Radical...Risk-Taking Faith

Your ability to tap into the source of God's Power depends on the depth of your relationship with Him.
Job was tried yet did not curse God; his knowledge of God prevented him from doing so.
David did not fear the giant because he knew God as a friend therefore trusted God.

Go deeper into your relationship with The One who knows you like none other....and your faith will deepen and grow stronger because you will have touched the very heart of God.

Radical, Risk-Taking faith is simply an authentic faith. It comes from a deep place in your spirit that has been connected to the One who wrote the Book.

This type of faith honors God and in turn reveals God to a weary world looking for answers and a miracle. This kind of faith releases the power of the Creator to do what He does best.....create solutions. God creates a way where we cannot see nor find a way....He presents the solution. Yet that solution can sometimes only be found when you take that first step into the river that gets your feet wet.

In Joshua 3:13, God told the Levites that when the priests "set foot in the Jordan" the water would be cut off thus exposing their solution. However, they had to get their feet wet before He revealed the dry path to them. They had to put their faith in God into action to see the way out of their problem. The same is true for us!

Time to get your feet wet in the river and cross over into a deeper relationship with God and embrace a Green-Gumball type of faith..

In the Furnace

Daniel chapter three tells the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. I have heard this story many times and even read this story a few times myself. Today, however, something small – yet very powerful – was made known to me; this little detail is one of the key points to this story.

Has this every happened to you? You think you know a story in the Bible and one day God simply opens that story up to you on a whole new level. This morning was one of those moments!

Three men - a super heated furnace – One God

I am sure you have heard the story; these men refuse to worship a false God – they are bound and thrown into a super heated furnace – four individuals are seen in that furnace, loose and walking about – the king calls for them to come out - three walk out of the furnace - not harmed in any way by the fire

Did you catch the little detail? One little word..... LOOSE

The three were bound; they were tied up; they were chained; they were not free when they were put into the fire. Yet IN that fire, their chains, their shackles, their binding fell away.... They were set free IN the fire.

To go through some fires will take great faith, for little faith will fail. We must win the victory IN the furnace. (Margaret Bottome)

Sometimes it is in the very trial that we beg God to deliver us from that God sets us free IN. The trials that require a great faith seem to be the ones that bring the most Glory to Him. Those three men went into that furnace as prisoners yet came out of that furnace set free! Their faith in the ability of God was the catalyst for a king to declare that their God was THE One true God. Their faith brought Glory to God.

What trial are you facing? What trial are you pleading with God to deliver you from?

Could it be that this trial is the very thing He uses to set you free?

Faith is strengthened IN the trial. Green Gumball Faith is formed in the trials of your faith.

Today, be thankful that God is a God that walks with us while we are in the furnace.

Praise God that He looses us in the fire and sets us free!

Expectations and Relationship

Habakkuk 2:1

I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me..

This is his mindset after having a conversation with God and asking Him some questions in chapter 1
Habakkuk fully expected God to respond. In Chapter 1, he was questioning why it was taking God so long to answer him; Habakkuk had been calling out for help, he asked God why He would not hear his cries and why God does not save. Habakkuk was asking some pretty straight forward questions that sounded almost like accusations toward God. Yet, he expected God to answer him.

God did not disappoint Habakkuk; God did reply in chapter one. God told Habakkuk that He was going to send a group of violent people to “sweep through like the wind and pass on” This was most likely not the response Habakkuk was hoping to receive and surely struck some fear in him. However, he boldly asked another set of questions of God; questioning the reasoning of God for doing such a thing!

Stop to think about that for a moment.....God states what His plan of action is, in detail, and Habakkuk does not just simply accept what God states. I mean, this IS the Creator of everything and He just said what He was going to do but this mere man decides that he needed more information from God. Habakkuk didn't understand the WHY in what God said so he prodded God for an explanation.

God did not strike him dead....He did not strike him with “a thorn in his side”....No, God waited...

Habakkuk then responds, in chapter two, with the declaration..... I will keep watch to see what God will speak to me! WOW! He questions the reasoning of Almighty God and then declares that not only will he wait for a response....he EXPECTS God to answer.

Why? Why would a man expect God to answer his questioning? How did Habakkuk know that God would not strike him dead for such a boldness? What can we learn from this?

Those are very good questions! Let's dive a little deeper and see what we can discover.

Habakkuk was a prophet in the Old Testament. Prophet is simply someone who brings forth the Word of God. Therefore, prophets were the people that God actually spoke with...they had conversations with God. Yes, that is correct. God allowed His prophets to speak openly with Him; ask Him questions; and at times debate a bit with God. Each prophet had their own personality so the manner in which they approached God may have been different but one thing was the same with all of them.....they understood their relationship with God.

