Faith-Filled Responses
7/7/1991
We’ve talked about strongholds being destroyed in an instant in our lives. Many of us have experienced that, but the primary means over the course of human history that God has utilized is the law of sowing and reaping. “God, zap me now so I don’t have to worry about this any more! Just zap me, knock me over, bowl me over so I won’t have to look in the mirror again and see the same person that I saw five minutes ago.” And there are times when God does that for His own purposes and His own ways. It’s usually not when we are demanding it of Him. It’s usually a surprise gift that He bestows upon us and we look over our shoulders and say, “God is so good.” It’s usually not because we are screeching and scratching and screaming and wrestling in such a way that we’re destroying our Spirit and others around us in the process.
But as you look at nature and what God has done in nature, He’s created a whole universe of some surprises: some volcanic eruptions, some earthquakes and some torrential downpours and some things that happen in spurts. But by and large the universe exists as a shadow of God’s order and God’s way to demonstrate that there are seasons, things that come and things that go and rain that falls and things that are predictable, things that build toward the future. And the sowing in the spring and the harvest in the autumn and the things that prepare the soil when nobody is watching during the winter.
That’s the kind of life that primarily He calls us to live. The things that change our character and make us into the men and women that God wants us to be generally are an accumulation of right responses, faith-filled responses to the circumstances of life. Those are the things that through the course of time, God builds us to become His men and his women in such a way that we don’t really notice it. We don’t say, “Ok, I’ve got it now and now I have it altogether, now I’m free from this thing that I didn’t use to be free from.” Generally it’s, “Give us this day our daily bread. I still need your provision today because yesterday’s provision won’t feed me for today.”
He keeps us in a place of humility, a constant yearning, a constant vulnerability before Him, calling out to Him day by day by day for our daily bread and sowing today what tomorrow’s harvest will be. And not relying on yesterday’s sowing for tomorrow’s harvest. Today I sow again, today I sow again in vulnerability and humility with a soft heart crying out to Him, knowing that my tomorrow rests on His shoulders and I’ll never be able to capture that thing that makes me independent from Him and makes me whole and strong and wise and free and without temptation. Lead us not into temptation. Who did He teach to pray that? It was the apostles that He was speaking to. “Teach us to pray.”
“Well, here’s how you pray. You need me. Remember that. Pray to me for your daily bread. Pray to me for your provision and your freedom from temptation. You walk according to my will. Cry out to me that my will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Have my priorities first in your life and depend on me for your provision, both in the spiritual realm as well as in the physical realm.”
He is making us into the people that He wants us to be and it’s by His grace and by His power. But it’s not usually in the way that we want it to be where we stomp our foot and snap our finger and all of a sudden we’re just the person that we think that we ought to be. Our circumstances have been altered so that now it’s ok and it didn’t use to be. He’s making us, He’s building us to be His Bride by His Spirit through the walk of life. (Heb 5:8) “Though He was a son, He learned obedience by the things that He suffered.” There was a growth process even in Jesus Christ that involved the very things that you’re going through. Now face those things with faith. Face those things with the same heart that Jesus had when He was suffering, when He was attacked and when He was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. You face those things the same way He did.
“What shall I say, Father remove these things from me? No, it’s for this will, it’s for this very purpose that I was brought into the world. I’m going to face these things. Don’t take them away. Glorify Your name, not mine. Don’t free me from my own freedom’s sake. Glorify Your name through me in any way that You see fit.” It’s that kind of response that Jesus had to His circumstances that He wants us to have implanted in our own hearts and lives. Not a zapping, but a responsive faith to everything that comes our direction. From the heart, based on the Spirit of God and the Word of God and the character of Jesus and He’ll have His way and He’ll have His nation, His kingdom of priests that have all been birthed through that same baptism of fire.
