People are forgetting that faith is not the only issue that God is looking for. God is looking for holiness. The heart is where God meets us because that is where we make our decisions. Our hearts are where our desires and motives are located. It is important to understand that our hearts is the state of our "flesh". Our flesh search for pleasure, pride, passions and selfish motives. There are many Christians who are still in their old ways and not becoming new persons as God called us to be holy. It is interesting that people talks of faith in relation to "success". The measure of faith by some is defined how successful you are spiritually. I truly don't believe that God determine (measure) our faith based on our own works (success). We need to guard our spiritual motives carefully and walk in Spirit. We need to examine my FAITH daily to make sure that our motives are spiritual and not from our sinful nature. All circumstances are work for heavenly good and called to His purpose. Even though we can not see the purpose for the trials we are going through, we can trust absolutely that the Lord is in control of all things. Every trial in our life is a furrow being plowed by the Lord, that we grow in faith, and learn to trust ever more confidently in the Lord. It takes a great faith for someone to endure the pain, hardship, illness, or whatever is happening in someone's life. The Christian walk is a fight of Faith, we have to understand that living (walking) by faith, we accept purpose and plans of God however He sees fit. How does our Christian grow in Faith? We grow through circumstances. Look at it this way, we would not have grown spiritually in the acceptance and understanding of God's grace and ways if God had removed the trial. Apostle Paul wrote: “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Cor 4:18). “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col 3:2). We need to live our lives from an eternal (biblical) perspective.
Bible Verses:
1 Cor. 10:13, "These has no testing taken you but such as is common to man; but God will, with the testing, also make a way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
1 Peter 1:7 "That the trial of your faith, being much more precious that of gold that perishes, though it be tried by fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1,2
The Bible tells us that in the world we have tribulation, the world is full of suffering, we are going to suffer, and God promises to go with us (See Psalms 23).
Quotes on Faith and God's Sovereign:
God is still calling us to live by faith. (Ray C. Stedman, "What Faith Is")
The great enemy of faith is a complacent spirit, an attitude of self-satisfaction with the status quo. (Ray C. Stedman, "What Faith Is")
"Faith, for instance, is not positive thinking; that is something quite different. Faith is not a hunch that is followed. Faith is not hoping for the best, hoping that everything will turn out all right. Faith is not a feeling of optimism. Faith is none of these things, though all of them have been identified as faith." (Ray C. Stedman, "What Faith Is")
Faith is believing there is another dimension to life other than those which can be touched, tasted, seen or felt. There is more to life than that. There is also the realm of the spirit, the invisible spiritual kingdom of God. All the ultimate answers of life lie in that kingdom. (Ray C. Stedman, "What Faith Is")
Faith believes that God, in his grace, has stepped over the boundary into human history and told us some great and very valuable facts. (Ray C. Stedman, "What Faith Is")
Faith believes them and adjusts its life to those facts and walks on that basis. (Ray C. Stedman, "What Faith Is")
If faith is the gaze of the heart at God, and if this gaze is but the raising of the inward eyes to meet the all-seeing eyes of God, then it follows that it is one of the easiest things possible to do. A.W. Tozer
God has reserved to Himself the right to determine the end of life, because He alone knows the goal to which it is His will to lead it. It is for Him alone to justify a life or to cast it away. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Wherever there is any element of pride or of conceit, Jesus cannot expound a thing. He will take us through the disappointment of a wounded pride of intellect, through disappointment of heart. He will reveal inordinate affections-things over which we never thought He would have to get us alone. Oswald Chambers
If our hopes are being disappointed just now, it means that they are being purified. . .One of the greatest strains in life is the strain of waiting for God. Oswald Chambers - Quotes From "My Utmost For His Highest" (p 53)
Never consider whether you are of use; but ever consider that you are not your own but His. Oswald Chambers- Quotes From "My Utmost For His Highest" (p 64)
The thing that tells in the long run for God and for men is the steady persevering work in the unseen, and the only way to keep the life uncrushed is to live looking to God. Oswald Chambers- Quotes From "My Utmost For His Highest" (p 66)
It is a life of FAITH, not of intellect and reason, but a life of knowing Who makes us "go." Oswald Chambers- Quotes From "My Utmost For His Highest"(p 79)
Many of us are loyal to our notions of Jesus Christ, but how many of us are loyal to Him?. . .Faith is not intelligent understanding, faith is deliberate commitment to a Person where I see no way. Oswald Chambers- Quotes From "My Utmost For His Highest" (p 88)
After we have been perfectly related to God in sanctification, our faith has to be worked out in actualities. We shall be scattered, not into work, but into inner desolations and made to know what internal death to God's blessings means. Are we prepared for this? Oswald Chambers- Quotes From "My Utmost For His Highest" (p 95)
God is never in a hurry. Oswald Chambers- Quotes From "My Utmost For His Highest" (p 95)
We have no choice in what we want to do, whatever God's programmed may be we are there, ready. . . A ready person never needs to get ready. Oswald Chambers- Quotes From "My Utmost For His Highest" (p l09)
The river of the Spirit of God overcomes all obstacles. Never get your eyes on the obstacle or on the difficulty. Oswald Chambers- Quotes From "My Utmost For His Highest" (p 250)
It is the work that God does through us that counts, not what we do for Him. Oswald Chambers- Quotes From "My Utmost For His Highest" (p 243)
“The fact is, if there were no sin in the world, there would be no suffering. God allows suffering as part of his judgement, but he also uses it for our redemption-to shape our character and build up our faith.” R.C. Sproul
“We need to begin by recognizing that God is sovereign over all tribulations. In the midst of tribulation, instead of losing myself in trying to discern for sure what the cause is and trying to figure out why this thing is happening to me, it’s important that I ask the deeper question, How am I to respond to it?” R.C. Sproul
"God wants us to lay our burdens on Him and rest in His love. It's His responsibility to work out the purpose and plan in our hardships. Only our refusal to trust Him....can hinder His purposes in our lives." Joni Eareckson Tad
Faith recognizes the fact that God is in control of my life. Whether I believe it or not, it's a fact that God is in control of the world. If I don't believe it, I"m just robbing myself of the enjoyment of the fact. Paul Little
It matters little what form of prayer we adopt or how many words we use. What matters is the faith which lays hold on God, knowing that He knows our needs before we even ask Him. That is what gives Christian prayer its boundless confidence and its joyous certainty. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
When you accept rather than fight your circumstances ---even though you don't understand them --- you open your heart's gate to God's love, peace, joy and contentment. Amy Carmichael
Most of the verses written about praise in God's Word were voiced by people faced with crushing heartaches, injustice, treachery, slander, and scores of other difficult situations. Joni Eareckson Tad, Joni and Friends
"God's purpose in increasing our trials is to sensitize us to people we never would have been able to relate to otherwise." Joni Eareckson Tad
"God deliberately chooses weak, suffering and unlikely candidates to get His work done, so that in the end, the glory goes to God and not to the person." Joni Eareckson Tad
"Suffering drives us to our knees in weakness, where God wants us, so that His strength is most obvious, not ours." Joni Eareckson Tad
"God cannot use mightily the man whom he has not wounded deeply." AW Tozer
"Although our suffering is real and although our pain abides, we know that this is the way that God in His magnificent sovereignty has chosen to save the world." RC Sproul, Reason to Believe
"This is God's universal purpose for all Christian suffering - more contentment in God and less satisfaction with self." John Piper
