A Gift of Faith

THIS WEEK I had lunch with my dear friend Quinn. It was one of those really refreshing conversations that you wish you could have all the time. We sat at a picnic table and ate our salads and just talked for an hour and a half about how great God is. I told her about the yellow butterflies He seems to send my way so often, to remind me to be joyful. Three or four fluttered by while we sat there.

We talked about astronomy, the Holy Spirit, science, morality, weddings, oranges - pretty close to everything. I didn't want to leave. We couldn't stop talking about God. The conclusion I drew from everything was that God is so much bigger than we can know that the more we know Him the more He fascinates us. He is never boring, because we can't wrap our minds round Him. I like to think I know Him pretty well, but every now and then I learn something that gives me a glimpse of the bigger picture. If God is like a big oak tree, the best of us have only got, like, a leaf of Him.

Lately I learned a whole new reason to praise Him. Okay, so we think we understand faith, right? Faith is trusting what God says. Definitely. We are saved by grace through faith. Amazing. But it blows my mind to realize that faith is a gift from God in itself. It is a miracle, not a decision. Last week my community group watched a video of a message by John Piper from a recent retreat where he explained this concept. If we had faith because we decided to, we would be partially responsible for our salvation. If faith were a choice between good and evil, that would mean we aren't fallen people who tend toward evil. But we are.

It's funny to me how I failed to really notice this before. Jesus Himself explained it. In John 6:44-45 He says: "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written by the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me."

Jesus is saying that if anybody come to be saved by grace through faith in Him, that faith is because of God too. Do you know what this means? Salvation is in every way an direct act of God. He supplies the amazing grace, and He enables us to have faith in His promise despite our sinful nature.

This is encouraging and humbling at the same time. It means we don't have a hand in saving ourselves, and it means other people's salvation doesn't depend on us. That's assuring because that seems like too much responsibility - I can't save all my classmates, but I can be a part of what God is doing. When our hearts break over the lost and be hope and pray for them to be saved, it can give us hope to know that God can give the gift of faith to anyone who looks. And He wants to.

This morning pastor Mike discussed how faith is something that involves neither irrationality nor complete certainty. God doesn't require us to ignore evidence, but He wants us to "taste and see that the Lord is good." And it's okay if we aren't always sure. That's a good thing, because I learn plenty of things in New Testament class that I don't know what think about. Faith is trusting God, who makes and keeps crazy promises.

My favorite example that the pastor used today really cleared something up for me. It was from Genesis 15, which I read just a couple weeks ago.

v.5-6 "Then He brought him outside and said, 'Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.' And He said, '

Abraham makes sacrifices and lays them out in pieces, then falls asleep and has a vision. I couldn't figure out what it meant.

v. 17 "And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces."

In those days a covenant was made by chopping up animals and passing between the pieces. It was a way to say that if the promise was broken, may the same thing happen to the one who made the promise. So instead of letting Abraham pass through, God promised His faithfulness to His promise to bless his descendants. But Abraham's descendants weren't faithful like he was. So Jesus died to fulfill the vow.

It isn't hard to have faith in Jesus once you've met Him. I can't wait to see Him pour of a gift of faith on the people around me. And I can't wait to find out more about Him. We will keep learning about God, but we will never find an end to His faithfulness.

God is Moving

THIS WEEK is one of those weeks when I just have so many different things to tell you that God did that all I want to do is just write it all down. God is moving. I heard things this week that made me speechless and overjoyed. When you read it keep in mind the power in the name of Jesus and the depth of the love of God.

First, this morning at First Assembly my friend Jade came to understand the solution of something that has been weighing on her mind. Pastor Mike Patts explained that our place is in helping God build His fearless, indestructible church in the middle of a dangerous world. She has been trying for a long time to decide whether to pursue nursing or education as a major. God showed her today that she should be a nurse, and teach Sunday School in order to give kids a foundation, something eternally important. She prayed with a member of the team and came out crying with joy. I'm so happy for her because God made it so clear to her what path would be perfect for her.

I also found out that my Youth Pastor, Ryan Austin, and his wife are going to have their first baby soon. My whole church at home is so excited for them. I blogged about their wedding a while back!

Also, on Thursday I ended up staying for about an hour and a half after CRU - until midnight - listening to the testimonies of the team who had just come back from the Haiti mission trip. What they said sounded like something out of the book of Acts and has me starving to go on a mission trip, or to see the same things on my campus. you're not gonna believe some of this stuff, but neither could they at the time. I'll try to tell you in as few words as possible.

