Devotional for God’s family – 1
Friends, we are going to begin a series of devotionals that are going to be about faith. There are so many kingdom truths and principles for us all to hang onto in our day, it all hinges on faith.
A growing faith is critical to us all. The degree to which you believe and incorporate into your daily life that which God reveals to you as truth; that’s the kind of faith I am referring to. Not the knowledge side of faith, because faith demands two things if you are going to have it.
First, you must have knowledge of and believe in, the thing that you plan to live out.
And second, you have live out what you have knowledge of and believe in.
James was absolutely adamant about this, he split these two concepts apart so that we would have a clear understanding of how to grow in faith.
James 1:25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
The law of liberty was purchased by Jesus on the cross for us. We are free only because we believe in what Jesus has done and is doing for us. The Father forgives us through the working of salvation through Jesus. That is the law of liberty.
Pushing through our circumstances, development and life we impress upon our own minds and behavior this law of liberty that we are growing in. We are not like those who store in the mind the things of God and then forget that they are there. As the Holy Spirit illuminates the Word of God to our spiritual eyes, we receive it and then apply it. Day-by-day, and sometimes moment-by-moment, we are fighting to take ground, not in the world as much as in our own life. Faith is applied to our own being first.
James 2:14 “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?”
James is saying that it is of no value to have a belief in something if it does not translate into an ONGOING transformation. Some believe that faith is stacking pancakes, one on top of the others, layers of knowledge laying right on top of other layers.
James is not suggesting that you simply keep on working in what you already know and have been doing. Because faith is the…
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
James is saying when you receive from the Lord a directive, don’t settle for the directive alone, you must step out into the unknown with faith. This is the work that God requires.
So, it is a misunderstanding for me to say, I have faith – I go to church on Sunday and do my thing, I am therefore good. That is not the works coupled with faith that James is referring to.
The works he is talking about is in association with the new directive which is too big to accomplish on my own. God reveals the next thing and we walk into it by faith – that is the works associated with faith.
Faith grows and is never stagnant. Faith never stays with what was. Faith uses what was as a spring-board to get to the next place. Faith demands reaching and stretching and relies on what God said to get to the next place. What God said propels us forward into what God said.
Faith is not a set of beliefs that defines my religion as much as faith is a set of beliefs tied to the revelation of my future, my destiny. Faith is a verb, much less a noun.
The last thing I want to do is to teach you about faith and these short thoughts wouldn’t translate into a different kind of living.
Remember as we embark, Jesus gives faith. You don’t conjure, manufacture or will it into existence.
Acts 3:16 And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.
Jesus gives faith to those who need it and ask. God has something big for you that requires believing and acting on that belief. Start with what He is saying right in front of you. Join the efforts of your local church, step up and out into faith and make the dream come true.
Lord, thank You that we can ask for faith and You give it to us. Thank You too that we are required to live an ongoing life of faith. Lord, we confess that we get comfortable in our ways and we need You to continue to remind us of the life that You have called us into. We confess that without faith and a life growing as we pursue your next, we cannot please You. And Lord, we want to please You. Thank You Jesus for making all things possible for us.
Devotional for God’s family – 2
Hebrews 11:8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
Yesterday we talked about the importance of seeing faith as a verb rather than a noun.
Faith is not an accumulation of knowledge or a set of beliefs as much as it is the congruence of my belief and my life choices, working together toward God’s objective.
We see in this passage that Abraham obeyed God. He had a knowledge of God and what God wanted him to do, although he couldn’t see the whole picture. This is essential in the faith filled life.
Our movement in direction even though we will never see the whole thing (as scary as it may seem) has to be based upon something. Faith isn’t simply doing something new because you want to move or because you are bored. Faith starts with a word from God. And faith has a foundation of trust in the Lord and a belief that He leads and directs in your life.
Abraham trusted the voice of the Lord when the Lord spoke to him. Abraham also did what the Lord told him to do which God called obedience. Living in faith will require obedience, that is obedience to what you can only partially see. At the core obedience is faith.
Obedience isn’t finding out that you did the right thing…that’s luck. Obedience is making a conscious decision to do what God says to do before He asks you to do it. That requires faith and belief that God is God. That doesn’t happen at faith’s pinching point. That happens long before God’s directive comes to you.
