On Faith Pt. I

Today I've been thinking about Luke 18, which is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. I had been praying it this morning at the southside city prayer gathering.

At the end of the parable of the persistent widow, Jesus asks the question, "when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?"

Clearly, given the context of Jesus teaching a parable to teach that we should always pray (night and day BTW!), the question is whether there will be faith that moves people to the place of prayer.

This is a HUGE issue and one that I have felt God speaking to me about today.

In Luke 22:31, Jesus tells Peter: "Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail."

Shortly after that he says a similar statement twice to the disciples saying "Pray that you do not fall into temptation".

In my own life, as well as in the lives of many people that I know, I believe that the enemy is hard at work seeking to undermine our faith. Certainly I am aware that this is not a new work of the enemy, however I feel God speaking to me about a particular dimension of this attack.

I don't see this attack focused on faith in the person of Christ (i.e. His deity) but rather on faith about how active God is TODAY.

Our faith in the person and work of Christ may be secure, but when faith weakens in regard to God being active today, the first evidence is that we stop praying. When we don't believe that much will happen when we pray, or when we don't believe that God is doing very much around us, then prayer falls to the wayside.

Right now I sense a weariness in the arena of faith about God's activity both for today and for the future.

Today there was a strong battle in my own life over this issue and I have sensed the Lord speaking to me about it this afternoon.

This is a difficult time here in Edmonton. There seems to be little evidence of any significant activity of God these days. There are prophetic words about the future, but there is little manifest activity right now. I see (and feel) a certain degree of scorn and cynicism about the prophetic words; words that are intended to stir us to the place of prayer!

So I look at the words of Jesus to the disciples:

"Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation."

thoughts

As I was praying today, the Lord drew my attention to a passage of Scripture:

To keep me from becoming conceited... there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Cor. 12:7-10

As I was praying God brought the phrase 'I will glory in my weakness' into my mind. I knew that it was from Paul's writings and I soon found it in 2 Corintians 12.

I was bit taken aback, as I had never really thought about 'glorying in the weakness' of these circumstances. Sure, I was familiar with the passage, but had not applied it in this way.

What also strikes me is how little I wanted to do it. I still would much rather have the circumstances change!

I am also impacted by the reality that I am not allowing God's grace to be sufficient for me. (How's that for a wake up call!)

All this requires more prayer and thought... probably just prayer!

A Honey Glory!

For many years, I've been deeply impacted by David Ruis' song 'Let Your Glory Fall'. I've listened to it and prayed around it for over 10 years.

Let your glory fall in this room
Let it go forth from here to the nations
Let your fragrance rest in this place
As we gather to seek your face

Father of creation, unfold your sovereign plan
Raise up a chosen generation
That will march through the land
All of creation is longing
For your unveiling of power
Would you release your anointing
Oh God let this be the hour

Ruler of the nations the world has yet to see
The full release of your promise
The church in victory
Turn to us Lord and touch us
Make us strong in your might
Overcome our weakness
That we could stand up and fight

Let your kingdom come
Let your will be done
Let us see on earth
The glory of your son

by David Ruis

I've been preaching lately on the manifest glory of God. I got an email asking me why we should desire to see the glory of God; why is it necessary? isn't it rather selfish to want to see God's glory?

My first reaction was that if Moses could ask to see the manifest glory of God, why can't we?

It's interesting to note that this person has had some rather unfortunate experiences with 'charismatic' Christian expressions, and given that the charismatic wing of the church are pretty much the only people who ever talk about the manifest glory of God, I wasn't entirely surprised.

I've been in many charismatic gatherings, and so I too know what he's talking about.

For sure I long for a more experiential relationship with God, but I guess how I've been talking about God's glory is a bit different:

I believe that the glory of God is about proximity or closeness to God.

Every time we read of a person in the Bible encountering the manifest Glory of God, they are in close proximity to God. We are designed to long to be in close proximity to God. This desire increases in us once we come to know Christ. We 'taste and see' that He is good. We recognize that He is, as the Scripture says, more desirable than any other created thing, and we want more. We want to be closer. We want greater proximity.

I also believe that to God, His glory is found most fully within his character...within his nature. When Moses asked to see God's glory, the Lord's response was to show him what He is LIKE; that is, His nature, His character: The Lord, slow to anger and abounding in love and kindness... etc.

I find this to be a vital truth: sometimes people have made the glory of God mostly about ecstatic spiritual experiences that some people can relate to and other cannot. But in God's encounter with Moses, He clearly wasn't just giving Moses an ecstatic experience for the sake of spiritual entertainment. God was interested in Moses encountering God's character and nature; the essence of who He is.

Moses asked "teach me your ways so I may know you..." A few verses later he asks "Now show me your glory". Moses understood that to encounter the glory was to encounter God's character and nature!

God has taught me a lot about His glory since the days I first started to pray around David Ruis' song. My thinking on it has been greatly expanded.

Yet for all this time, I've wanted to be like Moses how simply couldn't live without encountering the Glory of God.

I don't want to be a person who can just 'take it or leave it'.

So I'm praying these days for my heart to be expanded in it's desire and thirst for greater proximity to God: to see His glory, to know His character, to touch the honey Presence!