The following blog post was written one week ago (5/12/14) but I am finally posting this now, on Monday, May 19th. I didn't post the blog last week because I thought I had it all together and that I had all the answers to my previous blog post after hearing a man from Nigeria preach about grace and faith, but the fact of the matter was that I didn't. When I sat down and really thought about it, I still felt lost. I'm posting this now because I want whoever actually reads this blog to know that I'm basically floundering in my spiritual journey, and I'm not afraid to admit it anymore. I have not changed a single word. It might sounds like I have it all figured out, and believe me, that's what I wanted. But when you choose to follow Jesus, it's not going to be a picnic with the sun shining everyday for the rest of your life. You're not going to be spoon-fed your faith and have everything fall into your lap. Some days, you're not going to want to get out of bed and you're not going to want to pray and you're going to question everything you've ever believed and wonder if God has ever heard you to begin with. I know, because that's how I've felt for over a week now. Some days are going to suck, plain and simple.
When you find yourself in this situation, you have 2 (and only 2) options: Are you going to suck it up and push through whatever pain and uncertainty you're dealing with and continue to fight and seek God no matter what, or are you going to throw in the towel?
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At the end of the last blog post (Faithfulness for Granted pt. 1), my spiritual life was somewhat in chaos as I fought to understand what faithfulness really is. I felt a disconnect occur between God and me. For several days, I've been feeling gray, bland, foggy, but I'm choosing to continue to seek Him and restore an even greater fellowship with Him.
God began to answer me yesterday (Monday) through a teaching that I went to, seemingly by accident. By sheer miscommunication, Derek and I attended a teaching at the school where a man from Nigeria was preaching. He was speaking specifically on faith, grace and the power of God. That God's power is constantly present and available to us, and that the reason most of us do not see that power move is because we lack the faith to make(i) that power manifest on our behalf. In the context of the lesson, faith isn't just believing in God, but it is the Spiritual understanding of Him.
The teaching was based on several pieces of Scripture, and this is what I learned:
• Grace – The unmerited favor and/or manifested kindness of God
1 Corinthians 2:14-15 NIV – The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgment.
• Our intelligence is not designed to understand God
• God is a Spiritual being. If you want to understand Him, you must use your spiritual understanding and not your human intellect
• Faith – Spiritual understanding (revelation)
Ephesians 2:8 NIV – For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
• We are saved by the unmerited favor and manifest kindness of God through spiritual understanding, and this is the gift of God
Romans 5:1-2 NIV – Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.
• We have peace and unmerited favor with Jesus Christ through spiritual understanding
Ephesians 1:17-21 NIV – I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.
• The Spirit of wisdom and revelation (spiritual understanding) comes from God
• Spiritual understanding helps us know the Father
• Eyes of your heart may be enlightened (you will understand with your spirit)
• God's power is made available to us to use through ever increasing spiritual understanding of His Word
Colossians 1:9-10 NIV – For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.
• The Spirit gives us wisdom and understanding that we would know God and His will for our lives
• We please God by growing in our knowledge of Him
Hebrews 11:1 NIV – Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
• What we hope for is simply what we want/need in life
• Assurance refers to evidence or proof
• Spiritual understanding (faith) gives us confidence in what we hope for
• Spiritual understanding (faith) is the proof of what we don't see
Hebrews 11:6 NIV – And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
• Without spiritual understanding (faith) it is impossible to please God
• Anyone in Christ must believe that A) God exists and B) that He rewards those who make a serious and intentional effort to seek Him
2 Peter 1:2 NIV – Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
• Unmerited favor (manifested kindness of God) and peace are given to you in abundance through(i) the knowledge of God
1 John 5:14-15 NIV – This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
• Be encouraged, because God hears our prayers and He is faithful to give us what we ask for (according to His will)
Mark 11:23, 25 NIV – “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them.”
• This is a promise! (Jesus says 'I will')
• When you pray, don't doubt. Believe in your heart and He will come through for you (on His time)
Part way through the teaching, I realized that I didn't have a belief issue, I had a faith issue. By asking God to make me trust Him more and build my faith, I asked for what happened. I was never really disconnected from God, but I was asking from Him more than my spiritual understanding would allow me to grasp. And it wasn't a bad thing that I went through. You see, God's power is available for those who have the faith (the spiritual understanding) to use it. If you don't have the spiritual understanding of God, then there's only so much you can do with the power of God. You have to broaden the horizons of your spiritual understanding in order to more adequately tap into the power of the Spirit, which is always present and available.
