In the late 80's I was serving as youth pastor over a rather large and growing group of young people for a Church on the outskirts of Washington, DC. During the same period of time, I was also holding down a full time job as an outside sales representative for a commercial printing and graphics firm, playing on the church praise and worship team five services a week, teaching a school of the Bible class one night a week at the church, conducting a Bible study at my home one night a week, attending early morning prayer six mornings a week at the Church, rehearsing and playing with my own music outreach band while still having to do things like eat, laundry, sleep, maintain a household and all of that kind of stuff. Unbeknownst to me I was well on my way to possessing a terrible case of fatigue. If there was a silver lining around that cloud at all it was learning the valuable and costly lesson that when we are fatigued mole hills become mountains and we are at our most vulnerable to attack. The Webster's dictionary defines the word "vulnerable" as, "that can be wounded or injured; open to, or easily hurt by, criticism or attack." It was in this state of vulnerability that I would soon arrive at a place of utter frustration.
During a Sunday evening service on a cold January night, it would all finally catch up with me. After the praise team had finished its portion of the service and we were making our way to our seats, it hit me. I felt as if all of the energy had completely drained out of me. I was soon overcome with flu- like symptoms resulting in a deep anguish that caused me to do something that I had not done in at least five years; I left the service early. As I went to the car all I could think was that I wanted to be alone. I drove home, stumbled through the front door and collapsed into the living room chair. After sitting for several minutes, I grabbed the television remote and turned the TV on to watch one of the more well known preachers of the time. This particular night he was speaking on faith and with what I was going through, I quickly poised myself to hang on to every word that he had to say. I desperately needed a word from God! As I was listening to him I began noticing that there was something that was not quite right with his message but I could not put my finger on just what it was. All of a sudden it dawned on me! As good of a job as he had done, what I noticed was that he just spent an entire hour preaching on how we can't please God without faith but totally failed to explain how we as believers can obtain it. Talk about adding insult to injury! There I was, going through perhaps the toughest time of my life, desperately needing a word from God and nothin', zilch, nada!
I turned the television off and went down the hall to my bedroom. As I got ready for bed I reflected on what the TV preacher had just shared and frankly the grief that I was already feeling was increasing substantially. So much so that I sat on the edge of my bed, turned the light off, put my head in my hands and began to weep. I was in a state of total brokenness. I slid off my bed onto my knees and cried out to God praying "Father, if it is impossible to please you without faith then please help me to find the handle on the kind of faith that makes you happy. All I want is to know that I am pleasing you!" What happened next would change my life forever! With my face now buried in the carpet and my ear desperately tuned to hearing the voice of the Lord it happened! The Lord's presence filled the room and with a clarity unlike I had ever heard Him speak before, He said, "Sit up, I have come to answer your prayer." After sitting up He said, "I am here to explain to you how to obtain the kind of faith that makes me happy!" It was then that, in the spirit, He placed His hand on my back and ushered me straight up through the ceiling of my bedroom, the attic and the roof of the house. We proceeded upward into the night sky for what I could best estimate was about fifteen hundred feet over my neighborhood.
Even though it was the dead of winter at the time, I clearly remember not being affected in the least by the frigid temperature. It is very difficult to explain. It was as if there was no climate whatsoever; the comfort level was indefinable. I remember passing through the attic of my house and seeing the rafters and insulation vividly. I remember looking down as we ascended upward and seeing the cars with their headlights on traveling up and down the streets of my neighborhood. In that one swift instance, every great thing that I had ever heard or read about the awesomeness of God was exceeded immeasurable. Even the term, "I couldn't put it into words" was a vast understatement! Once we reached His desired height He positioned us, like a helicopter would hover, directly over the main entrance to the neighborhood. It was there that He would answer my prayer and give me the three keys to God-pleasing faith. Before I attempt to explain in the best way I know how what words were not designed to describe, I would like to lay just a bit more groundwork for you. I did not know it at the time but the reason that He had taken me over the entrance of my neighborhood to explain this to me was because there were three roads from the entrance of the neighborhood that led to my house. It would be these three roads that He would use as a map to help me understand how to obtain the faith that I so desired.
