Build Up – II

Colossians 2:^6-7 “Since you have accepted Christ Jesus as Lord, live in union with him. Keep your roots deep in him, build your lives on him, and become stronger in your faith, as you were taught. And be filled with thanksgiving.” (GNT).

Yesterday, we looked at two of the things that can lead to faith becoming weak – Lack of INTEREST and Poor Lifestyle CHOICES. Whenever you change your belief to line up with your behaviour, you short-change your life and your destiny. You are to change, by the power of God, to what God’s ways are. Not to change your thinking to what your ways are.

#3. Unexplainable TRAGEDY: The story is told of a couple that went to a restaurant with their two-year-old daughter. A man, after eating his food, walked up to the table where the couple was seated, brought out his gun, and shot the two-year-old dead in cold blood. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain of the parents. The question on most people’s minds was, why would God allow such a thing? Why wouldn’t God make the gun freeze? Why didn’t God put a wall around that little girl? Whenever we see unexplainable tragedies and we go strictly by logic, our faith becomes weak. Why does a good God allow bad things to happen to innocent people? We look at some people and we wonder why bad things happen to good people. When we look at it purely from logic, we struggle with our faith.

#4. Misunderstanding of Biblical FAITH. Most times because we misunderstand what Biblical faith is, we struggle in our faith. People miss faith by going in two errant directions. The first is, people miss faith by thinking that God is a genie. So, once you just rub the bottle and make a wish. And if you have enough faith, God will come out of the bottle and grant your wish. Listen, God is God, and you are not. God can do anything, and He promises to do exceedingly abundantly for you if you are His child. However, God is a sovereign God. He has His own mind. He has His own will. He does as He pleases. We are to align with Him, we are not to manipulate Him to align with us. We are to align with God.

The other errant direction is to reduce Biblical faith to a formula. For example, someone says go to church, roll on the floor – three times to the left and three times to the left. Then read the prayer of Jabez five times, and then you will get your breakthrough. Unfortunately, that is what people are seeking. You will be shocked at what people want to hear. And some shylocks just capitalize on that and give people drama. God wants you to grow in your faith because not understanding Biblical faith is a big issue.

Prayer: Father, by Your Spirit please keep my roots deep in Jesus, build my life on Jesus, so that my faith can become stronger and be filled with thanksgiving, in Jesus Name. Amen!