Activate Your Faith!

Talking with a lady a few days into the New Year the other day opened up an area that children of God consistently have issues with but rarely talk about. She started off by thanking God for bringing her and her family into the New Year. As we recounted the faithfulness and blessings of God in our lives and ministries, she suddenly interjected that she had lost so much over the years and the word of God seemed not to have come to pass in areas she considered very important in her life. However, she continued, she had resigned her life to the Lord to do with as He pleases. This last statement touched me deeply and I felt there was a disconnect somewhere between her and God, there was a thief at work! I felt this way because I sensed in my heart that God was saying something very different to the position she held and her present stance with God. This is an excerpt of what I believe the Lord is saying which I would equally like to share with you as well. I pray that you will be blessed as you read it.

First and foremost, God has not called us to a life of ‘resignation’. Chiefly because a life of resignation carries within it fear and deadness, which is empowered by the enemy. Such a position is declaring to God: “I am in this position because I have no alternative”. This is an unhealthy position to be in with God because it is one of flesh and faithlessness, and such cannot please God (Romans 8:5-8). Secondly, the Bible clearly states that without faith it is impossible to please God and He only rewards those that truly and diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). It is clear that the lady’s seeking was for the things she could get and not for God. Thus, she measured God’s response to her by the things she didn’t get and missed seeing the raids carried out by the enemy. As Disciples of Christ, our following of Jesus Christ cannot and must not be based on the things we see or receive but on the love we have for the Master. Abraham, in following God, did not waiver in his faith when for 25 years the promised child did not come. In spite of the fact that his body was old, his wife Sarah’s womb was dead, he did not consider the situation neither did he allow it to influence his relationship with God nor was he ‘dead’ (resigned) to Him. Rather he was active and strengthened in his faith and continually gave glory to God. The Bible went further in Romans 4 that “he believed in God, who gives life to the dead and calls things into existence that do not exist. Against hope, with hope he believed…”(Romans 4: 17b-18a). Thirdly, consider David that went about his business yet pursued ferociously by a king he never wronged. He came back one day from one of his campaigns and found his camp raided by the Amalekites and all he had (wives, children and goods) including those of his men were stolen in one day. His men rose up against him and were thinking of stoning him. Everyone he knew turned their backs at him but in his heart, instead of resigning to God, he actively knew that God had not abandoned him no matter what the situation on ground was saying. 

Friend, several times we resigned to God, by so doing, we surrendered to the pummeling and raids of darkness against our knowledge of God. As we embark on the journey of life this year, the pummeling and raids will be more, are you going to actively believe God or you are going to run into the caves and strongholds of resignation? Like Gideon, God is telling us we are strong, warriors of the Most High God and offspring of the Lion of the tribe of Judah. An offspring of a lion never backs down from a fight rather at its roar the prey takes cover. Friend, just as David went to the Lord to seek what to do, so we must go in to the Lord to seek what to do when faced with such situations. The Bible says God told David to pursue, overtake and recover all his stolen goods from the Amalekites. I told the lady that it wasn’t that God did not answer but Amalekites that prey on the weak, old and supposedly defenseless did this evil. So it’s time to rise pursue, overtake and recover all that had been stolen from her but with an active faith in God. As we walk with God this year we must be fully convinced that He exists and He is truly looking out for us, then watch as His promises come to pass in our lives. God bless you.