For you who don’t know Brent he is a great father, and
husband and runs his own company which has been number one in central Arkansas
for the last two month in its field. He and his wife now direct a ministry at
FPB. Brent is also in a wheelchair because of disease that is holding him
hostage. If anyone one is backing up what they preached with their living he is.
His message was powerful and pushed us to walk by faith.
There were two things that jumped out at me in his message.
Two things I hope I never forget.
1.
In his text found in 1Kings 17, he uses the
story of Elijah going to the widow’s house. Verse 9 says that God told the
prophet to go to the widow’s house because He had told the lady the prophet was
coming. “…I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.”
Sometime before Elijah ever arrived or even had need to go, God had spoken to
this lady and told her that she was going to help the prophet. More than that
that she was going to provide for the man of God in this famine. But somewhere
between that visit from God and when Elijah shows up this woman has forgotten
or lost hope in what God told here. When Elijah gets there he finds the woman
of promise planning to die. The woman who God promised would have a miracle
during the famine has given up and is planning to quit. She doesn’t even act
like she knew the prophet was coming. Oh, we know that her faith is rekindled
when the prophet get there but I couldn’t help but wonder how many promises we
continually discard because things get rough or they don’t happen as soon as we
thought they should. I have to remember that God is not limited by my
circumstances at the moment. His promises are still the word of His mouth and
He cannot lie. Wow! I will never look at this story the same. Don’t get so caught
up in your struggle that you don’t even notice God has provided you a miracle.
2.
Brent also used the feeding of the five
thousand. This may be the only miracle that all four of the Gospel’s record. It
is during this event that when the need of dealing with all these hungry people
rises, Jesus tells the disciples to feed them (Matthew 14:15). To which Philip
responds with how much money it will cost to feed these people (John 6:5-7). Jesus
was God in the flesh; He knew what He was going to do. He asks the disciples
what they were going to do. As Brent asked us yesterday, God knows what He is
about to do but what are we going to do? How are we going to respond to
powerful call of God to be faithful? The
Almighty is not worrying about what He can do in and around our lives. God is
going to see if we trust Him enough to respond in faith.
Too many times we want to do the will of God
and have faith but we will only walk by faith if we have our own safety-net or
back-up plan. I’ve seen too many people attempt to step out in faith but they approach
the call of God saying, “Well, I’ll take this step but if it don’t work out I
still have this option.” That is not faith I don’t think. Paul instructed us to
put on the whole armor of God in Ephesians 6. In listing the armor he says, “Above
all, taking the shield of faith…” The word shield here means, a large shield as in door shaped. It
comes from a word that means a portal or
entrance, a door or gate. The shield of faith here is a door size shield.
We are commanded to walk behind it and we will often not be able to see around
it. God does not need you and me to make the path we just need to trust Him
enough to walk behind faith. He has planned great and wonderful steps and is
excited about where He is taking us (Psalm 37:23). I wonder if God is looking
at you today and asking what are you going to do?
Thanks Brent for a wonderful message and I trust we will all
stop and reexamine how we are handling our faith.
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