We’re introducing many new writers this month. This is our first time with Natalie Nakasi who writes at My Seed Faith. The link in the title which follows will take you directly there.
Have faith
Song:
Praise the name of Jesus,
praise the name of Jesus.
He’s my Rock, he’s my fortress,
he’s my deliverer in him will I trust.
Praise the name of Jesus.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him and he will direct your paths.”(Proverbs 3:5-6)
Have faith in the wilderness
When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that way was shorter. For God said, “if they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.” So, God led the people around by the desert road towards the Red sea (Exodus 13:17).
The wilderness is not the shorter way, it is the way God leads his children for their own safety. In the wilderness, where God leads his children, is a place that requires new and unfamiliar growing. In the wilderness God provides abundance so that his children know that God is a God of more than enough and the source of all provision. God doesn’t take short cuts with people he loves and if they have to go through the wilderness, God will be there to provide for their every need.
God is faithful and will fulfill his promise no matter how long it takes. If you have faith, you must believe that even in the wilderness, where God leads, God’s goodness and faithfulness will deliver, and provide where there is no provision, so that his children know that they do not live by the food that they eat but by the faithfulness of the promises of God. Trust in God to do what he will do. In the wilderness, your job is to have faith and God’s job is to fulfill his word.
Have faith like Joseph
Trust in God to be a deliverer like Joseph did. Joseph, a son of Jacob was sold into slavery by his brothers (Genesis 37:28) and thrown into prison by Pharaoh (Genesis 39:20-21) but the Lord was with him and he found favor with the prison guards and with Pharaoh and was made governor of the whole land of Egypt (Genesis 41:40).
Yet Joseph still believed that God would deliver him from Egypt, the land of oppressors, the land where he, even as a man of authority, was a slave to the oppressors, where he could not freely worship God. There was a famine that brought the house of Jacob to Egypt and while in Egypt Joseph made the Israelites swear. He said, God will surely come to your aid, and when he does then you must carry my bones up with you from this place, and Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, when Pharaoh let the people go. When God delivered the Israelites from Egypt. Joseph believed in God’s deliverance even though he died in captivity in Egypt (Genesis 50:24-25).
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1).
Have faith like Peter
Faith is evidence enough for believers of who Jesus is, the son of God. It is by faith when Jesus asked his disciples, “who do people say that I am?” that Peter responded “you are the Messiah, the son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:13)
And it is by faith that Jesus asks his followers to believe in him. Unbelievers will always ask, like the teachers of the law, to “show us a sign” that you are who you say you are, that you are the son of God (Matthew 16:1).
Jesus had followers and Jesus had critics. His biggest critics were the ones who ultimately nailed him to the cross at Calvary, a religious sect of Judaism, keepers of rabbinic, Jewish law, who Jews went to for spiritual guidance.
These teachers of the law did not believe that Jesus was the son of God, no matter what signs he performed or words of wisdom he spoke. Jesus says to them in Matthew 16:3, you can look at the sky and know when there will be good or bad weather and never press the heavens for a sign that it really is going to rain, you see rain clouds and believe. The sky never speaks and yet you recognize the sign with faith. How is it that you do not recognize who I am and are not able to recognize the sign of the times?
What time was Jesus speaking about? The time to repent and believe in him. Jesus says that the only sign that unbelievers will get is the kind of sign that gobbles them up like the prophet Jonah (Matthew 16:4).
This is why Jesus turns to Peter and blesses him, because of his faith (Matthew 16:17). Peter was able to see who Jesus truly was and his heart and mind accepted that Jesus was the one prophesied about in Isaiah 9:1-7, the one who would remove gloom from people in distress and illuminate the minds of people blindly following unbelievers, increase their joy, remove their oppression, counsel his people, and bear the burden of being the mighty God who leads his people to places of peace and establishes his kingdom of justice and righteousness through his sacrifice.
Peter saw Jesus and believed, but Jesus says unbelievers are like the hypocrites Isaiah prophesied about in Isaiah 29:11-13, “for (them) this whole (word of God) is nothing but words sealed on a scroll, and if you give the scroll to someone (an unbeliever) who can read and say “read this please” they will answer, “I can’t it’s sealed” (meaning that they don’t have revelation of the meaning of the scriptures) or if you give the scroll to someone (another unbeliever) who cannot read and say “read this please” they will answer “I don’t know how to read” (meaning they don’t understand its truths) these people come near to me with their mouths and honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based merely on human rules they have been taught.”
Jesus says, to his followers, about these kinds of people, to “be careful” be on your guard against the teachings and counsel of unbelievers and those with little faith (Matthew 16:5-6).
Without faith it is impossible to please God
“And without faith it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6)
Jesus says whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it (Matthew 16:24-25).
In Luke 14:25-35 Jesus teaches about the cost of following him and putting your faith in him. Huge crowds were traveling with Jesus and turning to them he said,
“if anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers, and sisters, yes even their own life such a person cannot be my disciple. And whomever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
Suppose one of you wants to build a tower, won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it everyone who sees it will ridicule you saying this person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.
Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able to with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything, you cannot be my disciples.”
Jesus is teaching about the sacrifice necessary to follow and believe in him. The cost is everything. The cost is to love God more than your own life. The cost is to trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, to in all your ways submit to him and he will direct your paths (Proverbs 3:5-6). The cost is a willingness to not follow the ideas or counsel of unbelievers, even your closest friends and family if they are not going where Jesus is going, which is to the cross, a place of sacrifice, love, and salvation.
In Luke 16:16-17 Jesus teaches his disciples to have faith in him because he is the fulfillment of God’s word to save and bless all people. Jesus says that people worry over trivial matters of law to find a way to condemn others but will not look to him as the fulfillment of God’s word to save all who believe.
Have faith, repent, and believe
Lastly, Jesus tells a parable of a man who goes to Hell and looks to Heaven and sees Abraham and begs him to send a messenger back to earth to warn his brothers to repent and believe so that they will not experience the torment that he is experiencing. Abraham says to him that if he and his brothers did not believe Moses or the prophets, they won’t believe someone who comes back from the dead (Luke 16:19-31).
This parable is speaking about those disciples who would not believe the words of Jesus and an urge to unbelievers to follow Jesus to the cross and the grave and to believe in the blessing of the resurrection. Jesus’ message is explaining that the sacrifices required of you to believe in Jesus returns to you the blessing of a new life through Jesus Christ.
This is also a word to have faith in the entire word of God, and Jesus as the word that God spoke that God would send salvation for the entire world and that salvation did come to earth, dwelled with humans, lived, died, and resurrected. Some people who witnessed it believed and had faith and others who have heard about it after, refuse to believe.
Prayer:
God of heaven and earth, help all who hear your word to believe and have faith.
May the Lord answer you when you are in distress.
May the name of the God of Jacob protect you.
May he send you help from the sanctuary and grant you support from Zion.
May he remember all your sacrifices and accept your burnt offerings.
May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.
May we shout for joy over your victory and lift up our banners in the name of our God.
May the Lord grant all your requests.
Now this I know: The Lord gives victory to his anointed. He answers him from his heavenly sanctuary with the victorious power of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. (Psalms 20:1-7)
Christianity 201 
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