There are many people that live way below the faith level that they have in God. Is faith merely what you believe? In the American churches we have often replaced true faith, with doctrine. We have come to define faith as merely something that we believe when we pray. When you look at the Bible, most men and woman of the Bible had their faith push them way beyond praying. Look at Nehemiah for example. He had hope to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Sure, this hope lead him to prayer, but, it lead him beyond prayer as well. The hope he had within him lead him to stand up and take action. To ask the king for his blessing, for supplies, for permission to begin the work. Once the hope within him lead him to action his faith became sight! His faith to rebuild the walls, was the substance of what he had hoped for. You may think that sounds simplistic, easy, just a natural order of events, but believe me it is not easy or natural at ALL.
For instance, there are churches all over America with broken down walls. The kind of oppression and hopelessness that you will find within a church that hasn't been productive, and is not growing is a heavy weight. What can turn these churches around? Hope. Hope that eventually leads them to an action of faith. Remember what Jesus said about the mustard seed. He said that faith the size of a mustard seed could move the mountains in our lives. But, during the parable, the seed was planted and grew to be a large tree. This is the same with our faith. Mountain moving faith starts out as a small step forward, that leads to another step, that leads to another step...and with each step, hope increases and faith grows as well. Mustard seed faith in itself, won't move the mountains, but a mustard seed of faith planted in our hearts, that grows into a large tree will move the mountains.
It is so important to understand where you are at, before you begin moving forward into action. Going into a small church, where the people are defeated and have very little hope, and suddenly announcing a plan to win the entire city is going to be met with dismal response. Why? Because you are asking them to step out on faith, when they have little to no hope. I have seen instances where the better place to start is getting the body to value it's contribution, and the community to value it's contribution. One thing is for sure, if the members of the body and the community don't value the contribution of the church...attempts to reach the city will be in vain. I have seen pastors walk into a church with glorious plans to reach the lost, and it did not give me much hope...why? Because the church was a mess, and many things were being left undone. For instance, If you can't clean up the church and the parking lot, how will you ever reach the city. We look for huge advances and huge step forwards, when sometimes just getting up and doing what has been left undone is the first step that we should be take. What happens when we move forward, one small step at a time? Hope builds, which leads to actions of faith, which leads to a greater hope, and even greater actions of faith! There is no life that is so far gone and unproductive that God cannot change it around and give them future and a hope. The same is true for churches as well. Even a church that has been dormant and unproductive for decades, since it's inception is not without hope and without God. God is a catalyst for change, he can turn anything around. It will take faith, hope and love, and it will take more love than anything else!
Those things that you are overlooking in your life are the very things that God will use. Those talents you dismissed. That desire to do a work for God that you put on the back shelf because you thought you lacked what it took to get the job done. The same in our church. Those people that we wrote off as trouble makers and problems are the very ones that God is going to use to turn your church around! Why is it that we despise what we have, and are always looking for God to bring us something better? I see people sit on their duff, instead of getting up and taking the necessary steps to move forward in life, expecting that prayer alone is going to get them where they need to be. Noah did not save the world by prayer alone. Abraham did not find his new place to dwell by prayer alone. Joshua did not conquer Jericho by prayer alone. Moses did not deliver the children of Israel by prayer alone. Joseph did not deliver all of Egypt and the surrounding area by prayer alone! David did not defeat the giant by prayer alone! Instead of praying about what we DON'T have, we should get up and use whatever we do have. God used a rod in Moses hand. How special is a rod? They are a dime a dozen. Maybe what is in your hand is nothing special. Maybe you are like David and all the poor and the trouble makers is what you have to work with. God can take a trouble maker and make a mighty man of valor out of him! What do we do instead of latching on to hope and getting up and doing the best we can with what we have? What we do is sit back, and lay down in our circumstances, and complain, and make excuses for our lack of effort. God is not the God of excuses. I don't see one Bible story where a complainer, who had a lot of excuses did anything for God! If God can save the nation through a bunch of lepers, imagine what he could do with you!
2 Kings 7: 3-4
3Now there were four
men with leprosyd at the entrance of the city gate. They
said to each other, “Why stay here until we die? 4If we say, ‘We’ll go
into the city’—the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we
will die. So let’s go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they
spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die.”
These lepers were sitting there, dieing from hunger. What happened? Hope sprang up in their hearts. They thought why sit here until we die! We all know the end of the story. God had caused the enemy army that was laying siege to the city to get afraid overnight and they all abandoned the camp, which was loaded with food. When the lepers went out to the camp, they found all this food, and the enemy army gone. They ate until they were full! Their hope of the enemy having compassion on beggars and feeding them lead them to an action. They got up and went out to the enemies camp. Once they got to the camp and found it empty and ate all they wanted their faith lead them to an even greater hope! Suddenly then began thinking, "Hey, maybe we can feed the whole city!" They did go back to the city, and all the people came and ate, God saved the city through four lepers! See how their hope and faith grew. First they thought lets save ourselves. That worked, and then they got the idea they could save the whole city.
Maybe you are looking at your life and you feel wasted like the lepers. Like your life has nothing of value to offer. Maybe you are looking at your church and thinking the same thing. I remember going into one church, all we had that claimed to be workers were two ladies, and one of them didn't work! Today we look back on that and laugh saying, "Remember when we only had two workers, except one of them didn't work." Try filling out a church report with that. Get to the statistics area. Salvation's 0, Baptisms 0, additional comments: Well, we do have two workers, but one of them don't work. Wow. That is not a lot to work with, but, God can take what you have if you will work where you are at. We want to work at higher levels, and ignore the level we are currently on. God saved an entire city through four lepers, just imagine the possibilities of what God could do with you!