Okay. Well soon after they got there, they began praying for a member of their team named Kelly, who was badly suffering from a sinus infection. They prayed in Jesus' name for a long time with persistence until it worked. First she felt the sickness disappear, and then they heard her congestion slowly melt away as she breathed. Miracle! She was completely healed.

Then a horrible kind of burning and pressure descended on her chest, and several others could feel it too. They prayed in the same manner that you would go to battle with an enemy - slowly and steadily pushing it back. The name of Jesus drove it back further and further, and they prayed late into the night.

In this process the Holy spirit began showing up in unexpected ways. Two of the men had been doing most of the spoken prayer, but one now felt that God had something to say through somebody else. Just when a young woman named Ashley was thinking it couldn't be her, she heard a string of words just jump out of her mouth, and they turned out to be a word of knowledge that pertained to how Kelly had been having trouble trusting God to have a plan. She didn't know if it meant anything to her, but Kelsey cried because she knew God had spoken right to her.

A young guy named Connor, who says he hadn't been doing a lot of talking for the two and a half hours that they prayed, was one of several who received visions. But his was most important. He saw deep, crushing darkness which was then pierced by brilliant light that came with the perfect peace of God. He heard that he was supposed to tell Kelly "Black and White." What does that mean? He asked God to confirm it, and another team member entered the room wearing black pants and a white shirt. He asked again, and one of the other members began to pray aloud about darkness and light. So he told Kelly he needed to say it, whatever it meant: "black and white!"

I'm not lying - at that moment, a glass table beside them shattered into countless people. Nobody broke it. Nobody leaned on it. They fell over themselves in praise and awe and confusion. God was shattering through the darkness with light. They stopped praying for the night, and the deep burning pressure was finally gone.

A few days later they told the story to anyone on the team who hadn't been there, and when they pronounced "Black and White," a 4.6 earthquake shook them on "white." There had not been a tremor in Haiti for almost a year. It was on the news, and they had to let their parents know that they were alright.

Acts 4:31 "And when they had prayed, the place where they were assebled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness."

The team said that they were a little nervous that when they told the story to us all the windows where we were might break.

They told us that many other things happened to them and have continued to happen since they came back. More things than they had time to tell us about. While they were there they witnessed the beautiful love of God shining in the song and dance of orphans who received new clean bunk beds in the place of their rotting mattresses. Kids who were more than happy. They were full of the love of God that this team brought with them.

And now, in response to Pastor Mike Patts' sermon today about "doing what God is blessing," helping to build His church, I am determined to go or stay anywhere He would like me to, just to see Him move like this. The crazy thing is that all of this is just the highlights of the Haiti team's experience and of my own. God responds when we surrender all to Him and ask Him in faith. There is power in the name of Jesus.

Revelation 1:18 "I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forever more. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death." As John Piper has pointed out, as we realize more and more that Christ is supreme over absolutely everything, temptation shrinks and our devotion grows. We recognize Him as our treasure and Lord, and everything down here gets less overwhelming. He says to ask and receive, seek and find. Go on ahead and ask in the name of Jesus, see where you fit into what He is doing. God is moving. He will resepond in ways bigger than we can imagine.

Walking Free

THIS WEEK was my Spring Break, and I'm going back to school tomorrow. It's been nice to be back with my family for a little while. It was a special week. My lovely cousin Rina slept over a couple days ago, and yesterday in Texas my Uncle Steve and my new Aunt Shannon were married. I got to go all around the city with my mom to drop off cakes and help my sister babysit our little cousins Maya and Marco. Weeks like these are special to me.

Hanging out with babies is the coolest. To them, everything is new and amazing. This week was the first time I've seen one year old Marco walking. This guy would not tolerate being put into his play pin because he didn't want to stop walking. He has to be out and about, making his feet strong. There was no time to waste.

There is something special about being able to walk. There is a certain freedom to being able to pull yourself up off the ground and move yourself as far as you need to go. Not everybody has the privilege, and if you can walk it's easy to start taking it for granted.

One day Jesus was in Jerusalem by a pool near the Sheep Gate, and He saw a multitude of disabled people. They all sat there waiting for the water to be stirred up, because they believed the first one in would be healed. Jesus searched out one in particular, one who had been unable to walk for almost forty years.

John 5:6-7 "When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, 'Do you want to be made well?' The sick man answered Him, 'Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.'"

