A Bit Of Faith Goes A Long Way

Do you ever think along the lines of “If I could just get that new job I would be able to buy a better house, car or whatever?”

This is human nature. There is nothing wrong with having ambitions to better ourselves.

Matthew 9:22 “Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well.”

This woman knew what her “If I could only…” was. It was if she could only touch the cloak of Jesus she would be healed. Nothing fancy. Nothing grand. Just a knowledge that faith in Jesus Christ would make her well again.

Do you have a “If I could only…” in relation to Christ? Mine is “If I could only study the Bible better and more indepth then I would be in a better place to teach others so that God’s Kingdom would be furthered.

If you have not considered this then take a few moments to think how your service or worship would be better “if only I….”

Watch Me Work

Moses felt as low as a slug's belly. Way down there. He still hadn't rid himself of the idea that he was supposed to be the deliverer, and that he was somehow failing. How many times had God explained it to him? Yet, like many of us, he had trouble keeping a grip on the Lord's assurances.

Exodus 6:11 “Go in, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the people of Israel go out of his land.”

"Go to Pharaoh, Lord? My own people just bought me a one-way ticket caravan back to Midian, and You want me to go back to Pharaoh? R-r-r-e—m-m-m-em—ber m-m-me? I'm the guy who can't t-t-t-talk. Shoot, I'd mess up a rock fight, Lord. I can't get it together. I'm at the end of my rope. How in the world are You going to pull this off?"

Moses didn't know it at the moment, but he'd put before the Lord the best proposition yet. I'm at the end of my rope. How are you going to do it?

Before we go any further, I'd like to underline a major truth in this world of ours that I don't pretend to understand. Here it is: the best framework for the Lord God to do His most ideal work is when things are absolutely impossible and we feel totally unqualified to handle it. That's His favorite circumstance. Those are His ideal working conditions.

In spite of the Lord's assurances, things kept going from bad to worse for Moses. He'd already gotten the worst of it in a meeting with Pharaoh, and now, in a subsequent parley with the Israelites, he found himself fresh out of credibility. They would no longer listen to him.

Time after time, He brings us to our absolute end and then proves Himself faithful. That, my friend, is not only the story of my life, it's the story of the Bible in a nutshell.

Prayer

2 Kings 19:14 “Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord and spread it before the Lord.”

Here is one of the best pictures of prayer in the Bible. Hezekiah is king over Israel when the cruel and powerful Assyrian army marches against them. Rabshakeh, the army’s spokesman, sends a threatening letter and tells Hezekiah not to trust in his God for deliverance.

Here was an enormous temptation and a trial, all wrapped into one little scroll. There is the imminent danger of being razed to the ground by the Assyrian empire; then there is the verbal prompting not to trust in God for a rescue.

But how does Hezekiah deal with this letter? He receives it, he reads it…and then he takes it straight to the Lord and spreads it before Him. What a wonderful picture of prayer! It is the spreading of our problems, our temptations, our struggles before the Lord in the face of every temptation to do otherwise.

Are you today wrestling with a temptation to sin that is threatening to conquer you? Spread it before the Lord. Is your heart weighed down with some terrible worry, or sorrow, or pain? Spread it before the Lord. Have you felt the weight of your guilt before a holy God for the first time? Spread it before the Lord.

No one has ever come to the Lord and gone away disappointed. Hezekiah did not, and you will not.