Sunday. January 29th, 2012
Apostle. Jhon Milton Rodriguez
Scripture: Hebrew 11:1; Romans 4:17; Galatians 3:6, 4:7

Faith is our source of prosperity… a word of many wonderful synonyms like: success, breakthrough, wellbeing, growth, happiness, fulfillment, etc. I want these words to make a mark in your heart today as it is God’s desire that we are all prospered in a wholesome way (3rd John 2) It isn’t about an imbalanced sort of faith: good health… but no money, wealth… but constant illness, Happy family… with nothing to eat…

Our Lord wants us to be tremendously prosperous, He wants us to conquer, to grow, to go beyond any marks; He wants us to reach and accomplish the sorts of things our ancestors couldn’t. The interesting thing is that when you walk with The Lord your prosperity always increases… so our next generations will be greatly blessed! Faith is then to us the synonym of accomplishment… it won’t be a bunch of things we wish we could do but can’t… it isn’t like that with God… with Him everything gets done! He doesn’t want to make us fell thrilled about something we’d never get… He is good!

So then, faith begins by looking into our own concept of God not as a “maybe” kind of God but the one with the constant AMEN! Our Lord is not a punisher or avenger… He is good and when I accept that, and that even the hardest situations He will move to my benefit and bless –as experiences help us mature- then my heart will grow within generosity even to understand the conditions of others and not rush to be upset, but rather understanding.

While our authority is limited, God has an unlimited source of it. I can’t keep trying to understand everything and so everybody else to us… not everybody can be on our side and get us, not even believe that what we want is valid at all… so we need to trust Him completely, especially amidst the darkest situations, for we need Him to be our source of peace and strength, and to teach us to live the right way to not walk away from His purpose. Being prosperous has to do with doing the best with our lives to do what He wants us to… that’s when we can reach purpose, accomplishment, breakthrough, etc. it is also why we need to calm down a bit.

When you learn to live a life of faith you find balance, and when you don’t understand something you hold still and not make a sound, you learn not to be driven by negative thoughts toward those who don’t happen to think like you as if they’re a bad idea just because their point of view says otherwise.

Confusing times are better faced in silence… it is one tangible way to manifest our faith. Zachariah – the priest – who was Elizabeth’s husband, a barren woman who carried such curse all her life, could’ve chosen to think that the whole situation was just too hard to bear, but God visits them and gives them the gift of a child. The man’s disbelief made him laugh with the thought of it, he couldn’t understand what was about to happen and The Lord left him mute until the baby was born!

When a situation that is too hard to understand comes to you… it is best to hold still and keep quiet, for The Lord will have a say! Faith shines at its best during hard to understand conditions.

Abraham and Sara for instance witnessed an event that was simply amazing… see in that time when a woman was barren, the husband allowed that one of her service ladies would become his concubine in order for him to have children with her that would be raised as if the mother was the man’s wife.

Well… in this particular case God had promised that these two would have a son… but Sara was over 80 and such a thing seemed quite impossible… plus… it wasn’t happening so she decided to “help The Maker!” so for that task she chose Hagar who bore Ishmael… and if you read the story you’ll know the rest (Genesis 12) but the fact so far is that Ishmael’s descendants are still a headache for Israel’s… enemies at war!

When you move “your way” during difficult and hard to understand conditions… problems raise for future generations… that’s when silence becomes a special manifestation of faith!

Faith means that when I encounter people who don’t care to understand me or support my cause I can still fulfill God’s purpose in my life, even if those moments bring a tear or two to my face –tears are here an evidence of impotence- or if I endure confusing times, if we learn to trust God to handle perfectly every area of our lives, then all of those awesome promises He has for us will become true in the name of Jesus.

There are two ways to live…

By the law
By grace

This last one has faith as foundation while law is always making us question ourselves to see if we’ll do well or bad according to what we did or not do… which is actually not that accurate because we never behave completely well!

Now when we learn to build a life with faith in spite of conditions –hardship- that will keep us strong in the purpose of God, one that won’t let our lives deteriorate, one that will keep up amidst the negative remarks of people, doing what The Lord wants us to do with a strong commitment about it- home, marriage, company, etc.- we will really be good about it and succeed non-stop!

It isn’t helpful to have a romantic view about faith…”things have to go well for me… because I read the bible” “I pray for two hours every morning so I won’t have any problems!” not very close to reality!… and then we also have the other side of the coin… “when I wasn’t a Christian I used to have more money…” “I used to have more fun when I didn’t have to go to church!” etc…. both sides are a mis-interpretation of what faith is!

