Crisis of Faith

According to the dictionary "crisis" means an unstable situation of extreme danger or difficulty.
Are you in a crisis right now?

For people of faith a crisis is an opportunity for our faith to motivate our response to the crisis. God IS sovereign over the affairs of men. Faith in God keeps us steady in the midst of impossible circumstances. Faith is being absolutely convinced there is light at the end of the tunnel even when we cannot see the end of the tunnel.

Now if you're like me, every now and then, my faith runs up against a big monster called my feelings. Sometimes my feelings still are stronger than my faith. My feelings then cause a different kind of crisis..... a crisis of faith.

My faith says, "stay steady...let the Lord work it out." My feelings are screaming, "DO THIS! DO THAT!" My faith says, "BE SILENT and KNOW THAT I AM GOD." My feelings are saying, "get revenge", "make them pay".

Guess who wins?

If I had a good prayer time that morning ... my faith wins virtually everytime.

If I skipped my time with the Lord that morning... my faith is not energized as much... and my feelings may win out and make things worse.

I define a good prayer time as one in which my spirit, my feelings, and my mind, and my mouth, are all in agreement about the Lord. And I experience His presence inside of me that morning.

When I'm in that place... there are very, very, few external crises that can cause a crisis of faith in me.

DP

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Building Your Spiritual House

How is your house remodeling project coming along? Your spiritual house remodeling project that is! This NEW BLOG will hopefully build some community around all of us praying with more intention and passion...and discussing the process periodically. Peter tells us in 1Pe 2:5 [Come] and, like living stones, be yourselves built [into] a spiritual house, for a holy (dedicated, consecrated) priesthood, to offer up [those] spiritual sacrifices [that are] acceptable and pleasing to God through Jesus Christ. If you are like me, you have spent years resting in what Jesus Christ has done, receiving the free gift of salvation, going to church, reading the bible, getting into small groups, even leading some, as well as praying for myself and others. As great as all that is, I could not escape the sense that there is more to my relationship with God than I had experienced. I was not seeing breakthroughs in several key areas of life and I was not seeing those breakthroughs in my Christian friends e...
Read more

Why Pray the Word?

Image
My kids used to ask me, "Dad, why do you pray so many bible verses outloud?" It seems many people who consider praying the Word at some point wonder why they should do it. On one hand it seems kind of foolish, praying the words God wrote back to Him. Are we so dull that we cannot come up with meaningful prayers ourselves? I told my kids at the time that when you pray alot you run out of your own words and since I want God's promises to come alive in our family I declare them outloud. The Bible is full of people praying that way, quoting other Scriptures. By watching me they are learning how to pray the Word as well. The other day I felt like the Lord let me in on a even better reason why praying the Word is so important. The revelation came through my son D.J. He's two years old now and learning to talk up a storm. How does he learn to talk? The same way we all did, by making the same sounds his dad and mom make. He learns to speak to us by saying the things ...
Read more

Jesus and the Temple

Image
The Jewish culture has always centered on temple worship. It is we gentiles who are ignorant of it. Yet we know from Ephesians that Jesus died to make one new man out of the two. (Jew and Gentile) In our ignorance we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Our modern form of worship pales in comparison to simply following the pattern established by God in temple worship. That does not mean we sacrifice animals. It means we honor the process of worshipping Christ according to the same pattern he himself fulfilled according to Hebrews. Eastern Gate – Jesus Christ the only way, Brazen Altar – Jesus Christ our Savior, Laver – Jesus Christ our Lord (reflect on the Ten Commandments). The Candlestick – The Holy Spirit, Jesus the Light of the World, Table of Shewbred – Jesus the Word and the Bread of Life, Altar of Incense – Worship the Father in Spirit and Truth, Holy of Holies – Intimacy with the Father through Jesus the Ark of the Covenant. If a new pattern of worshi...
Read more