Monday, October 30, 2017

wavering faith


The primary purpose of a church should be the same as the primary theme of Jesus Christ's ministry. This would be the spirit specifically the giver of  spirits and of existence, the Holy Spirit. It would not be, in my speculations, until Isaac Newton that anyone would mention unseen forces in the scientific arena.
           However, scientific circles were not comfortable with his efforts despite the mathematics, because they were still of the mind sight was proof. Their fear was Newton in discovering gravity, they thought, was getting too close to psychic phenomena and the occult.

Many in churches, and even the pulpit itself, do not have any idea of spirit whatsoever, relying exclusively on their concrete senses. An example of this would be a pastor telling me that if God did not heal a person, then this that and the other was the reason.
          His speculations were not only bannered under God's laws, but in closing off whether or not someone was healed, had abandoned the first rule of faith, Persistence. He was no longer believing, and in doing so had shouldered off the responsibility for healing onto God, rather than his abandoning his faith.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017

does a church full of people build faith?

What if you ask God to heal you and He does not do it.  I once was told this story by a pastor several years ago now. He said, if we pray for two men to be healed and He heals one but not the other then the reason was God did not heal the other because He did not want to. He either even had a lesson to teach the other one or else He wanted the other one to do some suffering for his own good, etc.

Notice that this in direct opposition to the definition of faith. First of all since faith is belief in things that are not as though they were, then who was it that quit faith altogether and decided God, God Himself, did not heal? 

I think rather that is we who decided the game was over, and the gig was up that did not believe in any healing. We forgot along the way of unbelief that persistence is the bedrock of faith. If our persistence wavers or we pull it back and turn from the plow, then we do not believe. If there is no persistence then there is no faith. 

I will believe even after death, death of the body will not deter me. Why was I not healed? I only know I am to do what I am told to do, and no explanation outside of that will weaken my faith except make it stronger. This is what I speak. 

Unfortunately people who go to church to gain faith, are often given no incentive to build their faith. Rather they are left to sit and wait until they decide no answer is coming. What else is such a decision but the end of faith? There is nothing for them to do.

If we do not get an answer and our request from God seems to go down into the grave with Lazarus what then? I don't know but I trust God anyway even though He kill me. So what if I do not have enough faith to hurl a mountain in the sea? The disciples could not heal the little boy but when they turned him of to Jesus he was healed. Why they asked could we not do it? This came out only with much prayer and fasting, Jesus said. 

So faith comes in various degrees, some with little and others with great.  It does not mean I am not saved or will not go to heaven. It means I did not have enough faith. I might suggest we ask God... ask Jesus... ask the Holy Spirit to step in and shore us up. We can never say He does not do it until our persistence turns to jelly. I say I will persist anyway and never give up my faith. 

I do not have to know everything. I am a slave dead in Christ.