As we were suspended over the entrance of the neighborhood, He leaned over to me and said, "son, do you see your house in the distance?" I said, "yes Lord." He said, "we are going to pretend that your house is your desired destination of the kind of faith that brings me joy." He then asked, "do you see the main road below you that leads into your community?" I said, "yes Lord." He said, "we are going to call this road, you must learn how to trust in me blvd." He then asked, "do you see the road just up ahead on the left that leads over to the street your house is on?" I said, "yes Lord." He said, "we are going to call that road, you must learn how to rest in me street." He then asked, "do you see the road that leads up to your house?" I said, "yes Lord." He said, "we will call it, you must learn how to wait on me drive." He then said, "do you see now, if you get on you must learn how to trust in me blvd., make a left on you must learn how to rest in me street and then make a right on to you must learn how to wait on me drive you will, at the end of that road find the kind of faith that makes me happy!" "Once you learn how to trust in me, rest in me and wait on me you will have obtained the kind of faith that fills my heart will unspeakable joy. These are the three key ingredients to God pleasing faith." As soon as He had said that, I found myself instantaneously back on the floor in my bedroom.
As you can imagine, at that point all I could do was offer up songs of gratitude and praise and even that seemed so insufficient in the presence of the almighty King of all Kings. Again, what I was experiencing could in no way be expressed with mere words! After about fifteen minutes I laid prostrate on the floor to wait on Him once again. As I was quietly lying there listening for Him, He spoke for the second time. This time it was in the form of a stern warning. He said, "never forget, the archenemy to the kind of faith that pleases me is the demonic spirit of anxiousness, gird yourself against it!"
Immediately understanding washed over me! I saw so plainly the reason why so many people were being herded into the frustrating throes of dead religion. Many people walk around having a form of godliness but are relying solely on self sufficiency or the arm of flesh rather than taking the time and effort necessary to acquire true faith in God, the ability to trust, rest and wait totally on Him in every situation. Now I understand better what Paul meant when he said, "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." (2 Timothy 3:1-5) Paul was simply warning us to stay away from anyone or anything that would hinder our obtaining the ability to Trust, Rest and Wait on God!
Up to that point in my walk with the Lord I must admit to you that I did not have a very good understanding of what faith really was, and frankly, neither did most of the people that I had discussed the subject with. Plenty of folks seem to know the consequences of not having faith, but nobody knew how to get it. As a matter of fact, just about all of the teachings that I had heard or read on the subject were vague at best using, as the basis for their teaching, Paul's brief explanation of faith in Hebrews, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1) As wonderful of a job as Paul had done explaining what he knew faith to be, I still could not quite grasp what he meant. Sure, I was pretty well familiar with most of the popular buzz phrases of the day but when it came right down to it, the real definition of faith was at best a gray area to most. Even though, after an exhaustive search, I could not find a clear definition of faith anywhere in the scriptures I eventually came to the realization that I did not need to have faith defined in order to have it operating in my life. During that same period of time the faith message was being so misrepresented that I found myself beginning to sidestep the issue whenever it arose. It seemed that the whole "faith thing" was sadly becoming no more than the password for a growing group of people who seemed to be worshipping faith for what it could do for them personally more than they ever worshipped God Himself. The extent of the faith message was really becoming no more than the teaching of cranked up or turbo charged hope.
Even those who were teaching the more balanced faith message of the day were being taken way out of context by the rapidly growing sect of the self seeking. For example, I recall hearing Dr. Kenneth Hagin, a precious minister of the gospel who has now gone on to be with the Lord, tell of a time when he and a group of his colleagues were having dinner at a nearby restaurant after one of his meetings. As they were eating, they overheard a group of people sitting at a table that was on the other side of a partition from them. These folks had obviously attended the meeting and were recapping things that brother Hagin had taught on that night. Brother Hagin said that he was literally shocked as he overheard these people telling each other what they heard Brother Hagin say, things that Brother Hagin said that he never said at all. He later added, "No wonder the faith message was coming under such intense scrutiny!" You see, just because someone listened to you doesn't necessarily mean they heard and understood what you said!
For instance, in 1982 I spent quite a bit of time during the summer water skiing with a new friend and his wife who were both steeped in the unbalanced version of the faith movement. They both worked as managers with a large corporation and were very wealthy. They had the palatial home, nice cars, good looks and everything else that society deems successful. One day he called me and said that he was having problems with his teeth and had been advised to see a dentist. Not quite convinced in his heart that God was going to supernaturally heal him, he called me in hopes that I would say, you don't need to go to a dentist, just believe God for your healing! I did in fact tell him to believe God for healing but I also added that I felt, to be safe, he should go ahead and at least see what a dentist had to say. As soon as I suggested that to him, he became a bit angry with me and replied, "Well, I'll just have pray about that!" He then hung up the phone and I didn't hear back from him for several days. To make a long story short, due to an increase in his pain, he eventually went to the dentist. They did a much needed surgical procedure and he was well on his way to receiving the healing that he so desperately needed even though it was not happening the way that he had hoped. Because the dentist had to make several incisions as a part of his surgery, an antibiotic was prescribed to ward off any possible infection that might occur. The doctor specifically instructed him to take one of the pills every eight hours until the entire bottle was gone. Two days later he was given a tape on divine healing by someone from his church. After listening to the tape, against my advice and the advice of others, he took the antibiotics and flushed them down the toilet and said, "I don't receive this infection." A minister friend later told me that the infection soon spread throughout his entire mouth to the point of his having to have almost half of his lower jaw removed.
