Wednesday, February 12, 2014

No Doubt


How do you get to the point of "no doubts"?  Anyone who has ever tried to curse a fig tree to the withering point or attempted to move a mountain into the sea probably responds, "It is impossible!"  Yet Jesus insists it is not impossible and at several points He makes the same assertion.  With faith in God you can do certain acts that are "impossible".  If this is our benchmark where faith could and should be, then it seems a dereliction to not actively pursue it.  Nothing confounds the Christian quite as much as the powerless and fruitless praying he encounters.  But the height should not be determined by the depth and the child who gives up on trying to ride a bicycle because she fell is pushed on by the more experienced at failing father or sister.  Just because we fail at prayer does not mean it cannot be done.  It all has to do with faith in Christ and some attain faith easily and quickly and others by fits and starts.  It is grace that flashes your faith to life but obedience and persistence in prayer that stimulates it to burst into flame.  All at once you will be as stunned as the Disciples by some happy success in prayer but rather than following through with your new life with God you will be tempted to return to your old attachments that snared you before.  Put those crooked longings to death; attack them viciously.  Someone needs your new sensitivity to the Spirit's indwelling.  You are not a misfit in the kingdom; you have the tools needed to move among fig trees and mountains and entrenched demons with assertive sense.  Don't sit on your hands flabbergasted by your struggles at prayer.  Evaluate your praying by two criteria only.   Am I doing what God has told me to do in the Sermon on the Mount through Him (trusting Him in the hard parts of doing) ; am I persisting in prayer heartily enough that my faith in Christ has room to grow?

 "Have faith in God," Jesus answered.  "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.  Mark 11:22-23 NIV

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