How is your level of faith?

"But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him."    

                                                                                                         Hebrews 11:6    NKJV

The writer of Hebrews didn't say that without faith it is difficult to please God, he said that it is impossible. There is a major difference here. Think about it, if it is impossible to please God without faith then, it is impossible to walk with Him. Walking with Him means that we are in a relationship with Him. How can we be in a relationship with Him if it is impossible to please Him and walk with Him? Therefore, we need to trust Him; trust Him with what He says, where He leads and what he asks us to do. If there is no trust, nothing will really happen.

The writer again refers to 'coming' to God. It refers to the privilege of drawing near to God - approaching Him. Faith is a mandatory requirement for those who approach Him, without it, we just cannot please God. I didn't say this, God did and it's written above. However, when we do begin to trust Him with all we have, then he begins to reward us. Let us remember that God is our Father and fathers love to bless their children. He longs to reward us.

If you read the beginning of chapter 11, you will notice a list of saints who pleased God with their faithfulness. God wants us to do the same, to mirror their actions, showing the same type of diligence that they carried out. As we imitate their type of faithfulness through faith and patience, we will begin to inherit the promise of God too.

To fulfil our calling in this manner, it helps to set realistic goals and be patient and willing to take risks when we have to. This type of risk taking is rather like, coming out of your shell. You need to stick your head out so that you can see what is happening and the road ahead. Of course you can remain in your shell and, many do, but God will honour the risk-taker. We also need to be persistent. If you truly believe that God has given you a clearly defined task, don't doubt or you will become discouraged and this will defeat you. Keep believing, keep trusting and refuse to give up. If you want God to honour you, then honour Him by acting on your faith.

Tony Evans writes:

'You must operate by faith even if you must do so alone and go against the accepted norms of the day. You must believe with expectation that God responds - regarding His will for your life - when you seek to please Him'.                            Tony Evans Bible Commentary

So, there we have it, God responds to our faith; He expects it from us. To do anymore than this, shows that we do not fully trust Him; and this leaves me with the question, how is your level of faith?

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Keep your eyes on the winning post

"let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."   

                                                                                                    Hebrews 12:1-2   NKJV 

We all carry weights and they come in the guise of, worry, sin, fear, stress and burden, just to mention a few. They can trip us up and hold us in captivity preventing us from meeting our target. They can become such a problem for some that they want to throw the towel in. Some fall away because the going is too difficult. Jesus never said the Christian road was easy, it wasn't for Him and it won't be for us either. However, now is not the time to quit. You've come this far, don't throw it all away now. Let me tell you, Jesus has sat down at the right hand side of the Father. He is not worrying about your baggage, so why are you? He wrote the book and you're in it. He knew the beginning and He knows the end. He knows the answer; authors do!

Sprinters strip their outer clothing off before a race, they lay them aside. If they don't, they will become a hindrance. Do you get the picture? Rituals then take place, this helps the athlete to focus on their goal - the winning post. They shut everything else out, they're hindrances. We need to strip off unbelief and those negative comments from well-meaning people. They cause us problems if we're not careful and they interfere with our focus, which is the finishing line. 

We need to keep our eyes on Jesus. We started the race with Him, it would be rather foolish to go it alone now; we would never make it. When we run a race, after a while it can become very difficult. Everything within our body screams at us to stop. If we agree, we lose. Jesus is the one who runs with us, encouraging us every inch of the way and if we listen, we receive that 'second wind', that gives us that extra energy to complete. 

Verse 2 states, 'who for the joy set before Him'. What was this joy? It was the knowledge that He had to go through that Friday to fulfil His goal - redeeming us but, His eyes were set on Sunday!

Keep your eyes on the winning post.

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Our High Priest (Final part)

"Let us therefore, come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need "                                                  Hebrews 4:16    NKJV

To boldly do something we need to have confidence. What is your confidence like? How bold are you? What is your courage like? God said to Joshua: 'Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go' Joshua 1:9. Here in the book of Joshua, God is also telling you the same, to be strong, courageous, not afraid or dismayed. This can be a tall order to fulfil, especially when we have been mistreated by people, some of them fellow Christians. 