There are two words in that paragraph that we need to take a better look at; Conversation and Relationship.

Conversation is defined as intimate fellowship or association; unrestricted talk; general exchange of sentiments

Relationship is defined as the state of being related by kindred, affinity or other allegiance.

I have to admit that I got excited by these definitions!!

Habakkuk understood that he had a relationship with God. God chose him to be a prophet therefore God chose to have an allegiance with this man. The allegiance that came with being a prophet is that you got to have conversations with God. Prophets, by the very nature of the position, had access to an intimate fellowship/association with the Creator. They were given the opportunity of unrestricted talk with their God...an exchange of words.

Habakkuk understood the parameters of this unique relationship and understood that this was a gift. He knew that if his people were to know what God wanted them to do, then he needed to hear it from God. That was his relationship with God....God spoke to him and in turn, he was allowed to freely speak in return. That is very comforting to me! God voiced His plan, His praises for the people but also His disappointments. But listen....God also expected to have an exchange of words, or ideas with His prophets. He was not then nor is He now a God that just barks orders or commands. Absolutely NOT!!!

God longs for the relationship with His people. He expects conversation. Just think what would have happened if Abraham would have chose not to converse with God about Sodom and Gomorrah. God told Abraham that He was going to destroy the cities. Abraham questioned God about that decision...a few times actually. In so doing, Lot and his family were spared.

Guess what? We are able to have the same type of relationship with God today!! We are able to have a relationship where we can exchange ideas and words with God. We get to ask Him questions like the prophets. We get to tell Him about the things that stress us out or that break our heart. We are able to go straight to God with our feelings, with our hurts, our sorrow, with our anger. How is this possible?

Christ's sacrifice on the Cross.

Jesus Christ died a very painful death so that we could be restored to a right relationship with the Father. Thus, Father God extended the honor of relationship to all of His children, not just to a chosen few. This relationship is between a Father and His child; the kind that Jesus had with the Father. They had conversations....Jesus prayed and God listened....and He also responded.

Does your faith expect God to respond to your prayers?
Do you have an expectation when you talk to God?

Matthew 9:29 “...according to your faith, be it unto you...”

Faith is....

Hebrews 11:1 is vastly misunderstood, partly because of the language differences in the Greek and our understanding of similar words in the English language and partly because people take them out of context and do not read before or after the verse.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Looking at the original language and meaning/concepts of their understanding, this verse, more accurately translated would read... Faith is a firmness of mind in the expectation of what God has promised, the doubtlessness or sureness that has come, by way of testing, of matters or facts not understood or discerned.

We understand HOPE to mean a wish or want for something to be true or to happen; the strength of our hope is directly connected to the strength of OUR desire. However, biblical Hope is the confident expectation of what God has promised with the strength of that hope based solely on HIS faithfulness.

After that verse, the Bible lists the people, who by faith, accomplished many things. Each account tells the story of a person who had faith in what God showed them or told them as it relates to them personally. It was their experience that tested and proved their faith in God to perform His promise. Faith, in this verse, is not saying that we can ask God for things that we hope to be true or for things that we wish to happen...it is not about out desires, it is about God's faithfulness to perform His Word. The stories in Hebrews are about God performing His corporate Word, as with Able and Cain or His personal Word, as with Noah and Abraham.

The modern church has failed the body of Christ in that it does not teach an accurate translation of God's Word. So many are confused, and rightly so, because what they have been taught does not seem to work. The result is that they lose “faith” in God..however, it is not the God who wrote the Word that they are losing faith in....it is an image that has been taught. God says that you will find Him when you diligently seek Him....that is on each of us; a personal challenge. That is His promise.....if we want to find God, we must do the seeking ourselves.....through prayer, through digging in His Word, through praising Him....it is a personal journey, a personal walk with Almighty God.

This walk with God is not without trials, or heartache, and there are costs to following Him and His Word. However, the peace and calm while going through the storms of life cannot be matched by anything this side of Heaven. God also tells us that He is angry about the abuse of His children just as we get angry about it. He also promises us that, if we leave it up to Him, He will avenge the wrongs that have been perpetrated against us. He is also a comfort for the times when tragedy happens that we do not understand, ie the death of my dad on the eve of my favorite holiday, Christmas and the death of my first son. We all have events in our life that have scarred us, left us raw, confused, angry and resentful. It is time spent with God that helps the sting of these events fade and our hearts and minds to be restored.

God is good...His ways are Best, even when we cannot understand them.