February 9 ~ John 14:11-13
Have faith in me when I say that the Father is one with me and that I am one with the Father. Or else have faith in me simply because of the things I do. I tell you for certain that if you have faith in me, you will do the same things that I am doing. You will do even greater things, now that I am going back to the Father. Ask me, and I will do whatever you ask. This way the Son will bring honor to the Father. I will do whatever you ask me to do.
Scripture taken from the Contemporary English Version © 1991,1992, 1995 by American Bible Society, Used by Permission.
I don’t know about you, but there are days when I don’t feel like I’m very effective as a Christian. And honestly, I sometimes wonder why we do the things we do. It is easy for Christians to become discouraged – not because of anything God does or does not do… but because we expect God to operate on our terms and time table.
This is not always done consciously… but if we are honest, don’t we all wonder from time to time WHY God allows certain things to happen or WHEN God will answer our prayers? Don’t we grow impatient? Don’t we lack faith and trust? Sometimes, I catch myself saying, “Father, I KNOW you are handling this for me, I BELIEVE you are in charge, and certainly nothing I do is adequate. But could you PLEASE hurry up? Could you PLEASE give me some indication that this will work out and all be okay?” And you know what? God HAS answered. He sent Jesus, His only Son, to die on the cross for our sins. He resurrected Christ from the grave and returned Him to heaven. And because of JESUS, we can ask anything in His name, and God will handle it for us.
Does this mean that He answers exactly as we ask? No! Does this mean we always get everything we want? Certainly not! God knows what we truly need. His answers – and His timing – are always perfect. Believing and trusting this is often hard – I know firsthand! But we MUST believe it. We MUST trust that God hears our prayers and answers. We must “keep on keepin’ on!” and serving faithfully – and confidently.
Sunday when our church worshipped in Holy Communion, I confessed to God that I have not been as trusting and faithful as I should… but I vowed to do better. I “ate of the body and drank of the cup” and committed to faithfully serving with Christ. You don’t have to partake of Holy Communion to do this – you can stop what you are doing right now and recommit to a life of faithfulness. Don’t you want to live in confidence that God is meeting your needs and answering your prayers? Won’t you ask Him, in the name of Jesus Christ, to do just that?
©2009 Debbie Robus
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