“In a word, God grants us faith, hope, and love, and then we believe, hope, and love. Augustine famously explained this dynamic in his Confessions by saying: ‘Give what you command, and command what you will’ ” - Wyatt Graham
“Unlike Thomas, who believed after seeing the risen Lord of glory, this thief believed while looking upon a man hanging on a cross under God’s curse (Gal. 3:13). Many witnessed Jesus raise the dead and still refused to believe. This man watched Jesus die and believed He was a King with a kingdom.” - Ref21
“Mark immediately qualifies his statement, explaining that Jesus did, in fact, ‘lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them’! This signals that we’re dealing with something other than lack of power preventing Jesus from performing additional miracles.” - Word by Word
Read the series.
I groaned when I read the first sentences of a WORLD magazine article that appeared a while back: “My husband lost a week’s pay. It must have fallen out of his pocket at the hardware store.” I’d sure hate to be that guy! I don’t even want to think about what losing a week’s pay would do to my family’s budget.
When my dad was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer years ago, I experienced a faith-collision. On the one hand was the strong likelihood that glioblastoma was going to take his life within two or three years. On the other was the fact that “with God, all things are possible.”
Of course more than one of us asked God to heal Dad. We asked God to use the medications, to lead us to some undiscovered cure, to make surgery more effective than it normally is for this disease.
What collided was my faith in what God could do and my uncertainty about what He would do.
“If you can explain what is going on, then God isn’t doing it.”
It’s a great sound byte. Several respected Christian leaders have taught it. And it certainly feels true. In many congregations it would be a reliable “amen!” line. However, not only is the statement itself false but it reflects a damaging and unbiblical way of thinking about faith and Christian living.
Sometimes the most basic topics in Christian teaching are home to the most abundant confusion. Perhaps faith is one of those topics. Several misunderstandings are commonly heard in preaching and teaching on the subject. A short list would include the following:
Some of these notions have the benefit of superficial biblical support. But if we strip away what “everybody knows” about faith, table our fond sentiments, and look at what Scripture actually says about these ideas, what do we find?
“Currently, 25 percent of U.S. Protestant churchgoers say that during difficult circumstances, they sometimes doubt God loves them and will provide for their lives. Almost 2 in 3 (64 percent) disagree, and 12 percent neither agree nor disagree.” - Baptist Press
Read the series so far.
Bitter attitudes hinder worship, strain relationships, and generally drain all the joy out of life. Apart from the initial pain of loss, mistreatment, disappointment or failure, bitterness does us no good.
Fortunately, Scripture and the wisdom of experience show us multiple ways to beat bitterness. Previously, we’ve considered how the attitudes of worship crowd out bitterness and how a quick escape from bitter thinking can keep it from pulling us in for a long ride.
A third approach is to confront the narrow focus and loss of perspective bitterness brings.
“While people certainly ought to be thoughtful and informed as they make life’s choices, Christians have something more than this. We have principles to guide us and a sure understanding of the future found in the Bible, the Word of God.God.” - P&D
