Miracle Producing Faith

Let me start out by saying that one of the greatest blessings about living in Branson is my church.  I'm so beyond thankful that the Lord placed me at FBC Forsyth for my internship while at the Kanakuk Institute.  God is continually using the people there to encourage me and to push me towards the cross.
Y'all, God rocked me to my core this morning at church.  We're currently working our way through the book of Matthew on Sunday mornings.  This morning Pastor Juston taught on Matthew 9:18-34.  In this passage, we see Jesus perform 4 different miracles and in each of these, Jesus was responding to a request made in faith.  In verse 18 we see a synagogue official come and bow down in front of Jesus and ask Him to come and raise his daughter from the dead.  Now let's just look at that for a moment, a synagogue official, an official of the very people who were accusing Jesus of blasphemy, came and bowed down before Jesus, an act that in itself was worship to Jesus.  Whoa!  Talk about taking a stand for your faith even when it goes against how people think you should act.  If we are truly following Jesus in faith, it will cause tension in our lives.  But look at Jesus' response, He got up and began to follow the official.  Jesus responded to the faith of the official!
As Jesus was on His way to the official's house, a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for 12 years, came up behind Jesus and touched the fringe of His cloak because she believed that if she only touched His garment that she would be healed.  For us today, we may think, "Okay, she was willing to touch His garment, so what?"  Well let me tell you, this was a big deal back in Jewish culture.  This woman because of her hemorrhage, had been unclean for 12 years, meaning she hadn't been able to worship corporately during that time, which for Jews meant that she hadn't been able to have a right relationship with God for that period of time because she wasn't able to have a priest make a sacrifice on her behalf.  Not only that, but since she was unclean if she touched someone, she would make them unclean also and since Jesus was considered a rabbi, to make Him unclean could have resulted in her death.  Yet, she risked her life because she had the faith that if she just touched the fringe of Jesus' cloak that she would be healed.  In verse 22, we see just that, Jesus tells the woman that her faith has made her well.  We then see Jesus continue on to the official's house where He raises his daughter from the dead.
As Jesus leaves the official's house, 2 blind men followed Him asking Him to have mercy on them.  Jesus asked them if they believed He was able to do it and they answered yes, He told them that it would be done according to their faith.  Jesus then healed them, but told them not to tell anyone, but we see in the next verse that the men went out and told people about Jesus and how He had healed them.  We see here that if God has truly touched your life, you can't help but tell others about what He's done!
The last miracle we see in this passage starts in verse 32 where a mute, demon-possessed man was brought to Jesus.  Notice that the demon-possessed man was BROUGHT to Jesus, he didn't come on his own, because no one who was demon-possessed would be able or willing to go to the demon's enemy and ask for healing.  But there was at least 1 person in that demon-possessed man's life that had faith that Jesus could heal him and Jesus was responding to that person's faith.  Jesus then cast out the demon, the mute man spoke, and the crowds were amazed.  Yet the Pharisees claimed that Jesus cast out demons by the ruler of the demons rather than the truth that Jesus has power over all.
So in all 4 of these miracles, we see Jesus responding to people's faith.  How great to know that our faith unlocks unlimited potential!  We are not called to a life of safety, but rather to a life of faith and sometimes for me, it's really hard to live a life of faith rather than safety.  I wrote in my last blog post about how I'm pursuing a job with the St. Louis Cardinals, well I've now applied for 8 different jobs with them and I found out this past week that I didn't get 4 of them.  I'm not going to lie, it was discouraging, but then I was reminded that God is in control and His plan and timing is perfect.  Is it easy?  Not really, but good thing I serve a God is greater than all and has conquered all.  If I ask in faith, the Lord will respond.  And I have prayer warriors going to battle with me asking for the Lord to respond.  Now don't get me wrong, just because we ask for something in faith, doesn't mean that God is going to necessarily give it to us.  But God does tell us that sometimes we don't receive because we don't ask (James 4:2).
God has taught me a lot about being willing to ask over the past few years.  How do we ask?  We pray.  James 5:16 tells us that the prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.  I've seen proof of this in my own life.  I've seen a dear friend and mentor have a baby and about to start her 3rd trimester with another when science thought she wouldn't be able to have anymore kids.  I've seen friends and family members get jobs.  I've seen my grandpa walk after getting his right leg amputated and told that he would never walk again.  I've seen people come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  I've seen my own dad grow into the role of a spiritual leader.  I could go on and on about the things I've seen the Lord accomplish because there were righteous people willing to ask in faith that the Lord work.  And there are things I will continue to pray for, asking the Lord in faith, knowing that He will respond.  So I encourage you, if there is something that you are struggling with, ask God, believing that He will answer you.  Get others to go before God on your behalf.  And watch how God responds.

