September 23, 2019 – Click here to listen
Today is going to be the best day of your life!
Do you believe that?
That is what faith is all about. We must believe it; we must live it out.
An atheist/agnostic friend went to Miami with me Saturday. It is a 1 ½ hour drive each way and we stopped for lunch which provided a great opportunity to witness to him again for the umpteenth time. He is a good friend and it breaks my heart that he solidly refuses to even discuss the possibility of God’s existence. I have been praying hard for him since I met him a couple of years ago now, but yesterday as I prepared to yet again pray for him I was really discouraged. He adamantly refuses to discuss the possibility that God might exist. He declared that he has made it through life on his own and would continue. He told me he was his own god. As for death, he believes it is like turning off a switch and there is no more. As for creation, it is just there, and we are just another creature that is there by accident.
I of course refuted all that and told him to look around. He is a sportsman like me and is privileged to see wondrous things at sea and afield. He has seen schools of porpoises following our boat for miles and azure blue oceans teeming with fish and painted forests where big bucks appear without a sound to stand magnificently with the gorgeous sunrise warming their backs and steam slowly rising. He has seen billions of stars in the inky sky on the ocean. Surely he cannot believe that all of this intricate beauty is some accident.
He just smiles and ignores it all. I was so discouraged in making little or no progress that I was convinced that Satan has him so embittered towards God and religion that my prayers are puny and ineffective. My discouragement reached the overflow point yesterday and I told God, “He’s your problem now God. I’ve done all I can do, and nothing works. Please You do something.”
Yikes!
God did something all right. He made it clear to me that my friend has been his problem all along just like I was His problem. He wonderfully saved me when I was actually much worse than my friend and I got the feeling He was none too happy about me giving up on miracles for my friend after having received such a large one myself.
To emphasize where I was going wrong my daily Bible study just “happened” to be Hebrews chapter 11. The entire chapter is about faith. I felt like an idiot when I read it. This chapter is like the faith hall of fame. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, were chronicled along with many others including Sarah who had her child Isaac at 90 years old. All had tremendous faith, none gave up, and God rewarded them.
I cannot lose faith and I cannot quit praying and simply “turn it over to God.” If I am a man of faith I must demonstrate it. Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of God. How will my friend hear if I don’t speak to him about it? I’m the only Christian in his circle of influence. How can I please God if I don’t demonstrate my faith by acting on it? Hebrews 11:36 talks of the faithful stating: Others were tortured and refused their release, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Still others endured mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawed in two, they were put to death by the sword. They went around in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, oppressed, and mistreated . . . Those people didn’t whine to God that they were just turning their problem over to God; they boldly acted out their faith.
What was I thinking?
If you are praying for someone who seems unreachable, I ask that you continue praying for them, gently keep making God’s word known to them with perseverance. While I cannot pray someone into heaven I can pray that God’s Holy Spirit can break that hardened heart and allow the love of Christ to penetrate.
Hebrews 12:1
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race set out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God . . . Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.