Sons and Daughters of Abraham, let's LIVE it when it Counts :)

3/31/2008

What DO we do—when we have “failed again” or “don’t get what we want, again” or “got caught again” or “can’t seem to overcome” or...? What DO we do, *inside* of ourselves?

Whine and complain? Be impatient, temperamental and depressed? Wrong.

Retaliate, be angry, accuse others? Wrong.

Withdraw and “quit even trying”? Nope.

Brain-block and pretend it’s not really a problem? Wrong again.

Blame others? Absolutely not.

Harbor “regret” for “what (we think) we COULD have had” if we hadn’t left all on the seashore to “come follow Him”? Not the Real thing.

WHAT DO WE THEN DO, AS FOLLOWERS OF JESUS when we don’t get what we want, or when we fail repeatedly, or encounter any such “trials”?

Sons and daughters of Abraham, consider this as YOUR MANDATE in TRIAL or PAIN or FAILURE (of course, life and faith have no test of legitimacy, nor any means of growth, if we don’t HAVE trials!):

Have “the faith of Abraham.” ... “Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, ‘So shall your descendants be.’ And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore ‘it was accounted to him for righteousness.’”

If there is no trial, you will not have any opportunity to offer this gift to the One who died for you—because “the faith of Abraham” CANNOT happen in a vacuum. So, we REJOICE when we have such opportunities to correct our attitudes and turn to Him, and offer it all to Him WITHOUT WAVERING, or looking back “like Lot’s wife.”