Posted on 01/26/2021 9:06:33 PM PST by Frank Broom
How do you judge your circumstances, do you only consider what you pickup through your senses only. If you do that you will miss out on a lot of what God has for his children. The scripture clearly says for we walk by faith and not by sight(senses) 2Corinthians 5:7. That means it's either one or the other for faith is independent of your senses. If you are looking to your senses to tell you what the truth is you are not in faith. Like, in 2Kings 6 when the man of God Elisha would tell the king of Israel what the King of Syria was planning with his army to keep Israel from being ambushed. And when the king found out that Israel escaped what they were planning he was mad and when he found out what Elisha was doing he sent his army to go and fetch him. And the army of Syria surrounded the city where he was and when the servant of the man of God arose and went out side and saw all the soldiers he panicked, "Alas, my master! how shall we do." Now, in the natural it's two against thousands, but watch the response of the man of God, "Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. Now, wait a minute it's him and his servant against the Syrian army, but then he prays, "Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see." And the Lord opened his eyes and he saw that the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. Notice, you had two men in the same situation and yet seeing the situation two different ways, one saw safety and the other saw danger. If you don't factor in the spiritual you will be at a disadvantage, because that's where God has his provision waiting for you. Doesn't Psalm 34:7 say, The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. And Psalm 91:11 say, For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
Let's see an example with Elijah, when there was a great famine in the land in 1Kings 17:1-16 God sent him to a widow woman to sustain him, "Arise get thee to Zarephath which belongs to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee." 10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. 11 And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand. 12 And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die. 13 And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son. 14 For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth. 15 And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. 16 And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah. Notice, in verse 12 her response when he asked for a morsel of bread, she said in effect I don't have enough to spare and yet, God said He commanded her to sustain him. In verses 13 and 14 he instructs her and tell her why, because of what God said. And she went and did it and notice in verses 15 and 16 it says, she, and he, and her house, did eat many days. Notice, the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which He spake by Elijah. God commanded her to sustain him in the spirit and yet, she had nothing to sustain him with in the physical. But, when she did as he said the meal and the oil kept multiplying. God knew what she had in the physical, but He had provision for her laid up in the spiritual so when she did as the man of God said that opened a way for what she had in the spirit to manifest in the physical.
Don't ever think of spiritual as not real or not as real. Look at you aren't you both spirit and physical, which do you think is more real. I say the part of you that is spirit is more real for when your spirit departs your body it will live on and yet your body will rot in the ground. You can live without your body, but your body can't live without your spirit so you tell me what's more real. Notice, the part of you that you can't see or touch is more real than the part of you that you can see and touch. I don't think many people consider that the spiritual things of God can become physical or manifested. In John 4:24 it says that God is a spirit and yet 1Timothy 3:16 says that God who is spirit was made manifest in the flesh. So, spiritual can become material. In fact, that's why God laid it up for you to enjoy down here not when you get to heaven. Maybe, next time we'll look at how spiritual can become material. God Bless!!
Scripture also says He requires only faith as small as a mustard seed. So... Please... Quit trying to push hopium level faith.
Push mustard seed level faith.
That’s right because what makes the faith work is not how great our faith is, but how great the God we put our faith in is.
Exalting ourselves and becoming respecters of persons based on the amount of faith they allegedly demonstrate, is sin. It’s not like we can take credit for our ability to even have faith in the first place. You might as well try to take credit for your eye color or height.
We have nothing we haven’t been gifted with and people should not be taking credit for what they’ve been given as if they were the source of it themselves.
Additionally, this kind of preaching makes a lot of inaccurate, demeaning assumptions about where other people are at in their spiritual walk based on their present physical circumstances.
Are you sick? Not enough faith.
Do you have financial issues? Not enough faith.
Do you now have everything you want? Not enough faith.
I guess they never read Hebrews 11.
Good word FRiend.
I consider it cheerbulleadering.
I’m heartened to see there are others who see things similarly.
It isn’t a popular position. But we worship The Way, the TRUTH, the Life.
You have insight.
bookmark
The Word of Fatih/Propsperity Gospel movement has lead to more despair than any other movement in history. The teaching that every failure, illness, and shortcoming in your life is due to lack of faith.
There’s more types of faith than “mustard seed” faith. GREAT FAITH (Centurion, woman). WEAK FAITH (Abraham was not weak in faith). STRONG FAITH (Abraham). MISSING FAITH (“Where is your faith?”) There’s more, but you get the idea. Look them up.
And I have seen too many people exalted by others and lifted up beyond measure for *having great faith*.
Nor do the prosperity people tell you how to increase your faith. They just beat you down about not having enough. Trying to work up feeling of faith is a fruitless endeavor.
And you are quite correct, it can lead to despair in others, the very opposite of what we are to be doing for each other. We’re to encourage and uplift each other.
While those things are mentioned in Scripture, the operative word is *faith* and weak or not, God still worked.
Jesus Himself destroyed the whole *you have to have great faith* thing with these comments.....
Luke 17:6
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.
Matthew 17:20
He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Good scriptures. They evidently had less than mustard seed faith, but even mustard seed faith is “great faith”.
The one that SAVES you is faith as small as a mustard seed.
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