Faith Like Abraham

I've mentioned before that I hate change so this is nothing new.  I love schedules and I love plans.  Now I like to have adventures every now and then as well, but I want those adventures to fit into my schedules and plans.  I've been in Branson for 4 years now and I absolutely LOVE it.  A lot of people don't understand how I love living here, but I do!  I'm a part of a solid church, I love my job, I have awesome community, and Branson is just a funny place to live and I love all of those things.  With that being said, my prayer since moving here has always been that this would not be a place that the Lord would allow me to grow complacent (because I knew it would be easy to do).  Well, about a year ago now, the Lord started working on my heart and put a bit of a discontentment in my heart about staying in Branson.  At the same time He was reigniting in me a desire to one day work for the St. Louis Cardinals (will I ever not feel funny saying that?).  Through prayer and seeking godly wisdom I decided to stay in Branson another year and start doing what I could to pursue a job with the Cardinals from here.  So that's what I've been doing the past few months.  If I'm being completely honest, the whole idea still seems far fetched to me.  That is where faith and trusting God come in...

I've been continually reminded of the study of Abraham we did at the Kanakuk Institute my first semester there.  I've always admired Abraham's faith in that when God told him to leave his home, he did, no questions asked.  If God asks me to do the tiniest thing, I have a million questions that I want answered before I am willing to do what He asked of me.  One day during our study though, Karen Chancey made the comment that she wasn't sure had Abraham known everything that He was going to go through that he would have gone so willingly.  And I look back on my life and that's me.  As much as I love having a plan and knowing what's going to happen, had I known that at the age of 25 I would be single, living in Branson, and 4 years removed from college and still not really knowing what I wanted to do with my life, I'm not sure I would have followed some of the things God asked me to do.  I can look back on my life though and see how God has used each of those moments to grow me and for that I am thankful.

So here I am, once again, questioning the Lord if He really wants me to leave this place I now call home and move back to a place where I have minimal community and pursue a job that seems so far fetched.  I'll be honest, at first the journey was really exciting.  I could see the way the Lord was working and the doors He was opening, but the minute I hit a bump in the road just over a week ago, I started questioning whether or not this really was what He wanted from me.  Then God worked it that Pastor Sam preached on Sunday and I knew the Lord was speaking to me through Pastor Sam.  He preached on the calling of the disciples and how in the Matthew account, the disciples go without question immediately when Jesus calls them and that's how some of us are.  God has given some of us the gift of faith that we immediately go when called and praise the Lord for those people.  I'm not one of them though, which is where the Luke account comes in.  In Luke, the account goes into more detail and the disciples first hear the truth that Jesus spoke, then they were obedient when Jesus told them to cast their nets even though it didn't make sense, then they saw the immediate blessing, and then when Jesus told them to follow Him, they left their boats and nets and even the blessing of fish that Jesus had just given them and went and followed Him.  Sometimes the Lord asks us to do things that don't make sense, but He always blesses our obedience, even if we don't always see it at first.  So that's where I am right now, trying to be obedient to what the Lord has asked me to do, even it doesn't make sense to me at the moment.  But praise God that even when I waiver in my faith and even when I believe the lies of the devil over His truth, He is still God and He is still on the throne, loving me and working all things for my good (Rom. 8:28).

Another little known fact about me is that God tends to speak to me through songs, which is funny because I have no musical abilities whatsoever.  So I'll leave you with a couple of songs.  This is the one that describes my feelings at the moment:

And these are the ones that I've been clinging to as my prayers during this time: