Bob Hodgdon's Blog
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Do We Really Believe
Some time ago, God was dealing with me about belief versus unbelief. God showed some scriptures that really made me wonder about my faith. He showed me that in Matt. 13:58, that Jesus could no mighty works in His home town because of their unbelief. What is belief and unbelief?
Belief is: to believe, faith, belief, 1.) to believe, give credit to, 2.) to believe, have a mental persuasion, 3.) to believe, be of opinion, 4.) to be entrusted with, 5.) to believe in or on Christ implying knowledge or assent to and confidence in Him.
Belief and faith go hand in hand and have practically the same meaning.
Unbelief: faithlessness, or uncertainty, distrust, unbelief. To put no confidence in, not to believe or to disbelieve. Lack of faith…
So having these definitions present, let's move on... If Jesus could do no mighty works in His home town, why was that? The people in this town knew Jesus, and knew His family. They make a statement saying, "is this not the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers and sisters still with us here? Where did this man get all these things? You see they knew all to well the story behind Jesus. They could not see Jesus as their Messiah.
How often do we see someone we have known for many years suddenly receive instruction, prophecies, dreams and vision from God, and we have a hard time understanding how someone like them could receive something that intriguing from God. After all. we know this person and they have never been like that before. We shut the doors of heaven and we don't allow God to work because of our own lack of understanding. It is this unbelief that could stop the blessings of God in our lives and in our church body. This goes even deeper than this. Let me explain.
2 Tim 3:2-5 NKJV
2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good,
4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
Here we see a list that Paul has written to Timothy about people who are to come in the last days. Denying the power of God is unbelief. Unbelief in God, in God’s power and authority but these people seem to have the walk but not the talk. They say they believe, but actually they don’t. From such people, stay away from them.
If we truly believed the Word of God, if we truly believed and had unfailing faith in His Word, we would have less problems. We attempt to analyze situations as we see them in the world. The fact is God has already taken care of the problems if we would stand on His promises and confess them before Him.
In making ourselves wise, we have become fools.
We seek the wisdom of the world to decipher our problems and every day situations. If we would trust, BELIEVE, and have never ending faith in God’s Word all thing would work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. What is God’s purpose. Read, study, meditate and seek our Heavenly Father and He will expose His purpose to/for you.
We need to quit depending on our own intellectual, self-purpose filled thoughts (lives) and seek our Father who has all the answers. God is waiting to tell you His purpose for you in this walk of life. Be attentive, believe, even if it seems impossible in our minds and intellect. Our thoughts need to be His thoughts and His thoughts our thoughts, all working for the common goal, which is to be a good and faithful servant of the most High.
Do we really believe His Word? Do we really believe what He said He would do for us and all who believe? Do we lack in faith and belief?
God will not succumb to our way of thinking. He has sent His Word and we need only to believe. We can read the newspaper and believe a report about someone even if its true or not. Why, then, can’t we believe the Living, Spirit Breathed Word of God.
Imagine if Paul, Peter and the rest of the apostles had thought the way we think. Then the mighty acts of God in their lives never would of happened. Jesus, Himself, would only do the things which He saw the Father doing. How is it then we think or believe we are better than Jesus.
Let’s face it, we are wrong in our thinking, in our beliefs and our faith. Do you have faith in God, in His Word, and in His Son, who promised we would do greater works than Him if we believed. Oh, how we are lacking in faith. God wants His church back. The fire breathing, healing, anointed men and women who will stand in this present age to take a stand against the purposes of this present world views (political correctness) and be a non-conformant of the worldly ways.
Let us do so in His Love and Compassion that all should come to His glory. Let us confess our beliefs on the world as they pollute our minds with their beliefs. Compromise brings about conformity. We are not to be conformed to this world, but we are to be transformed be the renewing of our minds. That is not to believe everything you hear or see. We are to be transformed by the Word of God, the meditation of His Word that we may know His will for us.
John 4:24 God is Spirit and we must worship Him in Spirit and Truth. And we know that in John 17:17, Jesus says that “Your word is truth”.
Believe that God has a purpose for you today. Believe and have faith in God’s word and His promises to them that believe. We must believe. We must have faith. That would be like only believing those things you understood or choosing to believe in and left the other promises of His word to unbelief and faithlessness. That would be like reading a newspaper article about yourself and knowing the story was not true. God feels the same way. Believe in My Word, Believe in My Word. Believe My story.
