The Resting Faith: Get in the Word

 “There are three kinds of faith in Christ:

1. Struggling faith, like a man in deep water desperately swimming.

2. Clinging faith, like a man hanging to the side of a boat.

3. Resting faith, like a man safely within the boat (and able to reach out with a hand to help someone else get in).” 

If you recall, during this series of posts we’re exploring how we can come to a resting faith in God. In the last post we talked about the quote from D.L. Moody and how oftentimes the first step to being in a resting faith is simply asking God for stronger faith.

This week, I want to visit yet another very simple step to being in a resting faith:

Spending time in the Word of God!

"So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."

Romans 10:17

Faith comes from hearing the word of God! What better way to get the Word of God than simply spending time in the Word? Sure, we learn about God when we go to church, but what are you going to do the rest of the week? Really, stop and think about it. What kind of relationship would you have with your best friend if you only thought about them, spent time with them, or talked with them for an hour and a half, one day a week?! 

I can tell you with certainty that in times when I’ve really been struggling with my faith, I have found that I really need to re-evaluate my time spent in God’s Word. Oftentimes I find that I’m lacking in this area. 

God’s Word holds wisdom, healing, strength, and love. It’s the story of how we relate to Him and what He has done for us.

Take just a second and think of the person you’re closest to... someone you love, respect, care for, and enjoy spending time with. How did that relationship develop? I’m confident in saying that the relationship you have was NOT instantaneous. Such a deep, personal, loving relationship takes time to cultivate, refine, and build. No doubt you had to spend time with that person, maybe even hundreds or thousands of hours. Yet now, your heart is built up by them, you trust them, you lean on them, and you genuinely care for them.

The same is true in our relationship with God!

The strength, encouragement, and love you will find by spending time in the Word will build over time. The more time you spend with God, the more you benefit from it. Ultimately, the greatest side effect to spending time in the Word is a strengthened faith. We simply need to spend time in the Word, absorbing what God has for us, and that time spent will help put us into a state of resting faith!

So you may be sitting there, saying

If I can offer one piece of advice, it would be, "Don’t go at this alone!" Ask a brother or sister in Christ to help you. I’ll admit, for years there were entire segments of scripture that I would avoid reading, simply because I didn’t understand it and thought it was for those “smarter” people who had theology degrees and all that stuff. But I’ll tell you, God has given us the ability to read and understand His Word. Sometimes we just need a little help with understanding the context and verbiage held within the pages. That’s where your brothers and sisters in Christ can help. 

We live in an age when we have so much information at our fingertips. I can’t imagine what Spurgeon or Matthew Henry would do if they had access to the level of information that we do. Grab that friend who you know walks closely with the Lord, and ask them to help you out. You’ll be glad you did, and you’ll grow even closer to resting safely in the boat!

God bless! See you next time!     

Prayer Series 7: Know Him

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is in 1 Chronicles when King David is announcing that his young and inexperienced son Solomon will become Israel’s next king, and he is communicating that God wants Solomon to complete the mighty work of building the temple.  After David communicates God’s plans for Solomon to the leaders of Israel, he exhorts his son and future king of Israel with this verse:  

"As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.” - 1 Chronicles 28:9

I love this verse because God’s heart for how we love Him, serve Him, and seek Him first is all here.  Also, David, a loving father with the experience of being the greatest king of Israel and a man after God’s own heart, in his final years chose to exhort his beloved son with these words of wisdom.  Bottomline is, this verse is WISDOM, and it starts with “KNOW the God of your father.” 

The Hebrew word for “know” is yada,` which means to be acquainted with, to know by experience, to recognize, or to consider.  It's a relationship!  If you really think about it, God knows more about you than you know about yourself.  He created you, He’s omnipresent and omniscient (He is always present and knows everything), He sees your outward actions, He even knows your thoughts, and He knows your tomorrow.  What I love about this verse is it goes even further and says God knows your heart and understands the intent of your thoughts.  Yikes!  He knows our deepest motivations.  He knows ALL.  Furthermore, what always blows my mind is that He knows each and every person in the world on this same level and loves each one.  WOW!

