was surrounding Jesus, just so that she could touch the hem of His cloak. In verse 28 its says

because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.

Through this great faith she was healed of her sickness. Jesus felt her desperate faith as she touched Him and as He says in verse 34 -

He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."

God reponds to us when we are calling out desperately by faith!


Servant Faith
In Mark 2:1-12 we see the story of where Jesus heals a paralytic. He has gathered in a small house, but the location was surrounded by people coming to see Jesus. Some guys came with a paralyzed friend, but as they could not get inside to see Jesus, they climbed up on the roof of the house. They opened up the roof and lowered the paralyzed man inside so that he could see Jesus. Jesus' response to as we see in Mark 2:5

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

The friends had a great servant faith for their paralyzed friend. We are called to also have this kind of faith, serving a this generation who are crippled in faith.

Obedient and Courageous Faith
Another story of healing is seen in Mark 3:1-5 where Jesus singles out a man with shriveled hand to stand up. In verse 5 we see -

He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.

Can you picture the situation, you have an area of weakness, the area you try to conceal and hide, but this is the single area which Jesus will call you to stretch out before everyone. This is the kind of obedient faith we are called to demonstrate. But it wont be easy, the voice of the devil will plant doubt within us. But the voice of Jesus will calls us to have courage and step forward. We must come to realise that God is low on details, but high on obedience. Jesus didnt say to this man "please stretch out your hand, dont be afraid, i know your afraid, but I will heal you". No, all Jesus called the man to do was stretch out his hand, He didnt give details, but He expected obedience.

This is how God works, sometimes He will call us to do something, but we wont receive all the details. We are called to be obedient in our faith. For if we are obedient to God, He will provide us with everything we need. But never be mistaken, 99% obedience is still disobedience.


Persistent Faith
Luke 18:1-8 tells the parable of the persistent widow. It tells of the woman who constantly came to the judge requesting justice, until he finally gave in and granted her the justice she was seeking. Jesus tells this parable in order to teach us that we should always pray and not give up. The problem is today we live in an instant generation. Look around you and you will see that there are many things in your life that work towards making things happen faster and when we want them. Many people have lost the gift of patience and being persistent. This poses a problem when we pray to God, but we don't instantly see Him move in our circumstances. People may then be inclined to attempt things by their own strength.

But we need to learn to be both patient and persistent. We must recognise that God is never too slow, He is actually always on time. He has a great plan for our lives, he has mapped out every day of your life even before you were born as it says in Psalms 139:16

your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Therefore if God gives us a promise, we need to be persistent in prayer. Sometimes we just give up to easily, but we must learn to be faithful in prayer.

We need to be people of great faith. For when the apostles asked Jesus to increase their faith, He replied in Luke 17:6

"If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you."

We must learn to strengthen our faith in all aspects. It starts with small steps and small opportunities. It only takes a small seed. For as it says in Hebrews 11:6 it impossible to please God without faith -

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

I pray that you will daily exercise your faith in Christ Jesus, following Him with obedience and daily immersing yourself in His word!

Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.

(Romans 10:17)