Giving it all to the Lord, then Grabbing it all back.

Good morning!  Exactly how real is our walk with God?  Have you ever made a major request of God at a church alter only to stand to your feet and wonder how to make it happen in your own power or how to do without that request, if you are unable to get it done?

Oh how often have I “given it all” to the Lord, only to “grab it all” back within hours in order to put my best foot forward that I might gain the satisfaction of solving my situation.  This is not depending on God.  This is depending on Steve!  At best, it’s giving God a “heads up” on what I am getting ready to attempt to orchestrate and claim or blame “in His name”.

In other words, as long as we don’t have to sit idly by and wait for God to get us what we really need, we will more than gladly help others obtain or increase our own gain; giving Him the glory for the great things WE have done.  This is not God’s wish for our wants.

If we were to go about it differently, cooperating with His plan for giving and receiving, I think we would be surprised to see how many of our temporal wants God would answer.  As well, He has promised to answer a unanimous portion of our needs.  But He has His rules for giving and getting.  Those rules require that we must first be challenged in our faith.  This allows our walk with him to be strengthened while we release our need to Him.  This process leads to our own personal development as He eventually cooperates by meeting that need in His time.

In Ephesians 3:12, 13 Paul is speaking of Jesus when he indicates “In whom [Jesus] we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.

We are invited by God to come to Christ with our every want and most sincere needs.  And we should do so, boldly!   But to be bold enough to gain the proper access we must be dependant, not independent; arriving in His presence with the confidence of His faith.

Notice it doesn’t say the faith of me, or my faith IN Him?  Rather, it is His faith; the faith OF Christ. When I yield to His faith IN me (one of the nine fruits of the Spirit) I have exercised the confidence that comes from His Spirit dwelling within my spirit.
But what does HIS faith gain us?  Answered prayer?  No, at least not at first! It gains us designer tribulations.  He desired that we “faint not at my tribulations FOR you”.  That is to say tribulations designed directly for you and tribulations designed specifically for me.  But those tribulations are intended to make us look good.  To bring us glory.

It is responding properly to those designer devastations that indicate our true measure of faith.  I trust and truly believe that when I WANT something from God, (not need something but when I really want something) that if I am asking for it in HIS faith; God will answer it.

However, in the duration of time between my asking and His granting, I may be given any number of “frustrations through tribulations” to prove my faith is yielding to His faith.  If I will make him look good, by being personally glorified through proper responses to those designer tribulations, I believe I am given the favor necessary to get my wants determined by God and my legitimate needs unequivocally met.  Why?  Because He said so!  “And this is the confidence that we have IN him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” (I John 5:14, 15)

But I lose all of my petitions when in self righteous doubt I “choose to use” my own personal effort to manipulate circumstances for the sake of my own personal agenda.  If I do not learn to ask Him and wait upon Him, I will not be challenged to exercise His faith.  If I am exercising my faith in me rather than exercising His faith, then I will be “so fortunate” as to avoid some God designed tribulations for me.  But, if I am not experiencing tribulations, then I lose valuable opportunities to look good in the face of adversity.  And if I am not looking good in the face of difficult circumstances then I am incapable of lifting up Christ.  I am an ineffective Christian.

I conclude that effective Christianity is not finding out how to get some of my wants and all of my needs met in my own power.  Effective Christianity is letting Christ flow through me with bold confidence in the face of difficult circumstances.

Thus, and only then, will we have our righteous wants realized and our many needs met.  A difficult circumstance destroys faith in ourselves and develops faith in His.  When we respond right in our circumstances its evidence of His faith being exercised.  I hereby dub it:  “circumstantial evidence”.