God gave us this tool to overcome unfairness and hard to understand situations… “Anything is possible for someone who has faith” (Mk 9:23b CEV) faith delivers us from memories, bad experiences, etc. it respects the specific purpose of each person (we are all particularly different in that The Lord has something specific for everybody), and we were all created to worship Him with the factual understanding of His amazing purpose in our lives!

When we realize that we are unique –not to be compared with others- and live in that dimension, then our faith will develop in such way we’ll be unstoppable and learn to grow up in life, to not be bitter or have a weird reaction toward events in life… we learn we depend upon nothing except our Lord, and that no matter what happens because we are holding His hand and His house –whatever duty we develop- anything that seems impossible, becomes possible. We have seen it in our lives and that is why we gather at church, listen to what the bible has for us and, every time we wonder about something we can look into testimonies of faith of others and those people in the scripture who saw it face to face… we are certain that what He did once… He will do it many times as He wants… because His Divine essence never changes!

In Hebrews 11.1 we read that as faith is not exempt of difficulties, it is rather the certainty that something expected will truly come to pass, but it also has to do with knowing how to wait –something we don’t completely enjoy- in the promises of God with conviction! Now we won’t see those promises right away in most cases… but we do need to believe that they will come, we can visualize them by faith… the thing is: we need to believe first and then we’ll SEE! With faith… it doesn’t work the other way around!

When we can open up to this dimension it is simply great… that’s when The Lord gets to show us the whole dimension of what He wants for us –something He couldn’t do in a shut and faithless heart!-

So, when you declare with faith in your heart and learn to speak that language with conviction in your life, then Jesus Himself will paint beautiful scenarios of what will come to happen, and we’ll start believing in the sorts of new things we hadn’t seen so far, as our minds open up to Him as well!

Of course faith will faith struggle (Hebrews 11.33)… we find plenty examples of that in the bible, but conquer makes us move on until we can actually reach what we expected, even though there will be times when we’ll have to be silent –not the kind of silence that prevents you from taking action though- God instructed Joshua to take The Promised Land silently… unlike Moses’s generation who made so much noise and brought death to themselves!

Faith mustn’t be contaminated with disbelief… today people call normal everything that is not faith –cheating, being rude, lie, be negative, etc.- and that kind of “normality” can only hurt your life.

Be transparent… speak with the truth, ask to be forgiven and apologize, quit doing the wrong things all the time… faith means to break the past and not look back… it makes you look ahead! If we can practice the kind of faith God tells us about in these verses we we’ll become the people He wants (Hebrews 11.33-34) but we need to understand that this can only happen fighting!

If others next to us are not being their best… if they lie… we will tell the truth. We will fight all right but with the tools God has given us, and that have nothing to do with our flesh but are all about His power… if others speak badly about us, if we are despised… we are to bless and love them… that is fighting God’s way!

We need to practice a few things to reach our inheritance…

Faith is linked to God’s promises: My faith does not depend on the promises of others – children, spouse, friends, etc.- that’s why I need to know His promises, learn them and declare them in my life, thus becoming familiar with my inheritance… if I don’t others will snatch it away from me! The bible says that I have abundant life (John 10:10) when I learn that… I learn to depend upon that promise; otherwise I’d take ruin as if it was God’s will for me-which is never so! – My faith grows stronger when I know His promises (Isaiah 53:5) then I can believe I am to be whole in spite of circumstances… yes some people keep telling themselves and others about the many illnesses they endure –it’s almost as if they need attention through it!- but it isn’t a doing of faith!

Faith depends on The Lord’s resources: which are inexhaustible. The entire world can say that there is no money… while God owns gold and silver… we are not to depend upon banks and people with money, we must depend on what He has for us not on what others say or think… He is the one who gives us all sorts of guarantees even before we were born, which is something we witness from creation. It is God who generates the resources mankind will ever need! We need to lift our eyes to our help that comes from God… no more looking down feeling so bad you can’t breathe without pain… no more looking back as if thinking of the past could ever change it… remember one thing: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning”(James 1:17 ASV)

In your prayer life… if you don´t know how to do it… let The Holy Spirit take care because prayer is one of the many resources God has given you, as well as fasting! All kind of resentment or low self-esteem is changed when Jesus takes control.

Adapt only to the version of life God gives you in the bible… don’t be anxious or depressive about the news on T.V, don’t be scared for what your boss, a friend, a relative tell you about the negative possibilities “out there”

There’s yet another great resource in gathering together at church as it tools us and enables us to grow in faith along with the rest of the brethren, we learn to fix tough situations and make the right decisions.

Faith God’s way: forgive, reconcile, love, dedicate, give, be honest, obey… this isn’t just LIFE… it should be more don’t you think? We know today we have a purpose… let’s find it in Jesus and let’s do our best for it… God’s way!