Today’s Reading:
Hebrews 11:1-40
“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” (v. 3)
Faith means belief, firm persuasion, assurance, firm conviction, faithfulness. Faith is confidence in what we hope for and the assurance that the lord is working, even though we cannot see it. Faith knows that no matter what the situation, in our lives or someone else's that the Lord is working in it. It is the act whereby a person lays hold of God's resources, becomes obedient to what He has prescribed and putting aside all self-interest and self-reliance, trusts Him completely. It is an unqualified surrender of the whole of one's being in dependence upon Him. It is not just mental assent to the facts and realities of truth; it must come from a deep inner conviction - the demons also believe (James 2:19).
The terms “Great faith” and “Little faith” simply mean this: Some truths are easy to believe while others are difficult. If you believe something that is difficult to believe, then you have great faith. If you do not believe something that is relatively easy to believe, then you have little faith. Since faith is the conviction or persuasion that something is true, people who have little faith have not been persuaded or convinced of even the basic truths, whereas, people who have great faith have been persuaded or convinced of some of the hard and difficult truths which few people come to believe. You and I do not have faith containers in our souls which overflow when our faith is great but is nearly empty when our faith is little. Faith does not work like that.
Great faith and little faith have nothing to do with the size, amount, or degree of faith. Rather, the terms “great faith” and “little faith” describe the difficulty of the truths that are believed. When a person fails to believe even some of the simple or easy truths, this means that some of the basic, fundamental cells in their network of beliefs are turned “Off.” Since they do not believe these simple truths, vast segments of their spreadsheet are also turned “Off.” Their spreadsheet is darkened with unbelief because they don’t even believe some of the simple, foundational, basic truths of life or Christianity.
They have little faith, that is, an undeveloped and unexamined spreadsheet of beliefs. On such a spreadsheet of faith, most of the basic truths are still turned “Off.” On the other hand, there are some people who have great faith. These are those people who are persuaded or convinced of some difficult things to believe. For example, the woman with the issue of blood. People who have great faith believe truths and ideas that relatively few people understand and believe. For example, David and Goliath. There are truths in Scripture, life, and theology that are hard to believe, but people with great faith believe them. Such ideas often take great thought, insight, understanding, research, investigation, or deep spiritual experiences in order to believe them.
When people come to believe these things, they believe something that few others believe, and can therefore be described as having great faith. Vast segments of their spreadsheet of beliefs are lit up with the light of the truth of God.
OWOLABI SUNDAY
Prayer:
O Lord, I receive grace to believe in you, in Jesus name
O Lord help me to walk in faith, in Jesus name.
Father, in every situation of life let your great faith manifest in my life, in Jesus name.
Father let me experience your divine provision, in Jesus name.
O Lord let you great faith bring uncommon divine healing manifest in my life and home, in Jesus name.
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