Some people are very shy and tend to hide away in a corner when other people are around. When confrontation comes their way, they may sneak away avoiding the flak that may be coming. Other people lack the confidence to push themselves forward. They want to forge ahead but don't feel they are good enough or even capable to be able to carry out what they know God is calling them to do. This may be you!

What is God asking you to do? Is He leading you in a particular area but as soon as you think about it, you hide away thinking that you could never do that? Moses was like that, 'O my Lord, I am not eloquent' Exodus 4:10. In other words, Moses was saying, 'I can't do that Lord, send someone else'. But God doesn't want anyone else to carry out this task; He has chosen you, so therefore, He must feel that you are very capable.

You just need to focus on Him and accept that you are very able because God says you are. You are bold and courageous when you approach that throne of grace. Your High Priest, Jesus Christ is telling you not to be afraid and not to be dismayed either. To be dismayed means that you have no enthusiasm, but you have, it's just lying dormant at the moment. Whenever you begin to pray, you are approaching the throne of grace and as you do, Jesus will equip you and bless you, love you and reassure you; why? Because He thinks you are amazing..

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Our High Priest (3)

"Let us therefore, come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."                                       Hebrews 4:16    NKJV 

Two words from our text are prominent here, Mercy, which in the Greek is a word called Hesed. This means unfailing love, kindness and tenderness. The other is Grace, which is God's unmerited favour. Mercy says, 'He doesn't give us what we deserve' and Grace says 'He gives us what we do not deserve'. There is a big difference here, one in which we need to meditate on and praise Him for His kindness towards us.

Therefore armed with this knowledge, we can have the confidence to approach the throne of grace in our time of need; and praying is how we do this. Every time we pray to God, we are literally approaching the throne of grace. Satan would like us to feel that God is unapproachable. He will do what he can to prevent us from being confident enough to pray and approach Gods throne. Perhaps you can remember when there have been times in your life when you could not pray. These were the times when things had gone wrong and you felt a million miles away from God and, definitely did not have the confidence to pray. If this happens again, have confidence and break though this barrier.

At these times, God it seems is shouting, 'Don't stay away, come and pray, come receive what you need.' If you don't feel God does things such as this, remember the struggle you had with this. Part of you wanted to pray (this was God drawing you near to Him); on the other side of the coin, you didn't feel worthy enough, you felt you had let God down too much, (this was the devil persuading you not to pray because you are so unworthy.) When this happens, there is a struggle going on, you are being pulled both ways. Do yourself a favour and go the way that you know is right. You know God loves you; you know He will forgive you and, you know who doesn't want you to pray. So approach the throne of grace, immediately.

God wants you to have confidence. When you walk in confidence, you can boldly make Godly decisions throughout the day without faltering. You have the confidence to boldly approach God's throne and speak with your High Priest - Jesus. Keep this confidence alive by spending each day with Jesus.

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Our High Priest (2)

"For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathise with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin"                     Hebrews 4:15    NKJV 

Jesus knows exactly how it feels to be human in every aspect. Therefore, He is able to sympathise with our weaknesses. Sympathise means 'to suffer with' and expresses the feeling of one who has entered into suffering. His desire is to guide us through our troubles in a way that brings Him Glory but blesses us too and helps us on the road to being ambassadors for the Kingdom of God.

Note the word 'weaknesses' that is written in our verse.. This type of weakness is desiring something so much, that you just cannot resist it. This involves a person's thought life - mental weakness. The more you dwell on something, allowing your mind to fantasise about it, the more temptation becomes greater and then it is very difficult to be able to control this. This weakness may come from unsatisfied longing, something James mentions in his Epistle:

'But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.'

