Faith (Divine Evidence or Conviction)
We as Christians waste a lot of time and effort trying to get God to do something. A lot of this has to do with the misunderstanding of Faith. When we see faith as our belief or trust then the entire process starts with us. However when we understand faith as it has been explained in the two previous installments we can then conclude that it all starts with Him. That being said we also must recognize that every good thought and every good deed finds it's beginning in Him. When we consider this then when we are prompted to some good or good thought then we should realize that He is communicating with us.
Think for a moment about the process involved, God leads us to a point of hearing by various means, when we are in a position and disposition to listen He breaks the silence and pours forth an utterance about a thing. We upon hearing it now have faith (Divine evidence or conviction) it is now up to us to either do something with it or let it stagnate and die. Either way it is faith, if we choose to follow His leading and act upon the faith then we have living faith and He will continue to pour out more faith, each time allowing us the choice on whether to act or not.
If we realize that this entire process starts with Him then our approach to His prompting change. It is no longer I who think of the thing, but Him who thought of it and introduced us to it. Our response then becomes one of gratitude and realization that it is His thought and we are being introduced to it. We then do not need to awaken the sleeping god but rather need to immediately recognize that it is He who was there and simply brought us into the moment. Now it is a matter of us asking "what's next". When we do not react this way but start hounding God about the thing we actually are saying to the almighty "this is my brilliant thought let me teach you God" sounds a little prideful doesn't it? It is and it also leads us down a path of destruction. We loose heart as the battle begins to rage and we quit thinking this was all our idea and it was a bad one. The entire thing can become shipwrecked in the process. However when we realize that the thought is not ours we give credit to Him and then seek His next move in the matter.
Faith, as defined in these articles, is not limited to salvation but extends to the entire creation. God has always spoken things into existence, it is His way and there is a power in the "Word" of God and by that I do not simply mean the printed word and actually do not mean it at all. The written word of God, which most of Christianity calls the Bible, is simply a record of what God has done and spoken in the past. However when the Holy Spirit takes those words energizes them to life in our hearts it then becomes the Living Word of God. There is a belief that permeates through Christendom that while it may not in word it at least in practice smacks of Deism which is an incorrect theology that thinks God got the ball rolling in the beginning and will catch it at the end but what happens between He is not involved in. Many of us fail to realize His intention and desire to be involved in our daily lives like any good father. True Christians know that He is involved and that He does not limit His communication to those who are Born again. Logic tells us that if he only involves Himself with Christians then none of us would ever become Christians. Therefore any belief that He only speaks to Christians is off track.
Think about the possibilities wrapped up in this understanding of faith, God speaking into existence the things that men and women are inspired to create, invent, discover, write, sing, and explore, it gives power to all of us and it does not limit us to a certain set of rules and regulations. When we understand faith in the way it is defined in these articles each of us has the potential to rise up to levels of greatness many think are for a privileged few. God who is no respecter of persons, is willing and able to do in and through each of us great and mighty things. Chances are you have had a thought of something that could change the course of history, an invention, a book, a discovery of medical science, space exploration, transportation, or any number of things, you may have dismissed it as silly or a fantasy, in reality it was God speaking to you and giving you the beginnings of faith. Perhaps this thing that you had a vision of became a reality through someone else and you sank down saying "I thought of that a long time ago".
This is another thing about faith that I will pick up in the next article, it may not be exclusive to you. If the thing is important to others why would an all knowing God limit the discovery of it to just one.
Check back later and we'll talk more about this idea and other thoughts relating to faith.
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