I have been praying that your quiet times the last two weeks have been refreshing, reviving, renewing, restoring, stimulating, and provoking as you have followed the commitment to meet with Jesus for an hour every day. I bet this week was more challenging to consistently carve out time for this important challenge, but again I encourage you to keep rising to the challenge and coming to meet Him and sit at His feet and hear what He has to say to you. He has so much to say, and what you’ll find as you meet with Him, is that He always speaks what you really need to hear. Sometimes it’s not what you want to hear, but it’s always what you need, and what is good for your life.
This week as I met with Him, I found exactly that. I found strength in Him to just keep persevering through a situation where I just want to throw in the towel and call it quits. But as I said in worship today, He has been my strength. This week I literally have felt like Moses in the battle with the Amalekites, where as long as he held up his staff the Israelites were winning, but then he got too tired to hold up His staff. He needed help, he needed strength to just keep holding up his staff, and Aaron and Hur jumped in and supported Moses and gave him their strength to keep holding up the staff. I feel like God has been Aaron and Hur for me, holding me up, supporting me, giving me His strength to keep hanging on. He is always so good to me, revealing Himself to me in ways that speak to what I am dealing with in any given moment, and He has always been faithful to do this.
Do you believe He can do this in your life? Do you believe that He can work in the impossible things you face and make them possible? This is the essence of the last question we’re going to look at today that you can use as part of five questions we’ve been going over to help you draw closer to the Lord during your one-hour quiet time commitment this week. Let’s look at John 11:17-26.
“So when Jesus came, He found that he had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about fifteen stadia away; 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary, to console them about their brother. 20 So then Martha, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went to meet Him, but Mary stayed in the house. 21 Martha then said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise from the dead.” 24 Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” (NASB)
The fifth question for our one-hour time with Him this week is this same question Jesus asked of Martha, “Do you believe…Me?”
There’s two possible interpretations for this question, the first is that Jesus was asking Martha if she believed that He could raise Lazarus from the dead, the second is that Jesus was asking Martha if she believed that all those who believed in Jesus would never die. The really neat thing about both of these possible interpretations is that both can be and are true, because both acts would seem impossible to Martha. Indeed, both resurrection and eternal life go against all laws of nature, don’t they? Yet, Jesus was assuring her that He could do both, He can do the impossible, and all that is required of us is faith.
Remember if you will, the words from James 2:17, “In the same way, faith also, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.” (NASB) We know that faith must include action. Faith has to be acted upon to be true faith. When we make a statement of faith, a statement about what we believe Jesus will do, it helps affirm our faith in an actionable way.
What I mean by that is, that when we say something like, “Jesus, I believe that you will give me the strength that I need to keep walking in this very difficult situation when I have no strength left,” I am making a statement of faith that I am going to act on. I believe He is going to give me the strength to persevere and endure, and so I am going to actively rely on His strength, and not my own.
It’s much like when Jesus called to Peter to step out on the waves. If you recall, Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” This was Peter’s statement of belief. He believed that if the person he was seeing truly was Jesus, Peter had enough faith that if he stepped out of the boat and went toward Jesus, he would be able to walk on the waves just like Jesus was. Walking on water certainly is impossible, just like resurrection of the dead, just like eternal life, but acting in faith in Christ makes the impossible…possible.
Let’s think about how this affects us in our every day lives. What are the things you can’t do? It’s probably not something as drastic as walking on water or raising the dead to life.
But, maybe you’re dealing with a relationship in your life that you are unable to restore. A strained relationship that seems impossible to mend. There are so many fences built between you and that person, so many harsh words and miscommunications, so many hurt feelings. Can such a relationship ever be restored and healed? Matthew 19:26, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Maybe you’re stuck in financial insecurity. You’re unable to make ends meet and the prices of things just keep increasing. Maybe you’ve lost a source of income and the stress of paying the bills is starting to take its toll. First, off, come talk to me because this is part of what the body of Christ is here for. I’ve felt the anxious uncertainty of not knowing how I was going to pay for something, and those times feel hopeless. Can God bring security in finances? Yes, absolutely.
Maybe, like me, you’re faced with a dilemma, an impossible situation and you just don’t know which direction to take, what decision to make that will make it all turn out alright. You feel lost, confused, and directionless. You’re unsure of what decision to make, or how to make it. You lack wisdom and knowledge. So, then turn to the One who knows which direction to take. Turn to the One who is already working to make it all work out alright. Turn to the One who is never lost. Turn to the One who is the source of wisdom. He can make a way where there seems to be no way.
Or maybe, you’re trying to overcome consuming emotions that keep welling up in your heart. Maybe anger, grief, anxiety, fear, whatever it is. You feel unstable, like your heart and mind are betraying you. You feel swallowed by that emotion and you just want to feel some sense of relief and peace. You’ve tried just “letting it go”, and it doesn’t work. Can Jesus work in this, too? Can the Prince of Peace give you peace? Yes, He can.
I know I haven’t covered all the situations in life that are difficult and impossible that we face, because life is varied and the trials we go through are many. But here’s the point of this question: when you sit before Jesus and He asks you, “Do you believe Me?”, it’s your chance to make a statement of faith regarding any situation in your life that you can’t do/handle without the power of Christ.
This is your time to say what you are believing Jesus can do, what work He can do in the things that are impossible for you to do in your own resources, your own power, time, energy, emotions, etc.
This question is a time to echo the words of Psalm 25:4-5, 8-10, “Make me know Your ways, Lord; Teach me Your paths. 5 Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; For You I wait all the day. 8 The Lord is good and upright; Therefore He instructs sinners in the way. 9 He leads the [c]humble in justice, And He teaches the [d]humble His way. 10 All the paths of the Lord are faithfulness and truth To those who comply with His covenant and His testimonies.” (NASB)
Trust that He will show you His WAYS. When you don’t know what way is His, what is right, trust that He does and will make His ways known to you when you need them. Trust that He will teach you what is right and righteous in His eyes. Trust that He will show you what is pleasing to Him.
Trust that He will show you which PATH to take. When you don’t know what decision to make, which direction to go, what to do, trust that He does. Ask that He teach you His paths, and stand firm in faith, knowing that He will do as He has promised.
Trust that His compassion and FAITHFULNESS will cover you. We know He is faithful. We see His faithfulness clearly displayed throughout Scripture. Sit down with a slip of paper and a pen someday and write out all the ways you’ve seen His faithfulness in your life. He is faithful. If He says He will do something, we can trust that it will be done. If He has promised something to you, you can trust it will be done.
Trust that He will teach you in faithfulness and TRUTH. Trust that His truth and wisdom can guide you through all the things that you don’t know. Trust that His truth can be an anchor when things swirl in to overwhelm you. His truth can anchor you and keep you from believing things about who you are and what you’re meant to be that are lies. Trust in His truth when everything else around you seems subjective and constantly evolving.
So, what are you believing He will do today? Nothing is impossible with Him, even those things that seem impossible, even when you’re at the end of everything you have, He is not done yet. What are you believing in Him for?
Add the question from today’s message to your time with Him. Do them in this order:
Who do you say I am?
Do you understand what I have done for you?
Are you listening to Me?
Do you love Me? (Feed My sheep)
Do you believe me? (Statement of trust)