It's been refreshing to take a step back to assess my goals as a preacher of the Bible yet alone a 'finishing believer.' Today's devotional, courtesy of Oswald Chambers, found me in Matthew 17:14-21 and taking serious stock of the true essence of the kind of faith God has called us to. Wow I fall short.
OC states the following regarding faith:
"We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, and it may be so in the initial stages. Faith brings us into the right relationship with God and gives him His opportunity to work. Yet God frequently has to knock the bottom out of our experience as His saint to get us in direct contact with Himself. God wants us to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of emotional enjoyment of His blessings."
For many of us:
"The beginning of our life of faith was very narrow and intense, centered around a small amount of experience that had as much emotion as faith in it, and it was full of light and sweetness. Then God withdrew his conscious blessing to teach us to 'walk by faith' (2 Cor 5:7)."
"Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God's character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds. Faith being worked out in reality must experience times of unbroken isolation."
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