Pleasing Faith...

I remember leading God’s people to do a spiritual gifts assessment at a previous church. There was a buzz of excitement as each person worked their way through the list of questions to determine the gifts they had divinely received from God. When the tallies were completed and the results provided to the participants an interesting statistic emerged. Over 80% of the participants had the spiritual gift of faith. Wow, talk about an opportunity to do something great for the Kingdom! However, a small problem (I use the word small loosely here) also became evident – well over 90% of those who professed to have the spiritual gift of faith exhibited no evidence that they were regularly exercising their gift in any tangible form. Uh, forget what I said a moment ago about impacting the Kingdom by all the faithful.

I heard recently about a Chinese pastor who was returning home from a visit to America. When he arrived back in China and was giving his report to some fellow pastors he said, “It’s amazing how much the churches in America are able to accomplish without God.” In other words, he witnessed a great deal of hard work but little dependence upon God. Faith demands dependence upon God! It is believing God and taking Him at His word. It is trusting in God to do the incredible to achieve the impossible with power that is supernatural for His eternal glory! Faith is singularly pleasing to our Father in Heaven. In fact the Bible teaches us that "without faith it is impossible to please Him" (Heb. 11:6). So how pleasing is your faith today? What are you trying to accomplish on your own to the exclusion of God? Why not please God right this moment by drawing near to Him in faith and spending time with him in prayer.

And if you desire a little deeper emphasis on how pleasing real faith is to God, why not read Hebrews 11 and highlight or underline every occurrence of the word “faith” found in the chapter. See how many you come up with and you’ll understand more fully how important faith is to God.

Remember... Never yield your shield; Stay in the battle.

In Christ alone,

Byron