I will leave you with this thought: Predictive Christianity:
Matt 11:16-17 NKJV
16 But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions,
17 and saying: 'We played the flute for you, And you did not dance; We mourned to you, And you did not lament.'
They –We want to orchestrate how people respond and when … we want to keep in control – if we play the flute, the people will dance.
We prevent God from doing what He wants to do and how He wants to do it because we don’t understand God. We confine God. Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, fed 5000 and 4000 people (Matt. 14:13-21 & Matt. 15:32-39) with very little food, then he walked on the sea (water) because He believed. People were healed of sicknesses, and people who were tormented by unclean spirits, by the shadow of Peter as he walked by them (Acts 5:12-16). Handkerchiefs and aprons were brought from Paul that they may be placed on the sick, diseased and demon possessed people and they were healed and delivered (Acts 19:11, 12). If you went through the Bible and looked at all the miracles done by God, Jesus and by those who believed, you will notice the people healed, delivered, saved, fed, etc. believed God was able to do these things. All the great men and woman of the Bible believed God was able to do these things, never doubting.
Ps 78:40-41 NKJV
40 How often they provoked Him in the wilderness, And grieved Him in the desert!
41 Yes, again and again they tempted God, And limited the Holy One of Israel.
We Limit God in many ways. We fail to receive because it has to happen in a certain way or scenario. Expecting God to be able to do things ONLY when this happens or that this is the time. This one or that one has to lay hands on me…
Let’s get out of the conformity of this present world and stop believing as the world believes. Jesus said in John 3:12 – “If I had told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” God is still speaking today. Are we listening? Are we hearing?
Lord, help me to here your voice more clearly. I want to know your heart, I want to know your will and desire for me in this world today. Lord, help me not to restrict Your will by being self-centered in my thinking. Help me Lord to see beyond the natural and to see into the spiritual to see you more clearly and to do those thing you would have me to do, just as Your Son has shown us. Lord, may Your will be my will and may I see clearly the path you have given me to travel.
I want, I desire to do your will Father. Help Lord, and forgive me for being carnal in my thinking. I want to be more like Jesus, in every way in my life. Thank you Lord, for what you are about to do in my life to accomplish this, in Jesus name, Amen.
Belief is: to believe, faith, belief, 1.) to believe, give credit to, 2.) to believe, have a mental persuasion, 3.) to believe, be of opinion, 4.) to be entrusted with, 5.) to believe in or on Christ implying knowledge or assent to and confidence in Him.
Belief and faith go hand in hand and have practically the same meaning.
Unbelief: faithlessness, or uncertainty, distrust, unbelief. To put no confidence in, not to believe or to disbelieve. Lack of faith…
So having these definitions present, let's move on... If Jesus could do no mighty works in His home town, why was that? The people in this town knew Jesus, and knew His family. They make a statement saying, "is this not the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers and sisters still with us here? Where did this man get all these things? You see they knew all to well the story behind Jesus. They could not see Jesus as their Messiah.
How often do we see someone we have known for many years suddenly receive instruction, prophecies, dreams and vision from God, and we have a hard time understanding how someone like them could receive something that intriguing from God. After all. we know this person and they have never been like that before. We shut the doors of heaven and we don't allow God to work because of our own lack of understanding. It is this unbelief that could stop the blessings of God in our lives and in our church body. This goes even deeper than this. Let me explain.
2 Tim 3:2-5 NKJV
2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good,
4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
Here we see a list that Paul has written to Timothy about people who are to come in the last days. Denying the power of God is unbelief. Unbelief in God, in God’s power and authority but these people seem to have the walk but not the talk. They say they believe, but actually they don’t. From such people, stay away from them.
If we truly believed the Word of God, if we truly believed and had unfailing faith in His Word, we would have less problems. We attempt to analyze situations as we see them in the world. The fact is God has already taken care of the problems if we would stand on His promises and confess them before Him.
In making ourselves wise, we have become fools.
We seek the wisdom of the world to decipher our problems and every day situations. If we would trust, BELIEVE, and have never ending faith in God’s Word all thing would work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. What is God’s purpose. Read, study, meditate and seek our Heavenly Father and He will expose His purpose to/for you.
