Faith - A Choice to Believe

I’m feeling very lead to write this blog this morning, mainly for my brother in Christ Basil, but who knows what the Lord has planned for it. Basil and I have been talking a lot about a desire for revival in our church and community. To be honest, this is mostly Basil talking and me listening. When he talks about it I can see the ache in his heart for God’s children and it makes me feel guilty because I know I’m part of the church that needs revival. It makes me want to do better but I know in my own strength I can not do better and I need the Lord to give me that strength and that fire (at least that’s my theological view on things). Basil wanted to pray with me last night at the church and I felt the spirit of the Lord and prayed the most earnest prayer that I could muster up acknowledging that there was a problem in me and asking for God’s help to fix it in Jesus’s name.

There’s a lot of things coming up with the Evangelism Explosion class that will need my time and time is one thing that I do not have a lot of these days. I used to faithfully get up an hour before work and spend time with God but over the last year the days that I manage to get myself out of bed early in the mornings has been few and far between. Last night I was thinking about the time that I’d need for EE and my conversation with Basil so I texted Basil to ask him to text me in the mornings when he gets up to ask me how long I’ve been up. I knew that because of my personality I wouldn’t want to let him down so this would push me to get up in the mornings. I believe this was an answer to my prayer at the church with Basil last night more than it was me reasoning through things. So it was set, starting today I was going to get up early and spend time with God. Today was going to be the start of change in me!

At 1:30 a.m. I woke up very, very sick! I have been a little under the weather lately but nothing like this. I had to have my wife bring me a bucket to throw up in while I was in the bathroom and I believe that’s about as much detail of the situation that you need. From 1:30 to around 2:30 I was up sick and didn’t sleep well after that because I had chills. When my alarm went off at 5:30 I was fully intending to stay in bed. I know today was going to be the day for change but this was a different story, I was sick and didn’t even know if I could go to work today. As I turned my alarm off I kept hearing the verse James 4:7 “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” As I was hearing the verse I kept thinking to myself, ‘Do you really believe this stuff or are these just verses to make you feel better but that can’t be applied to your life?’ In my mind I knew the answer but in my own strength I didn’t have the will power to do it. So I made a ‘choice’! My choice was not to be disciplined and get up after being sick all night. My choice wasn’t to will myself out of bed and it wasn’t even a choice to apply the scriptures to my life. It was simply a choice to ‘believe’. I do not know how much of what I’m saying is Biblical truth so please do not look at this as truth. I’m just saying what I believe at this moment in time which is subject to change but I do honestly feel lead to write about it.

I know this seems like a simple thing and that I probably seem more spiritually weak than you’d think I’d be at this stage in my life but to me this was a big step this morning. I’ve failed so many chances lately to put my faith into action and instead of choosing to believe what the scriptures say I have instead pulled the covers over my head and sunk back into the things that I can do under my own power; living my life the way I want and serving God where it made sense to do so. Revival in the community starts not in the community but instead inside each one of us. And revival inside of us starts by faith being given to us from above. But, when that faith is given to us from above maybe we still have the choice to believe. I think we need to choose to believe because it’s going to require us to go and do things that our flesh does not want to go and do. We need to choose to believe because everything that the Bible teaches is contrary to all the things that the world has been teaching us since we were children. We can’t overcome that without faith! I’m sure there’s a lot of things wrong in my theology here but this is sure how it felt this morning. It felt like I was given the gift to see the scriptures clearly. I was put into a position that required me to demonstrate faith and scripture was put into my head to help me through it. All of this was from God, not from me. It was a great gift! But I still had to decide if I believed or not. Once I made that decision my actions were not my own but instead was God giving me the strength and desire to do what needed to be done.

By the way, as I finish writing this I feel great! James 4:7 “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”