Matthew 9:29. According to your faith be it unto you.
Well friends, it’s the big day, Sunday, the time we make our way to the Lord’s sanctuary to fellowship and worship and receive reassurance and confidence in our faith walk. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it today because of my illness, but my Pastor, Fr. Jeff has promised to come and visit and give me communion after church. So I’m still in the loop. (smile)
Anyway, as usual, let’s get prepared to hear the word, soften our hearts, by offering up some praise and worship to heaven. And today we’ll offer up that old spiritual song from the movie ‘Student Prince,’ made famous by Mario Lanza. It’s called ‘I’ll walk with God,’ and is such a beautiful way of reaffirming our faith, in this most appropriate time of spring rebirth and a troubled world.
Let’s sing my brethren, with sincere hearts and strong lungs. ‘I’ll walk with God from this day on. His helping hand I’ll lean upon. This is my prayer, my humble plea, May the Lord be ever with me. There is no death, tho’ eyes grow dim. There is no fear when I’m near to Him. I’ll lean on Him forever And He’ll forsake me never.
He will not fail me As long as my faith is strong, Whatever road I may walk along. I’ll walk with God, I’ll take His hand. I’ll talk with God, He’ll understand. I’ll pray to Him, each day to Him And He’ll hear the words that I say. His hand will guide my throne and rod And I’ll never walk alone While I walk with God.’
And is all of that ever so true my people! If we walk faithfully with God, He’ll look after us. That’s his promise! And He doesn’t ever break promises. I particularly like that last line, about I’ll never walk alone, while I walk with Him. Glory be people! What an awesome statement of truth!
But first, before all of the above can happen, we need to have the faith to submit, to completely surrender our lives to Him, because God wants to be involved in EVERY aspect of our lives. He can’t be included in some things and not in others. And that’s where the problems come in. We either don’t have faith, or we suffer from weak faith, but a sincere and successful walk with God requires strong faith.
Oh I know that faith is a process, a continuum along which we grow, from glory to glory, but we have to make the solid, and conscious commitment to do it. We can’t be wishy- washy and stop, or faint as soon as problems arise, because its those same problems that cause our faith to grow. Yeh friends, unfortunately faith only grows by experiencing God’s LOVE, mercy and favour at work in our lives, especially during the rough periods.
And to show that I know what I’m talking about (smile) listen to this testimony. It’s been a year and half since I’ve been diagnosed with head and heart problems, and in the natural, you’d expect them to be fixed much sooner than they have been.
Oh, only the head problem has been fixed so far, and that just last week, the heart still remains an enigma. I went into the hospital a month ago to fix the heart problem, but some other thing cropped up and they changed their minds. I’m still waiting to hear from them.
But what amazes me is that everybody claimed I was so sick, but yet they had me traipsing from hospital to doctor to heart clinic and back again, taking all different kinds of medication and nothing was getting done. Now I could have given up hope and said, ‘Chuh! Forget all this nonsense yes!’
But I didn’t, because I’ve been walking with God long enough now to understand that He will keep His promise to work everything out for our good, but in His own time. That’s the cut-tail part about walking with God; in His own time. And unfortunately, His time is seldom our time. He uses these opportunities to grow our faith.
So if you’re going through some tough and dark times, please, please don’t give up or lose faith. The Lord WILL see you through eventually. He’s just checking to see if you’re truly into Him, as you claim. It isn’t easy people, but our God is faithful, that much I can tell you for sure. And if He sees that you’re willing to take up your cross and walk with Him, without a doubt, He’ll help you to carry it, just like He sent Simon the Cyrene, to help Jesus carry His on that fateful day. (smile)
He will NEVER leave you in the lurch. And until you sincerely believe that, your faith won’t grow. If you want to work for God, you better had be prepared to suffer stuff, because he doesn’t want people without the necessary experiencing telling His people a whole set of Anansi stories, on subjects they know nothing about. That’s why, most of the stuff I tell you, I can vouch for it from personal experience.
And I have to chuckle here, because this was never meant to be a personal testimony, but that’s what the Lord apparently wanted. And who am I to say him nay eh? (smile)
And we’ll end with this most pertinent scripture, when two blind men came to Jesus to receive their sight. ‘And when he was come into the house, the blind men came to him: and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you.’ (Matt.9:28-29)
Yes friends, according to the level of our faith, the Lord will work in our lives. It’s as simple as that. He’ll meet us at whatever point we are, but we have to first believe that He can do what He’s promised. That’s what faith is all about. Much LOVE!
…faith is believing without seeing…
SCRIP-BITS 