We need to quit depending on our own intellectual, self-purpose filled thoughts (lives) and seek our Father who has all the answers. God is waiting to tell you His purpose for you in this walk of life. Be attentive, believe, even if it seems impossible in our minds and intellect. Our thoughts need to be His thoughts and His thoughts our thoughts, all working for the common goal, which is to be a good and faithful servant of the most High.
Do we really believe His Word? Do we really believe what He said He would do for us and all who believe? Do we lack in faith and belief?
God will not succumb to our way of thinking. He has sent His Word and we need only to believe. We can read the newspaper and believe a report about someone even if its true or not. Why, then, can’t we believe the Living, Spirit Breathed Word of God.
Imagine if Paul, Peter and the rest of the apostles had thought the way we think. Then the mighty acts of God in their lives never would of happened. Jesus, Himself, would only do the things which He saw the Father doing. How is it then we think or believe we are better than Jesus.
Let’s face it, we are wrong in our thinking, in our beliefs and our faith. Do you have faith in God, in His Word, and in His Son, who promised we would do greater works than Him if we believed. Oh, how we are lacking in faith. God wants His church back. The fire breathing, healing, anointed men and women who will stand in this present age to take a stand against the purposes of this present world views (political correctness) and be a non-conformant of the worldly ways.
Let us do so in His Love and Compassion that all should come to His glory. Let us confess our beliefs on the world as they pollute our minds with their beliefs. Compromise brings about conformity. We are not to be conformed to this world, but we are to be transformed be the renewing of our minds. That is not to believe everything you hear or see. We are to be transformed by the Word of God, the meditation of His Word that we may know His will for us.
John 4:24 God is Spirit and we must worship Him in Spirit and Truth. And we know that in John 17:17, Jesus says that “Your word is truth”.
Believe that God has a purpose for you today. Believe and have faith in God’s word and His promises to them that believe. We must believe. We must have faith. That would be like only believing those things you understood or choosing to believe in and left the other promises of His word to unbelief and faithlessness. That would be like reading a newspaper article about yourself and knowing the story was not true. God feels the same way. Believe in My Word, Believe in My Word. Believe My story.
I will leave you with this thought: Predictive Christianity:
Matt 11:16-17 NKJV
16 But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions,
17 and saying: 'We played the flute for you, And you did not dance; We mourned to you, And you did not lament.'
They –We want to orchestrate how people respond and when … we want to keep in control – if we play the flute, the people will dance.
We prevent God from doing what He wants to do and how He wants to do it because we don’t understand God. We confine God. Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, fed 5000 and 4000 people (Matt. 14:13-21 & Matt. 15:32-39) with very little food, then he walked on the sea (water) because He believed. People were healed of sicknesses, and people who were tormented by unclean spirits, by the shadow of Peter as he walked by them (Acts 5:12-16). Handkerchiefs and aprons were brought from Paul that they may be placed on the sick, diseased and demon possessed people and they were healed and delivered (Acts 19:11, 12). If you went through the Bible and looked at all the miracles done by God, Jesus and by those who believed, you will notice the people healed, delivered, saved, fed, etc. believed God was able to do these things. All the great men and woman of the Bible believed God was able to do these things, never doubting.
Ps 78:40-41 NKJV
40 How often they provoked Him in the wilderness, And grieved Him in the desert!
41 Yes, again and again they tempted God, And limited the Holy One of Israel.
We Limit God in many ways. We fail to receive because it has to happen in a certain way or scenario. Expecting God to be able to do things ONLY when this happens or that this is the time. This one or that one has to lay hands on me…
Let’s get out of the conformity of this present world and stop believing as the world believes. Jesus said in John 3:12 – “If I had told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” God is still speaking today. Are we listening? Are we hearing?
Lord, help me to here your voice more clearly. I want to know your heart, I want to know your will and desire for me in this world today. Lord, help me not to restrict Your will by being self-centered in my thinking. Help me Lord to see beyond the natural and to see into the spiritual to see you more clearly and to do those thing you would have me to do, just as Your Son has shown us. Lord, may Your will be my will and may I see clearly the path you have given me to travel.
I want, I desire to do your will Father. Help Lord, and forgive me for being carnal in my thinking. I want to be more like Jesus, in every way in my life. Thank you Lord, for what you are about to do in my life to accomplish this, in Jesus name, Amen.
:: posted by Bob Hodgdon, 9:16 AM
1 Comments:
Nice Blog! Your a preacher!! Ill read more later - MAY??? Why so long ago??
