Author: marquitabp

Help Our Unbelief

"But you haven't believed in me even though you have seen me."  John 6:36 NLT

I think about the man whose son was possessed and got discouraged when the faith of the Disciples could not heal his son.  In Mark 9:24 the story notes 'Immediately the boy's father cried out and said, "I do believe; help my unbelief."'  Help my unbelief.  Sometimes I experience blessings and I will thank God for them.  Then the next challenge that arises, I immediately forget and sometimes I allow doubt to enter my mind.  Among other things, the enemy has been attacking me in my faith and in believing the things God has told me.  But as the Word says, Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ (Romans 10:17). 

I'm sure you are familiar with the old saying, "Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear," right?  I actually wrote a devotion about this before, and I realized that we are so conditioned to not believe what we hear.  We instantly doubt.  It took the man in Mark to actually bring his son to Jesus before he believed his son was healed–not only because he doubted, but the Disciples doubted as well.  If we do not believe in our own confessions, we waste God's time asking Him to move on our behalf.  We in turn negate our own faith and allow the perverted faith, or fear to rule in that situation.

The mobs and the Jews only believed in Jesus' miracles that they actually saw Him perform.  Even sadder is the fact that many still doubted who He was, worse yet some accused Him of being demon-possessed!  God wants us to believe in Him.  Believe that once you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior and asked for the forgiveness of your sins, that it was done.  You instantly became the righteousness of God through your faith in what you professed to believe.  Believing that God will do what He says is one thing, but believing that God will do what He says in your life is a whole different concept.  Why?  Because it forces you to activate your faith for yourself.  It is easy to trust God for someone else.  But when you have to wait patiently for God to move on your behalf, righting some wrong or restoring to you what you lost, it requires you to remember His Word and His promises and truly trust that they will produce a harvest in your life.  It requires that you enact the kind of faith needed to move mountains…and according to Matthew 17:20 all that takes is mustard seed-sized faith!!  'And He 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.'  So maybe you have microscopic-sized faith, and it is time for you to tell God the same thing, 'help my unbelief' so that you can grow.

And Jesus said to him, "'If You can?' All things are possible to him who believes."  Mark 9:23 NASB

God's Way

"I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord."  1 Corinthians 7:35 NIV

Although this scripture is from a passage that is in reference to behaviors of married and unmarried people, I think it is perfect for this topic.  Way too often nowadays people just go about living their lives their way, not caring who gets hurt in the crossfire.  They do not think about others, they do not think about the repercussions of their actions, and I highly doubt they consider God or His plan in the process.

I have been under a cloud of uncertainty lately.  I have felt like in instances before, I have planned and planned and planned–with all going according to plan.  Most of the goals I had set for myself as a child I have already accomplished; I graduated both college and graduate school before I was 23, I have a great job, I live on my own and I have been self-sufficient for many years now.  Of course one of those goals I have yet to achieve, and I do not know when that will happen.  But I realized today through talking to my mothers at work that much planning and goal-setting on my part is not a bad idea, but when one is seeking to live life according to God's will, we must acknowledge that those plans may very well never pan out.  We must acknowledge that life will certainly throw its curve balls in the midst, but in the end, that God will make sure it works out according to our good (Rom. 8:28). 

Looking at the scripture above in this particular context helps ease the discomfort I feel.  Knowing that as long as I try and seek God for the right way to do whatever He wants from me, it will work out for my good.  God will align the path and make it straight, removing any obstacles that will prevent me from doing what He wants.  The key is that I must  be willing.  As a recovering control freak (well at least when it comes to my life, I've learned that I can't control anything someone else wants to do) I recognize that there are details God has not revealed to me yet and that my simple act of obedience with the steps He has given me will ensure that when the time is right, the next set will be revealed.  God is so great that He looks ahead at the finished work, while we can only see what may lie ahead of us.  Proverbs 16:9 says that "The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps." (NASB)  So if we simply relinquish control to God, and just go along for the ride, things will go much smoothly.  The difficulty for us lies in turning over the reigns and becoming a passenger for the trip.  This is a difficult lesson for me, but I'm learning that it is much easier to just sit back and let God do God because I was not equipped with those skills.

"You can make many plans, but the LORD's purpose will prevail."  Proverbs 19:21 NLT