March 23
Num 36:1-Deut 1:46 | PS 66:1-20 | Prov 11:24-26 | Luke 5:29-6:11
When we claim to have faith it means that we not only give mental assent to God, it also means that we put our full trust in Him. Once before I explained that this can be illustrated as a chair. One can agree that the structure before them is indeed a chair, but trust comes when one puts their full weight in that chair trusting that it will support them. If one first places a rock, then had a lighter person sit first before placing their own weight in it, that is not trust, that is not faith. Yet, that is what most do. They hold back from evangelizing for fear they will be mocked or maligned. They hold back from changing places of worship for fear of what family members might say. When we approach God timidly, not boldly, we are trusting in other things, not God.
We read in Deuteronomy 1:21-22, “Look! He has placed the land in front of you. Go and occupy it as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you. Don’t be afraid! Don’t be discouraged!’ “But you all came to me and said, ‘First, let’s send out scouts to explore the land for us. They will advise us on the best route to take and which towns we should enter.’“ God said, the land is yours. The people said, “maybe not, let’s analyze it ourselves first”. This is not trust. This is unbelief. When the scouts or spies returned with their analysis, though the land was as God promised, the Canaanites were big and fortified, and we see the response as they trusted their eyes, gave into fear, and we see Moses reaction to their response in 1:29-30, “But I said to you, ‘Don’t be shocked or afraid of them! The Lord your God is going ahead of you. He will fight for you, just as you saw him do in Egypt.” Moses gave multiple reasons why they should trust God, but we see the outcome in 1:32, “But even after all he did, you refused to trust the Lord your God,“.
Before we are too hard on the Israelites, are we really much better? They let fear and lack of faith paralyze them. Many put their trust in religion and tradition and refuse to embark on a path of faith for fear of them. We see Jesus’ description of this in Luke 5:37-39, “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins. But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.” We must be willing to break those old molds, those shackles which prevent us from moving forward in faith. The prophets of old spoke forth whatever God told them, not even understanding what they were saying at times, as described in 1 Peter 1:10-12. We are told in Ephesians 2:8-9, that our salvation rests on God’s grace through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. For our part it does not rest on works, but faith, as we read, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” May we all recognize our full dependence upon Him daily, as we move forward in this life of faith which God so beautifully offers each and every one of us.
Messages from Pastor Lloyd Pulley: