Can You Believe! (Part Two)

Good morning.

We continue with the series on the gifts of the Holy Spirit as per 1 Corinthians 12:7-10.

We spoke about the gift of faith yesterday and I think we need to make it practical for you. Shall we look at a few things people would need faith for in everyday Christianity? The reason why we often don’t minister actively is because we don’t have confidence. Since Hebrews 11:1 says that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” it could be seen that faith is the confidence that the Lord will do something about a situation if we’ll get the ball rolling. I.e. if we could believe that the Lord will make a difference in someone’s life when we speak to them or help them, we’ll have the courage to say or do something.

The Holy Spirit therefore has the gift of faith ready, not only if we need to walk on water or get out of major trouble, but also for every seemingly small contribution we make to the Kingdom of God. He will, however, first test us. Faith is a voucher we have for the things we hope for, i.e. the things we do not see yet. We therefore don’t get the courage or confidence to speak to people because we’ve seen results, but we do it because the Holy Spirit gave us the expectation that the Lord will do something in response to our effort, sometimes immediately and sometimes in His good time.

Jesus told the parable of the widow who kept coming back to the unrighteous judge until she got what she wanted as an illustration that we shouldn’t give up asking the Lord (Luke 18:1-9). She had faith that the judge will have to give in at some stage. “And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth,’ (Luke 18:6, 7)?” The Lord puts us to the test. If we really care for somebody or for a certain purpose to be accomplished in the Kingdom of God, we will persevere and keep on ‘pestering’ the Lord and the person or situation that needs to change. When we get in dire straits and are about to give up, the Holy Spirit is ready with even more faith to keep us going.

The Holy Spirit also gives this gift of faith to those who serve the Lord, but gets persecuted by circumstances. If we really give the devil a hard time by winning his subjects over to the Lord, by revealing his evil plans and make people aware of his schemes, by delivering people from ties and bonds by which the devil kept them captive, by equipping the saints to be more effective in this spiritual war, etc. the devil will hit back with persecution in our circumstances, in our bodies and through people. We’ll then need faith to persevere and escape and this is when the Holy Spirit is ready once again with the faith we’ll need. If somebody else in the congregation needs faith for something specific, we can lay hands on them and the Holy Spirit will have the gift of faith available.

Once again it’s all about being involved in the Kingdom of God.

Lord, I want to be in a position where I need faith to make a difference.

If you benefited from this, why don’t you link it to your Facebook or Twitter to make it available to your friends? You can also use the e-mail link to pass it on. Please also pray for the spreading of it to those who need it. Please feel free to ask questions or discuss thoughts.