Faith Growing Like Wildfire
By Linda Lee
The Word teaches that it is impossible to please God without faith. (Hebrews 11:6). Fear is the opposite of faith.
I had accepted Jesus as a child, but somewhere along the line I took up a performance orientation. Though I loathed tradition for tradition's sake, I had set up 'my' standards for being a godly person… I tried to be a good girl, a good mother, a good Pastor's wife...I was a righteous woman, just as Job was a righteous man.
It took me many years battling fear before I could say I had a relative degree of freedom. --Somewhere along the line, I got the idea that I could take my fear to Jesus. That is a good thing, right? But speaking the negative was actually reinforcing it in my mind
Of course, we can take anything to God and he hears our prayer. ( ) But, he is honored when we pray IN FAITH...not fear.
Job was a righteous man. Yet, he says, "The thing that I feared has come upon me..." There are laws of nature in operation in our world that God put in place. Gravity. We can pray to be able to fly all day long, and barring a true miracle, we won't fly--it would invalidate the law of gravity that God instituted. When we pray fear prayers, we are violating God's plan that we act, pray and "live by faith"...
Example: Instead of praying, "please, please God, don't let me get a flat tire (victim prayers) when I go into the city; Go into the city with God, thanking Him for his grace, power, provision, blessing...and if a flat tire happens, we praise God for how this will work to our good because of His law in operation: "all things work together for good to those who love God AND are THE CALLED according to HIS purposes. “I am called to HIS purposes, so I look for HIS hand in the process of getting the tire fixed. Is there someone to bless, to speak to, is He allowing me to develop patience?--Am I looking for and praising Him in the midst of the situation because I am "praying without ceasing"? The Word further teaches me that I AM THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD...I don't just bear His name, He is in me.
God was taking Job to a deeper place. Job was a righteous man, yet God says to him in Job 40:8 " Will you also annul (set aside and render void) My judgment? Will you condemn me your God, that you may (appear) righteous and justified?" In the Old Testament we see many instances where God is foreshadowing His grace, moving from the law which brings death to The Spirit which brings LIFE.
After such strenuous wrestling with God, Job says this: “I know now that You can do all things, and that no thought or purpose of Yours can be restrained or thwarted." Job now believes in his heart, not just in his head, that God is Sovereign. “Verse 3: "Therefore, I now see I have rashly uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know." Verse 5-6, “I had heard of You (only) by the hearing of the ear, but now my [spiritual] eye sees you, Therefore I loathe (my words) and abhor and repent in the dust and ashes." Then the Lord speaks in verse 8 of accepting Job's prayer, as opposed to the offerings of his friends...Why did the Lord accept Job's prayer? Because… Job had learned to be "in" a relationship with God not just in duty and sacrifice, not in form and ritual. Job had learned "not my will, but yours be done.” "After this" (after Job's trial, testing, wrestling with God, the Word says that he lived 140 years) "the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning." The Spirit brings life. Our words of faith rather than fear bring life.
We form our own world with the words that we speak. We are created in the image of God. When God formed the world, He did it with His words, (And here's an aside: God said that Job was righteous man...was he a righteous man at the point God said it? Or, did God see and declare what Job would be?)We form our world, our situations, our family patterns with the words that we speak...whether to God, to others or in prayer...that is why Job repented of his words...Life and death are in the power of the tongue and that is especially true as we consider how we pray...Before we carelessly utter words to God, (thank God the Holy Spirit intercedes for us), ask of the Father, what is HIS will concerning this matter, what would HIS desire be?. Is there some lesson someone may be learning in the midst of their trial? Would we by our prayers deny them that lesson?
It is hard to watch our kids struggle to learn to tie their shoes, but it is a skill necessary for life...(well, at least before Velcro) and there are times as good parents, we wait, watch and let them struggle for a reason...Job, struggled, not because he was evil, but because God wanted relationship with Job. He wanted Job to live by faith. God knew what struggle would develop in Job’s life. Life and death are in the power of the tongue as much or more rather, than in the deeds we methodically perform, however righteous, noble, needed those deeds might be to the church system.
