One day, a long time ago, my mother said that I should take a spiritual gift/ gifts test, just for fun. I thought it would be interesting to see what the test said, just for fun, so she read me the questions and filled in the answers. I was curious to see what the results would be, and what gifts they thought I had.
After we put all the information in, the test loaded and it showed that the top one was my faith in God, and the second one was my musical ability. I found it really interesting that it would come up with those results. I thought I should study what faith meant, and how to use it in the right way. After all it is God who gave us these gifts in the first place, and not for our benefit, it is so that we can use these gifts/ talents to bring others to Jesus.
What exactly is faith, the meaning is – “Believing in things that are not seen.” Or to trust in something that you have never heard or seen before. In today’s society people want to believe in the unknown, that is why magic and the things of the occult are so popular, it makes them believe in the impossible.
Don’t be deceived in the cheap parlor tricks of the Devil, they are just there to distract you from what is going on right in front of your eyes. The bigger picture is not something Satan wants people to know about because then more people would accept the truth.
Everyone has at least a little bit of faith, I mean after all, they do get in a car each morning without examining it. They walk on something without first stopping to see if it is safe. Everyone in the Universe has some faith. But there are people out there who have a lot of faith!
Faith in and of itself is great, but that is not all we need to have in order to be saved. We must put our faith into action, we must trust and believe. Faith without works is dead. You can say you have faith till you are blue in the face, but what good is it if you are not doing anything for the Lord. The Lord doesn’t force us to pass His message along, we must want to do it, we must love to do it. It should be that we can’t help but put it into every conversation we have. To treat those around us with His love, and to act upon it.
The Christian pathway is not the easiest way to go. In fact it is hard work, work to deny self. We must strive every minute and every day to be what Christ would have us to be, to be in constant communication with Him. To believe that He is able to keep us from falling, and to prevent us from temptation. Now that is real faith, faith that Jesus will take our worldly desires away from us. Faith that He is able to change us into the person He intended us to be.
Let me tell you of a story about faith. About a little church, this church had been praying for rain, well one day they called a special prayer meeting to pray for rain. Well one of the members, a little girl, came to the prayer meeting, but she came with her umbrella! Some of the older church members smiled at such faith, others frowned. Well they prayed and believe it or not when they were done, it was storming out! Everyone got wet, except for the little girl! What a great example of faith!
There are many other stories that happen all around about what the Lord has done for people. I could fill this whole page with just those stories alone. In fact I like reading them myself, it gives me great encouragement, it also lights a fire within to talk about how great my Jesus is.
In the Bible we have story after story about what the Lord did for His people. From the parting of the Red Sea (even before that) all the way to the New Testament we have examples of what the Lord is willing to do. I think a lot of the time we put God in a box, and we say things like, Jesus would never do that, or it is impossible. Or other variations of that, but we need to start believing that without God nothing would be possible.
We should also never say that God cannot do something either. There are stories where people have said those very words and have regretted it. Look at what happened to Pharaoh when he denied to Moses and said,in Exodus 5:2 And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.”
Remember what happened to him, the plagues. I remember the story about Titanic when the Captain of the ship said that God, Himself couldn’t sink the ship. What a sad story happened to those passengers. Sometimes the Lord allows things to happen for a purpose, bad things. Sometimes to teach a lesson, we may not always know why certain things happen but we also have to remember that Satan is in this world and until he is done away with there will be sadness, sickness, and anything else that is evil.
Faith is necessary, if we didn’t have any faith we probably wouldn’t leave our house. And even staying in our house would take faith! Would the walls stay up? Would the roof? Without a small measure of faith we would probably die or end up losing our minds, or who knows what kind of person we would become.
Here is one thing Ellen White says about faith:
“Without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). There are many in the Christian world who claim that all that is necessary to salvation is to have faith; works are nothing, faith is the only essential. But God’s Word tells us that faith without works is dead, being alone. Many refuse to obey God’s commandments, yet they make a great deal of faith. But faith must have a foundation. {FW 47.1}
Those of you who don’t have as much faith as others, you can always pray for more faith, and I am sure that God will answer your prayer. But try not to be surprised about the way He does it. Sometimes the best way to learn is by repetition, and sometimes we have to learn the hard way. Things may happen in a way that you least expect it.
Sometimes we must take a leap of faith, even though we might not know there is anything below to catch us. But I do know that God’s hand is always under us, to catch us! But it takes faith to make the jump.
Remember we can go to God for anything, He will help us and speak to us. Jesus wants to guide us into what we should be doing. That may mean going to a foreign country to be a missionary, it also may mean doing missionary work right in your own neighborhood. Don’t be afraid to seek the Lord, without listening to Him we would be lead astray. That is why we must be diligent, it is okay to ask the Lord for a sign, just make sure you say it to yourself that way the Devil doesn’t hear.
Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
Usually children have the strongest faith, they look up to the people around them, and think they can do anything. Which is why children have great faith in God. It is also why Jesus says in the Bible to have faith like a little child, because when you have that kind of faith you will believe in whatever God tells you or calls you to do.
But if you do only have a little bit of faith, don’t worry, you can still use it for God, and in time it will grow. Jesus says in the Bible that if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can move whole mountains! And a mustard seed is a really, really small seed! So if it only takes that much faith to move a mountain, just think what you would be able to do with the Lord’s help. There are many blessings that we have not even asked of the Lord, and He is waiting for us to ask. What are you waiting for?
So, are you ready to take a leap of faith? Believe me it will be worth it. With God all things ARE POSSIBLE!
A Star Witness 