The Road Getting There

And Jesus answered saying to them, “Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.  Mark 11:22-24 NASB

Without Jesus Christ our lives would mean nothing, our journey will have no kingdom impact and in fact we will perish. 

Jesus Christ teaches us in John 6 that He is the Bread of Life and that whoever went to Him would never hunger or thirst again. Jesus- by using the analogy of bread - asks us to make Him our “staple” our sustenance. 

In accepting Him as our Lord and Savior, we receive the gift of eternal life. And while eternity is our assured destination we will need Holy Spirt in our everyday to help us live with any kind of resilience, any wisdom, living out this walk with faith even when everything is upside down - trusting God joyfully and running purposefullyour time gifted here. 

How intentional are we in walking everyday with Jesus. Do we carve out time for moments with Him, do we faithfully persevere through a challenging circumstance and prioritize prayer and worship as a response, actually do we make praising God, holy holy holy God, the priority in our schedules? 

Feeling doubt? Praise the Lord…. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord....

Psalms 150:1-6 NASB “Praise the Lord! Praise God in His sanctuary; Praise Him in His mighty expanse. Praise Him for His mighty deeds; Praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Praise Him with trumpet sound; Praise Him with harp and lyre. Praise Him with timbrel and dancing; Praise Him with stringed instruments and pipe. Praise Him with loud cymbals; Praise Him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!” 

Thinking faithless thoughts like your going to shatter under the weight of what someone has tried to label you with? Read the Bible! Listen to God’s word pour living water over your biggest struggle as He has done for thousands of years  -praise the Lord! That gives me such hope! A persevering Faith that keeps me moving forward when I want to freeze in my tracks - Holy Spirits gift of knowledge, understanding by His word that we have a comforter, an artist, the Lord of heaven and earth, Heavenly Father, He created us, understands us, knows our name, forgives us, protects us, corrects us, receives us.

Romans 5:1-5 NASB Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Whoa! In verse 5, it says, God’s love pours over us - into our hearts by Holy Spirit whom He has given us!  Each of us!  

It is talking about the personal experience of God working in our lives because of the justification we have received with God through His Son Jesus Christ (back to verse 1, faith in Jesus).

Without first receiving this justification through Jesus Christ (salvation) it would be impossible for us to understand the challenging concept of having joy in our sufferings. Faith in the outcome even though we have no idea what that outcome is - we can only experience and begin to understand because of Holy Spirit, who dwells within us when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.

Another lesson that jumped out at me in Romans 5 is that we must persevere through difficult things in life not just the easy and immediately rewarding. It seems like an obvious point, but it’s important to talk with God about that for a minute. 

Perseverance is a character quality that most of us would like to have in our lives. But the road to getting there is not easy. Therefore, we must joyfully welcome the suffering and the challenges that come into our lives with the fore-sight of the persevering Faith that those journeys will produce. 

Then, once we’ve continued through the hardships we will see that we have character. (By the very grace of God) the only reflection we can see at the end of our suffering is one of genuine faith. A faith that is proved more valuable than any measurable thing.  

And then, as we see that our faith is real, that brings us great hope. Hope that we will need the next time we are stumbling into despair when suffering enters our lives. 

I’m so thankful that the Bible is God’s living word, teaching us, encouraging us, reminding us, because, honestly, when the suffering re-enters our life and the hope we had felt becomes a distant memory, it can be tempting to doubt how genuine our faith really is.