Here is another thought, when God asks you to step out in faith it will be for an inheritance. Something good awaits the person who is willing and obedient. Abraham didn’t assess the goodness of God based upon the size of the blessing at the end. God determines the inheritance and often doesn’t reveal the extent of the blessing until much later. Even if God had told Abraham in detail what He was going to do – Abraham couldn’t have understood it.
1 Corinthians 2:9 “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.”
When it comes to faith, God doesn’t use the appeal of the blessing as the means to get us to bite the hook of obedience. It is most often not an if/then proposition. If you do this then I will do this for you. Nor, should we approach God and His goodness to us in this fashion as well. “God, if you do this then I will do this…”
Abraham had long since beforehand concluded in his mind that God was God, even if there was no inheritance or blessing, Abraham would have gone to the new place because God was asking him to go. God’s plan is to bless, but that is not the reason why we follow God. We follow God into the unknown because He asks us to and He is God.
The fact that God tied an inheritance to the directive was icing on the cake, and it happened to be in God’s plan to bless Abraham, and it happens to be in God’s plan to bless every person who walks in obedience and faith.
How many people today don’t move a muscle or even lift a finger to God unless they see some good in it for them? You are not one of those are you? When God puts the next thing in front of you, what do you use inside of your heart as a motivator to do what God is asking?
Maybe another way of asking the question and getting to the heart of the issue is this? What comes first in your rule book, inheritance or obedience? Wilderness, a lion’s den or captivity may be a stop along the way of obedience. Or, are you waiting for God to give you your inheritance now ?
Hebrews 11:32-38 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
Hmmm, what leads to what with these great saints of old? Was it inheritance leads to obedience or obedience leads to inheritance?
Lord, You speak and we obey. We are blessed and filled with the hope of inheritance that comes through obedience. The fact that You ask is enough for us though. When You command, I want to do what You say, period. I do not want to ever approach you with a “What have You done for me lately” attitude. You are my righteous, holy, sovereign God and You deserve my obedience no matter what the cost and no matter what the reward. Thank You Jesus for making available to us the Father’s love.
Devotional for God’s family – 3
Hebrews 11:9-11 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.
I am not much of a poker player, I have caught a few glimpses on tv of professional poker players while at the gym on the treadmill. I am glad they have tv’s there or I would be so bored. But I am so fascinated when in the game of poker a player goes “all-in.”
They wager everything they have on the hope that their cards will win. Sometimes it’s millions of dollars. My stomach tightens as I think of the risk involved.
Abraham pushed everything he had to the center of the table with God and says, “God, I am all in.” The call of God and the promise locked away inside the call is what drew Abraham.
Abraham recognized that what he was building was different than what God was building. He gave up what he had built to have a future that God was building. Both Abraham and Sarah considered faithful the God who promised them a city different then what they had.
This was no trivial thing. They had worked hard just like you work hard, they had their own form of a 401k, just like you might. They had their savings account and family ties just like you might.
They had their friends and history in the region, just like you might.
I remember when I was in high school and my younger brother Phil too. Something was stirring in my dad and mom around that time. Sure enough, when Phil graduated, dad and mom sold everything they had, and went to Haiti and served there as medical missionaries for over 30 years. I saw first hand what it meant to be like Abraham. They trusted the voice of God and obeyed His voice.
All-in! They let go of their home, cars, relationships, jobs, savings, sweet church family, everything. They went because God told them to. They took health and vitality to a region in Haiti that didn’t have it. They (and others) built a hospital, church and a christian school to change a culture of people who otherwise would not have known God.
They didn’t go because God said, “If you go, I will do thus-and-such for you.” They went because God is God. But listen, inside of the call of the Lord to every person to reach out by faith and go to the next place in our life, is the promise of God. It’s tucked in there.
When God calls you, to give, build, go, stay, whatever He says, He is calling you to do something inside of what He is building. That is the safest place on earth. That is the place to give and invest. Abraham saw that, my dad and mom saw that, I see that and you can or will see that.
It is so true that God calls us into things that are bigger than we are. Things that require God to show up and be God. Otherwise it would simply look like a decision we made to better our own life.
Faith requires that we come up against the wall of possibility. I call this the pinch-point of faith. Others have called this the crisis of belief. I believe this is God’s favorite place as He is with us and we Him. This is the place where we grapple with the comfort of where we have come from, the call of God and the promise tucked away inside the call. And the impossibility to get where we feel like God is calling from.
God, you want me to give what!?
Go where!?
Lead what!?