Can you imagine not walking for decades, and having no hope of ever walking again? Think of everything you couldn't do. Think of what you could miss. Hear the desperation in the voice of that man by the Sheep Gate as he tells the Lord that he has no hope of being healed.

v. 8 "Jesus said to him, 'Rise, take up your bed and walk.'"

Jesus got in trouble for healing this guy, because He made him carry his bed on the Sabbath day.

That man walked away with his mind changed. It must have been like sprouting wings! It must have been like being a child again. He probably didn't want to stop walking once he had started.

Jesus not only healed that guy's body, but He healed his soul too. He was crippled and hopeless, but he walked away nonetheless by the power of God, because God looked at him in love.

When my Uncle Neil and Aunt Trisha came to pick up Maya and Marco, I could see on their faces that there is no greater joy in their lives than those two kids. Even though Maya left kicking and screaming because she was having so much fun, my uncle dealt with her so patiently, like our Father deals with us.

I think that one day when I have kids it will probably teach me a lot about how God looks at us. But I know that any good parent loves his kids more than anything. My own parents happen to be the best example of earthly good parenting I've seen.

Besides healing people on the Sabbath, Jesus got into a lot of trouble for referring to God as His Father. The implications are huge.

How much must God love us to give His Son for us? It makes me think of my uncle Neil and Maya and Marco. Nothing is more precious in his life than those little people. But God gave His Son. I remember a skit by the Skit Guys on YouTube, where a man looks at his baby son and says that if he had to do something like that, "the world would be out of luck." We can't imagine how much He loves us.

In John 5:26-27 Jesus says, "For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man."

Son of God, Son of Man. One with God, One of us. Righteous, but in the form of sin. He had to be broken to be glorified. He had to die to make us live. The antidote to a previously incurable disease. Strength for the feet of a lame man. God saw this as worth giving the life of His own Son for, to make us His sons and daughters too.

God came in the flesh to make us free. The freedom Marco feels crossing a room on his short legs. The same freedom felt by the man by the Sheep Gate who begins to walk against all odds! He came to bear our griefs and let us walk free.

Squirrel!

THIS WEEK I'm back home for Spring Break. It's really good to be back. I could use a break. God came through this week just like I told you He would! My test and my project went just fine, and I made it to the weekend.

Today I'm not going to blog for very long. I just thought I'd share with you something fun I saw yesterday.

So I was in my room doing my Bible study with the window blinds up. I was writing in the front of my Bible the names of the verses my friend Debbie gave me, verses to help explain the gospel. They're really good, and I am going to memorize them so I always have them with me.

By the way, those verses if you wanted to know them are: Genesis 1:27, Isaiah 59:2, Romans 5:8, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, John 1:12-13, and Ephesians 2:8-9. Enjoy!

Anyway, I was in the process of writing these down when I saw a squirrel running about on the ground by the fence. Squirrels are always very urgent about doing something, and it usually has something to do with food. Their tiny bodies are just full of rapid movement, and they just won't sit still.

This one was very interested in the pecans which have fallen all over the ground in my backyard. He was noticing all of them and trying to find the best ones. There were plenty of nuts all over, but while I watched he only found two that he liked.

You should have seen him. He would first find a good pecan, and then, as if he was afraid someone would come along and steal it, he would immediately begin to claw at the earth to make a little hole. When the hole was deep enough he would press the nut down with all of his squirrely might and cover it up again. Once the treasure was secure, he would go search for another.

While I watched him I understood that this was exactly what I am supposed to do. It made me think of the verses I was writing down. I realized that I need to treat them, and any other little treasures I find in God's word, the way the squirrel treated the pecans.

We should seek God with urgency, like we will starve if we don't. We need to pass over everything that is not true about Him. And when He reveals Himself to us and teaches us something, we had better hide that truth in our hearts like somebody was coming to steal it away. In fact, Jesus warns us that somebody might try.

In the parable of the seeds and the sower Jesus compared the word of God to a seed. Sometimes it falls by the wayside and birds come and eat it.

In Matthew 13:19 Jesus explains, "When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside."

God's word is a treasure. I feel like that squirrel was God's way of telling me to make sure I really make those verses mine, to equip myself with them, to make sure I don't lose them.

Psalm 119:10-11 "With my whole heart I have sought You; oh, let me not wander from Your commandments! Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You."

Squirrels look for nuts for one reason: food! Survival. Life. Let's treat God's word that way and think about it like Jesus described it: Matthew 4:4 "But He answered and said, 'It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.''"