So, obviously, you can’t hide anything from God, and He loves you right where you are at today regardless of your sin, your state-of-mind, your intentions, or your attitude.  Further in the verse, it says “if YOU SEEK Him, He will be found by you.”  It’s up to us to seek Him.  He is and always will be right there and available, just wanting to spend time with us.  We are wired with a soul that thirsts to spend time with God as it’s in our original DNA - the “Lord God walked in the garden in the cool of the day” wanting to spend time with Adam and Eve, but they were ashamed and avoided His presence because of sin (Gen. 3:8).  We are sinful because it’s our nature and it’s so easy to avoid His presence because our sinful nature separates us from His presence – we are thinking more about ourselves, our comforts, our “need” for sleep, our busy schedules, what we need to do today, how to get ahead, etc. etc, etc.

God gave us free will - free will to seek Him or forsake Him.  It’s our choice, and it has eternal implications.  He just wants to spend time in relationship with us.  He already knows all of us, so we need to know Him to have this relationship.  He is good all of the time, He wants to teach us, encourage us, bless us, grow us, change us, make us more like Him, and help us glorify Him so others can come to salvation and know truth through our lives.  Understanding that we were made to have a relationship with God and that prayer is the method for how we talk to God, prompts me to consider my heart and approach to “knowing God”. 

Yes, the “components” of prayer we’ve discussed in this blog series so far are all important, including: praise, thankfulness, praying scripture, repentance, and obedience, and we should challenge ourselves to make a habit of incorporating them into our prayer lives on a regular basis.  But don’t approach prayer with a checklist either.  Check your heart.  What is the motivation of your heart and the intent of your thoughts?  Is it to know Him?  Is it to acquaint yourself more with God’s heart and will?  Is it so you can recognize and consider His purpose and plan for your life because His thoughts are greater? 

Here’s a practical example considering prayer before Bible study.  In Matt’s powerful Rocket Fuel study a few weeks back, he said the first step of Bible study is quieting your own spirit.  You can do this and should do this through prayer.  I don’t know about you, but my spirit is LOUD!  My mind is always swirling with the things I need to do today, the people I need to call/text, emotions, etc…  This is one of the reasons I study the Bible in the morning, because my spirit is naturally a little quieter.  I haven’t fully engaged in email, texts, social media, the news, my kids aren’t awake, and my fully-packed day isn’t in full swing yet.  It is so much harder for me to quiet my spirit for an afternoon or evening Bible study.  It can be done, but it’s harder.  Regardless, whenever you study the Bible, make sure you quiet your spirit through prayer. 

What does “quiet your spirit” mean?  Purpose in your heart and mind to seek God first and suppress your flesh through prayer.  Start with a heart to know God to get acquainted with Him, not the other way around.  Praise God for who He is, and take time to be grateful for all He’s done, putting yourself in a place of submission, ready to receive from the God of the Universe who is spending time with YOU.  Ask God to teach you, correct you, grow you, show you more of Himself, change you, reveal sin in your life, show you how to love others, prepare you for the day/week/months ahead, and for you to have an ear to listen and obey Him.  Whatever you do, don’t jump into a Bible study with a loud spirit that is focused on yourself to check “do Bible study” off your list.  God wants to spend time with YOU.  He wants you to KNOW HIM.  If you really wanted to get to know a new friend, would you say “Ok, you have 30 minutes. Make me feel good please”?  No!  You would make it a priority to spend quality time with that friend.

Remember, the purpose of prayer is communication between you and God.  Keep it simple, come to Him and SEEK Him with a motivation to KNOW Him.  He already knows ALL of you, so our place is to simply come to Him, to quiet our fleshly loud spirits, let His Spirit and presence in, just spending time with Him listening and meditating on His Word, with a heart ready to serve Him and not ourselves. 

"Come to Me, all [you] who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” - Matthew 11:28

“Be still, and know that I [am] God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” - Psalms 46:10