Abandoned Belief in God!
God desired Gideon and Israel to know He was God and He
brought victories, not because of the might of men, but by His own hand. God did
want to bring victory to Gideon, but with a highly reduced number. So, how was God
going to reduce the number? Our Lord’s goal was to bring victory with that smaller
number. The Lord knew that how we think can also influence our confidence which
leads to winning. Therefore the Lord said, “Now therefore go to, proclaim in the
ears of the people, saying, Whosoever is fearful and afraid, let him return and
depart early from mount Gilead. And there returned of the people twenty and two
thousand; and there remained ten thousand” (Judges 7:3). The Lord would rather lose
twenty-two thousand weak hearted soldiers and enter into conflict and win with a
faithful few who believed Him. Whom we associate with is part of the determining
factor in the recipe of victory.
Do you find yourself in the constant company of
unbelief? Do you need to reevaluate the environment in which you pray, witness and
serve the Lord?
1. Unbelief pollutes the environment of faith.
God’s Word says,
“And the officers shall speak further unto the people, and they shall say, What
man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? let him go and return unto his house,
lest his brethren' heart faint as well as his heart” (Deuteronomy 20:8). Then again
the Bible says, “Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of
the people melt: but I wholly followed the LORD my God” (Joshua 14:8). We heard
it growing up and we told our kids: the people we associate with matters. In Deuteronomy,
God commanded the people who were operating in fear to go home. Later Joshua explained
that the spies who brought back the bad report of the land “melted” the hearts of
the people. In Luke 8: 50-54 says, “But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying,
Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole. And when he came into the house,
he suffered no man to go in, save Peter, and James, and John, and the father and
the mother of the maiden. And all wept, and bewailed her: but he said, Weep not;
she is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was
dead. And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid,
arise” (Luke 8:50-54). Jesus would not permit the scorners to pollute the atmosphere
of a miracle. I remember the faith of Brother Roloff, who, when praying in hospitals
for healing, has asked those who did not believe to leave the room.
2. Belief is
the product of a decision.
The Bible says, “Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen
your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD” (Psalms 31:24).” Jesus said, “Let not
your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me” (John 14:1). Go ahead,
make the decision to believe God, even when it’s against the odds.
One of my favorite
stories is when Jesus told the father of the child who could not talk, “…If thou
canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth” (Mark 9:33). You can
visualize the heartbroken father who really wants to believe, yet knows he is deficient
in the faith that could move mountains and in exasperation cries, “…with tears,
Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24). You don’t have to be a super-faith
person to see a miracle; all you need is a heart-felt willingness to see God do
what only God can do!
3. Belief thrives in abandonment to God.
“O our God, wilt thou
not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against
us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee” (II Chronicles 20:12).
Jehosophat was outnumbered, out-soldiered and out of options. It was all over for
Judah. There were no reinforcements to call upon. He could not look to neighboring
allies, he exhausted every human effort. He honestly and humbly told God he did
not know what to do, but (I love these words), “..our eyes are upon thee.”
These
words that Jehosphat spoke were the kindling wood for the flame of a miracle. His
prayer, combined with the prayers and praise of the children of Judah, became the
fire that consumed, by faith, the enemy and wrought what only God can do. We see
the Lord responded to Daniel’s prayer by an angelic answer with no less a personage
than the mighty arch-angel Michael. Listen to these powerful words, “Then said he
unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart
to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and
I am come for thy words” (Daniel 10:12). Daniel prayed words that uttered his total
abandonment to God.
This is what God is looking for: a life that doesn’t trust itself
but God only. God honors the faith that says, “God, if you don’t come through, I
am not coming through.” All glory must be given to God when there is no other explanation
other than Him. When it is apparent to the whole world that God is at work, we become
the light of the world that also produces the heat of a Pentecostal fire. This is
what God is looking for: a coming to an end of ourselves. Many times it is a crisis
that brings us here. What God wants is the deliberate, inward decision to trust
Him apart from the external help of man. “Give us help from trouble: for vain is
the help of man” (Psalms 60:11: 108:12). Oswald Chambers said it like this: “Have
you ever had a crisis in your life in which you deliberately, earnestly, and recklessly
abandoned everything? It is a crisis of the will. You may come to that point many
times externally, but it will amount to nothing. The true deep crisis of abandonment,
or total surrender, is reached internally, not externally.”
- Pastor
Pope -
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