Do what!?
We are pressed into His realm. We are mashed into His way of thinking. We are stripped of human wisdom and intellect. Drawn by God’s promise, we recognize what hinders us more clearly than anything in our life. We are brought to the edge of ability and all that is before us is faith and hope. That place is the favorite place of God in you.
God does indeed show up in those places that He leads you that are impossible without Him. Please read the passage again with these thoughts in mind and then ask yourself the question, “What is God leading me to do?”
Do you feel the pull of what was, I do, almost makes me want to fall backward. How nice it was where we were. Why should I break something that is/was working so well? Why change things? Why mess up a good thing?
Let one who has lived in God’s faith pinch-point most of his years speak to this issue.
1 Thessalonians 5:24 (ESV): He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
Lord, we are all in and hold nothing back from You. Thank You for allowing us to be a part of Your kingdom movement. In the time of directing that You place before all of us, let us not shrink back and long for what we had. But Lord, help us to see by faith what You are building. Help us to hope for a homeland far different that what is here on earth. Your voice is our guide. Your Word is truth. Thank You Jesus for making all of this possible through Your blood shed o the cross for us.
Devotional for God’s family – 4
It would be really nice to stop our devotionals on faith right here. Let’s not go any further, because this has been nice thus far. We don’t need to read on in the text, right? Let’s just camp out and have a party right here. This is enough for us, don’t you think?
I think we all need to read this next verse and chew on it. This is what makes faith…faith. This is what gives faith the rebar in concrete kind of strength. Buildings look like buildings until an earthquake comes; then you will certainly know what that building is made of.
I have seen buildings that have gone through earthquakes that have no rebar in the concrete whatsoever. And I have seen buildings standing (and I do mean standing with only minor cracks) right next to the rubble pile of other buildings with no rebar in the concrete.
Here is the rebar in faith…
Hebrews 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
Catch this, the hero’s of our faith never saw what they were building come to fruition and what they were promised never materialized in this life. There is a very good reason for this.
When God gives you a vision and asks you to step into His plan, what He gives you to do will outlast you. God’s plan is a big plan. His purposes are huge, truly they are eternal. Every little piece that you and I have a part in, is connected to a master plan formed before any of us were here. When God invites us in, He is inviting us into the whole.
There are no rogues and there are no “one offs” in God’s master plan, it all fits and it all runs on into the future. His plans for you and me involve a homeland that is not a part of this present world. And when you say yes to God you are saying yes to invest your life today into a place that you have only seen from afar.
Faith sees the homeland. And when this world is shaken and broken, our eyes stay fixed on the homeland. Its so easy to be distraught and incapacitated in disappointment if we forget this truth.
The hero’s of old times recognized that they were not going to get the fulfillment of the blessing in this life. By faith they lived a life of investment, pouring into every single day, the hope of a better home than what they had on this earth.
God calls you to the same type of living. Everyday we live, not for this world, but for the next.
God’s master plan is not focused on this world. God’s call to each of us is to invest our life into the work of Jesus so that the next world will be a huge blessing. Faith sees this and embraces it.
We pray, “Oh God, get me through this” not simply for survival, but to keep going on our way to the homeland. We are beat up, accused, stolen from, shipwrecked…because we have a place we are going to.
God’s master plan is for us to be there with Him and others forever.
Hebrews is telling us point blank that these giants of the faith didn’t get to see the fruition of the vision, but each pressed on in the call regardless. They saw the fruit of obeying the call of God in this life, but the fulfilling of the promise tucked away in the call was to a homeland, not of this world.
We invest, give, sacrifice, pray, serve… all because God asks us to do these things and inside the ask is the promise.
John 3:16 (ESV): For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Do you here it? The promise inside the ask? The promise is eternal life…the homeland.
Have you ever said yes to Jesus? I mean have you ever became a citizen of God’s homeland? Where He is and where Jesus is making it more like home for you than anything that exists on earth. He desires that you would be at home in heaven forever. He wants you also to be at home with Him today.
What I mean by that last statement is that to be a citizen in His homeland where all these hero’s of the faith are, you must recognize Jesus for who He is. He is the Son of God and the Savior of the world.
Every citizen has been forgiven of their sins by God because that person has recognized they have sinned and asked God to forgive them. Then that person adopts God’s view on that sinful life and begins the work of living differently than before that decision.