                                                                                                  James 1:14-15  NKJV

There is a serious need to take charge of our thought life; we look at something and our mind can process this in a sinful manner so much, that before long this is all that we think about. If we allow our desire to manifest, we can then be hooked into this. Jesus knows how this works and sympathises with us, He has been there but, never sinned once. Just the fact that He has been there gives us the benefit of first rate help when we call on Him. 

Just because sinful thoughts come into our minds, this does not mean that we have sinned. On the contrary, we can find it hard to stop the thought but, we can control the outcome. If we give this thought to Jesus - capturing it  (2 Corinthians 10:1-6), He will help us through it. This is approaching the Throne of Grace, as we will discuss tomorrow.

Our High Priest loves and cares for us, and as we involve ourselves, deeper in Him, He becomes deeper in us.

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Our High Priest (1)

"Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession".        Hebrews 4:14    NKJV 

We need to move forward with Jesus, our Great High Priest. Thank about it for a moment, no other High Priest as these attributes:

(1)  No other High Priest was called great

(2)  No other High Priest passed through the heavens

(3)  No other High Priest is the Son of God

(4)  No other High Priest would offer to die in your place

(5)  No other High Priest would allow you to walk, confidently to the Throne of God

He passed through the heavens and he ascended into heaven and remains at the Father's side ministering for our sakes. Both these truths should encourage us to hold fast our confession. But, let's not forget He was in heaven in the first place. He was the creating force that brought everything into place. Nothing was created without Him. 'All things were made through Him and without Him, nothing was made, that was made'  John 1:3.

He created you and I and He takes an interest in all we have and do. Jesus is our brother; He is our Saviour and God and, He is our Great High Priest. He has been and is, faithful to us and therefore we should never be any different to Him.

If we say that we belong to Jesus, we need to hold fast to this confession. We need to be faithful to Him as He is to us. We need to live the life. For Him, there is no one greater than us; we are His special people. He took our place; He took our sins and He died for us thus redeeming us from a terrible destination. There is no one greater than our Great High Priest. He is very special!

Copyright 2021 Grahame Howard.                                 

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Struggling with fear

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind."    

                                                                                                         2 Timothy 1:7   NKJV 

Timothy struggled with a spirit of fear which may have been the result of his personality, persecutions and burdens he carried. He may also have been unsure of his abilities to serve.

Fear is something we all suffer from time to time. It may be fleeting or, it may last longer.

Fear is a normal, natural response to a danger in our surroundings and situations. It intends to keep us from fulfilling the destiny that God has given us. It may also prevent us from living a joy-filled, spirit led existence.

Our fears can be grouped into areas such as, sickness or failure; poverty; criticism; losing loved ones; old age and the consequences of this and then, the fear of death. However, there may be other areas of fear. Psychologists and the medical world, have stated that stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are released. The blood pressure and the heart rate increase and we breathe faster. Even the blood flow may change. It is dangerous to fear and get ourselves all upset over something that may never happen.

How can we address our fear? Charles F Stanley gives a favourable comment regarding this:

'Fear focuses our attention on ourselves and on things we do not need to consider. It fills our minds with hypothetical situations that all end in defeat and ruination. Eventually, it utterly consumes us. When you feel gripped by fear, turn your gaze to Jesus, re-direct your heart to His love, speak to your fear from the Word of God and, then respond boldly to the situation. The Lord's desire is for you to 'Be strong and very courageous', today!  Josh 1:7'

Bob Gass used a great acronym concerning the word 'Fear. FALSE, EVIDENCE, APPEARING, REAL'. Just think about that. Fear cause our minds to concentrate on hypothetical things. It is usually false stuff that we are convinced is real and it causes us to lose our joy - which is our strength; and it causes us to doubt the only one who is 100% true - Jesus. 

Jesus said, 'Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in Me.' Has Jesus ever lied to you? Of course He hasn't. However, the devil has. How long are you going to allow him to ransack your life and testimony?

Copyright 2021 Grahame Howard.                                 

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