Following in Faith Challenge: How can we trust God with big things in our lives with our faith by following his directions if we can’t follow his instructions with little things? My challenge to you is to trust God with something in your life that is something small to follow through with. Once you have something that you think will help increase your faith in God then set a goal or how you plan of improving yourself then act upon it. Because faith is a( belief) then getting doing what it is that you put faith in is the( works) then once you will reap what you have sown. Example: Say you have a problem with tithing your money. Set a goal to tithe every time you get paid putting faith in God that he will make a way. Even if you make 1 dollar put 10cents in the collection plate.
Luke 21:1-4
The Widow’s Two Mites
1 And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, 2 and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. 3 So He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; 4 for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God,[a] but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.”
Following In Faith and Your Purpose
Please Read Matthew 14:22-27
Matthew 14:22-24ft v The bible says in Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.[[ Looking at Verse 22-23]] Now once you begin to step into your purpose sometimes the Lord will have to send you on your way ahead of him while he separates you from the rest of the crowd. The crowd wont be going in the same way Jesus needs us to go on our walk. We are to be set apart being the salt and light of the Earth! As his disciple it shows that Jesus wants to know that if he sends you on your way ahead of him can you make it trusting that he is going to be there when you get to the other side. Trusting is Bolded because Faith is trusting because you cannot see what is on the other side or on middle of your journey all you know is the Lord said he will meet you on the other side. That is faith because his disciples just continued and set out on their journey. In Verse 24 As the disciples got half way to where they were going things started to get a little shaky. The bible says that the boat was tossed by the waves for the wind was contrary. Contrary means to oppose, to go against, to disagree. Now we all know that Faith is evidence of the things not seen and the wind can’t be seen but there was evidence of the wind because their boat was not agreeing with it and was getting tossed by the waves. So we know that once we start to have faith about where Jesus is taking us things will start to get in our way because the enemy does not agree with where the Lord is taking you. So just like the winds things are going to start shaking your boat trying to frighten you so you don’t get where he is telling you to meet him.
Question: What is it in your life that God is telling you that you need to have faith in him with?
Question: Will you keep holding on knowing he will meet you on the other side though the winds will try to go against you on the way?
Sometimes God will have you do something’s that people just don’t understand. Now Jesus never did things ordinary like the world. So when you are stepping out on faith people, things, will not understand what it is that you are doing. Yet the Lord has told you an instruction to follow. Luke 9:23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. The verse doesn’t say when you think is best for you, on your timing, or on other people around you timing. He said daily take up your cross and follow him. Even if you are in the middle of something and its not completed Jesus said take up your cross and follow him. That mean’s stop what you are doing and follow Jesus!
Luke 5:12-14 12And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 13And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him. 14And he charged him to tell no man: but go, and shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.
Sometimes like this man God needs to touch us, change our lives, and then send us on our way so we must go but leave in faith on our journey but in silence. It will keep us from being hindered and having clouded judgment on what other people think Psalm 118:9It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes. See Jesus sent this man in silence and the man followed what Jesus told him to do and the man was able to for fill his purpose at that point in his journey.
Question: Will you deny yourself and what others around you saying to follow Christ in Faith?
Luke 9:57-60 [[The Cost of Discipleship]]
Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.”
58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
59 Then He said to another, “Follow Me.”
But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”
60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.”
Now as disciples and servants of God we must take up our cross. Here is another man who wanted to follow Jesus. Yet Jesus said to him that as a disciple you never know where it is that he may take you. Now the creatures of the earth like the wild life have a place to stay and even the people of the world have place to rest their heads but being a follower of Christ you must be able to get up and go when the lord tells you to go. Jesus came here to forfil his purpose so he could not just stop what he was doing to rest. He had to keep pressing forward to get to the place where he was called to be. Just like us if we are walking in our purpose for our life we must not rest but forfil his purpose. Our rest is in him that’s why Jesus said Matthew 11:28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Question: Are you willing to leave everything behind you to follow Jesus to where it is that he needs you to go?
Matthew 14:25-27
Now Jesus decided that he was going to meet them at a certain timing which in this timing was the fourth watch of the night. Now the fourth watch of the night is before dawn, in the darkest hours. Now things may get to appoint that seems like Christ isn’t going to show up because it has gotten rough. You may ask yourself well Lord you said you’d come if I follow you and things have gotten dark but he will come right on time just like the fourth hour of the night is right before dawn he is the dawn[[light]]in your darkness. In verse 26 the disciples saw something walking on the water and it was Jesus yet they cried out in fear thinking it was a ghost. See when Jesus gets to us at the point in our lives in faith where we have followed in faith and things got dark for a second we sometimes mistake other things for picking us up and not Jesus. Yet do not be mistaken it is Jesus who is there to come to you in those hours of need. In Matthew 14:27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.” The Lord needs you to know that you must not be afraid though you have followed him in faith and things may get shaky or even dark, that you can be happy because He is with you.
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