That’s the life of faith that God wants to see and that is how Jesus builds rebar strengthened earthquake proof faith in you.
Maybe you have heard this before and have always assumed you are a christian. Can I challenge you on something today? Whenever Jesus is brought up do you feel a bit of emptiness like something isn’t right, or it isn’t there?
Or, do you feel like you feed from what others are doing around you rather than what Jesus is doing in you? Take heart my friend, the solution is so simple. Settle it today and ask Jesus to be your Savior for yourself.
Jesus, I am a sinner.
Jesus, please forgive me for all of my sins.
Jesus, I repent and turn from those things.
Jesus, fill me with power to live right.
Send me a note that you have prayed this prayer and I will pray for you by name. I would love to do that for you. You are a citizen of the homeland (heaven) and no one can take that from you, it is a promise of God. I am so thrilled by your faith filled decision. And I am thrilled you now are building rebar strengthened concrete faith that can stand the test of earthquakes in this world.
Devotional for God’s family – 5
Hebrews 11:14-16 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
Good morning friends, this week we have been talking about faith. I trust you are coming to the conclusion that faith is much more than simply having the gusto to get through things. Or, faith is much more than being a ship out on the water during a hurricane and simply hanging on for dear life and surviving. Faith isn’t about surviving.
There is tremendous sight in faith. And there are options in faith too. As we read in verse 14, the power of faith is sight. And what’s interesting is many people would say the reason for faith is not being able to see.
So, how is this possible? The reason I need faith is because I can’t see, but the power of faith is to have sight? Almost sounds like a riddle. Like…what is the one thing that if you mention its name you have ruined its presence? (Try not to get distracted)
Verse 14 offers a choice. The choice to move on out into the pursuit of the homeland which we can not see. If you believe the Bible and who wrote it, then you know it is real even though you can’t see the place that it talks about so often, our homeland.
On the other hand, the most dangerous of option exists, which so many people opt for, that is; to hold onto that which you already have. It doesn’t sound so bad, especially since God gave you what you already have, right?
Abraham had a good life, which God gave to him. Abraham had a son, promised to him by God and through that son a great promise existed in which Abraham would see his offspring out number the stars of heaven.
Faith demands not only a surrender, but a re-surrender. It is so easy and comfortable to fall in love with what God has given us (past tense emphasis here). Imagine if Abraham had said, “God thank you for my son, this new land, prosperity, all of it, you have been so good to me, thank you!”
Imagine if Abraham had stopped looking at the future homeland because of the blessings he had already been given by God?
Genesis 22:1–2 (ESV): After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2 He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
This is a tough lesson. You would think that God wouldn’t go after Abraham’s son Isaac. Isaac is the promise, the blessing, he is the hope of a husband and a wife. The covenant that God made with Abraham would be fulfilled through Isaac and God requires that Abraham lay him on an altar and go to the very edge of sacrificing him.
Abraham had to re-surrender. Do you think that Abraham had thoughts of opting out of the promise to simply hold on to what he had, his son Isaac who he loved so much? That is why in verse 14 that phrase exists, a phrase that packs a serious punch…
“If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.”
Faith requires a constant state of evaluating what you have (blessed and given by God) with the draw and call from the homeland. The call from the homeland, the promise tucked away in the call, had greater weight in the life of Abraham than anything on this earth.
Often we cry out to God to give us faith so that we can see better in the natural world and God doesn’t do that. When we cry out to God for faith He gives us eyes to see the supernatural. Abraham left behind the natural in exchange for the supernatural, the draw of the homeland.
Don’t be surprised when you feel like what you have been hoping for and wanting in the natural is called to the altar of God, even though God gave it to you. God does this so that you can know whether your eyes see more of the natural or the supernatural. Because it is easy to camp out in the blessings of God, God wants you to keep moving toward the homeland.
Every step taken toward the homeland is a faith step and that pleases God. Every camp out where you stop seeing the homeland and live in the moment can’t please God. We are so apt to worship what God has given to us rather than God. He will, without a doubt, bring to our attention where our sight is truly focused, and He does this for our benefit.
Lord, we seek You. We want You. We need You to help us see through to our homeland. You are drawing each of us closer day-by-day. We confess how easy it is to be captivated by the blessings that are all around us. Please give to us courage and boldness to see the homeland and live accordingly, letting go of what this world has and promises. Thank You Jesus for making all of this possible through Your body and blood.
Blessings….silence
Pastor David
