In our efforts to pray through all situations and circumstances this season at Dominion, to not shrink back in our prayer life but to believe God for great things, I wanted to share my morning prayer time with you guys.
Pastor Gregg said something in his preaching on Sunday that really rocked me. You see I’m having to trust the Lord in a very serious matter right now, and I’m telling you that it really is not easy for me. In fact going into Sunday I was ready to just relinquish my faith and not continue to allow God to move. Pastor Gregg asked us “how many times do we give up, or change our path, or just relinquish ourselves over right before God was about to show ?” I just think that my abilities to fix things and be organized are just what God needs in my situation, but I have had to take a back seat to His plans and totally and completely trust the Lord and rise up to walk in peace knowing that He is working even though I can’t see it. So as you may have guessed, all of my time with the Lord this morning he spoke to me about faith. My reading from Psalms was all about how David endured hardship yet still he knew that God was in charge (Psalm 21), my devotion was out of Hebrews 11, where we see the great generals of the faith, and even my quiet time as I sat and reflected on my own faith walk – the Lord began to show me even more and more about my own faith (or lack thereof).
So this morning, as I was studying, I coined this phrase in my journal of “Fleshly Faith”. What is this? It’s what another pastor friend of mine calls “stupid faith”. It’s faith does not line itself up with God or His promises. We see this a lot on TV, where if went send in some money and believe in faith that God will answer us, or we try to convince ourselves that we are standing in faith for some things that God has no part of in our lives. We want to believe God for the bigger house, bigger toys, bigger everything, but we can’t even make ourselves be faithful in little things. We are “blessed and highly favored”, the “head and not the tail”, yes we are all those things, but in the context of our modern church I’m afraid we have once again looked for the “things” to make us happy instead of God. Once again as Pastor said one time, we want the hand of God, but are not willing to seek his heart. Maybe it’s not things? Maybe it’s just an attitude, or a control issue (that would be me) or sometimes we just get too big for our britches and we think we need God less and we are able to do it much better than God could, because if we are really honest with ourselves don’t we all think at times that we are just better at fixing things than God is? Fleshly faith causes us to shrink back when we don’t get our way or see God answer in our timing.
True faith, if it is the evidence of things hoped for and the promise of the things unseen will always develop and bring the following character traits into our lives, patience (Hebrews 6:12), Trust (Proverbs 3:5), Perseverance (Romans 5:24) and prayer (James 5:15). It will also produce love in us that we cannot explain because in drawing close to God in prayer, we are just naturally drawn to a deep love walk. True faith is always trusting that God will show up, even if it is in the 11th Hour!
So I wanted to encourage us, that as we are learning about standing in the times of conflict and not giving up and becoming tenacious in our relationship with the Lord, to pray with that same mindset. Let us not just sing the He is the God of the City, let us believe it even when the news tells us crime is on the rise. When we pray for the sick to be healed, let us believe it with our whole hearts that He really does want to heal. Let us believe God for a moving and shaking not only in us, but in every person who fills every seat in Dominion each and every time the doors are open. Let our hearts be open to what the Spirit of the Lord is telling us in these days, and let us pray like there is not a doubt in our minds that our God is able and willing to meet our needs. Let us not take on any fleshly faith that requires us to bow down, give up or shrink back! Let us never say, well maybe this was God’s will if it does not produce evidence of the God we know and love. Let’s go into the enemy’s camp and take back every promise stolen for every single person we know. May we always stand like those generals in Hebrews 11 and I believe that if we stand like that, that we will see the results. Revival is looming, not some spiritual experience, but a forever changing of the lives of the people in our church, our communities, cities, counties and beyond!
Have a blessed day guys, I’ll see you tonight!
Cindy
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