Remember, whether we are dealing with matters of faith or any other aspect of our walk with God, "A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight." (Proverbs 11:1) It is of the utmost importance that we maintain balance where our faith walk is concerned. Rely too much on your own abilities or the arm of flesh and we will always remain outside of the will of God. On the other hand, abandon initiative and common sense, like our friend with the dental problem did, and we will wind up fruitless where God's will for our lives and service to both Him and His people are concerned. For example, you want a beautiful green lawn for the summer. You made your request known to God and He, working through an anonymous donor, supernaturally provides the money for your fertilizer, grass seed and the necessary tools to get the job done. Now, how nice do you think your lawn will look when spring comes, if all you have done is purchase the materials and equipment but refuse to do the work needed to get the seed and fertilizer out of the bags and into the ground? You're right, you will have the same old, brown, tumbleweed-looking mess you have had for the past several years, simply because you didn't put feet on your faith and get the work done. James teaches us, "Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: show me thy faith without thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works." (James 2:17-18) Balance the two, faith and works, and you will be well on your way to bringing a smile to the face of God! Remember, the principle ingredients to our receiving the kind of faith that pleases Him is our obtaining the ability or learning how to trust in, rest in and wait on God in every situation.
Now, let's take a moment and look at each of the three keys that make up God-pleasing faith. The first key being TRUST. What is trust? (Source- Strong's Exhaustive Concordance) The Hebrew word for trust is "batach." It expresses that sense of well-being and security which results from having something or someone in whom to place confidence, to trust, be confident or sure; be bold (confident, secure, sure) careless, put confidence, (make to) hope, (put, make to) trust, rely on, take refuge in. This idea of taking refuge may well derive from the common experience of fugitives or men of war, for whom the adjacent hills provided a ready "safe height" or "strong rock" to which the often helpless defender could hurry for protection. "The LORD redeemed the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate." (Psalms 34:22)"He that dwells in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust." (Psalms 91:1-2) "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding." (Proverbs 3:5)
Our second key is REST. (Source- Strong's Exhaustive Concordance) The Hebrew word for rest is "noo'-akh." A primitive root; to rest, i.e. settle down; to dwell, stay, fall, place, let alone, withdraw, give comfort, etc. KJV- cease, be confederate (to be united), lay, let down, (be) quiet, remain, (cause to, be at, give comfort, etc.) Rest also signifies a fixed and secure habitation. Rest also has the following figurative meanings: To learn, or trust in, to continue fixed, to come to an end and to cease from war. The last is probably my favorite. Jesus says, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30) "For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world." (Hebrews 4:3) "For he that is entered into his (God's) rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief." (Hebrews 4:10-11) God's greatest pleasure is to be believed! When we come to the place where we have learned to rest in God it is evidence that we believe Him to fulfill in our lives what He promises in His word. That's why it's literally impossible to please Him if we do not believe or have faith in Him for everything! The Webster's Dictionary defines believe, 1.) to take as true, real, etc. 2.) to trust a statement or promise of (a person) 3.) to suppose or think, to have faith (in).
Our third key is WAIT. (Source: Strong's Exhaustive Concordance)
The Hebrew word for wait is "kaw-vaw'; a primitive root; to bind together (perhaps by twisting), i.e. collect; (figuratively) to expect: KJV- gather (together), look, patiently, tarry, wait (for, on, upon).
This root means to wait or look for with great expectation. Waiting with steadfast endurance is a great expression of faith. It means enduring patiently in confident hope that God will decisively act for the salvation of His people.
Those who wait in true faith are renewed in strength so that they can serve the Lord while looking for His saving work. His faith is strengthened through His testings, and His character is further developed.
Paul, in his letter to the believers in Rome said, "But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." (Romans 8:25) "But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isaiah 40:31) "For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith." (Galatians 5:5) "Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD." (Psalms 27:14) "For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth." (Psalms 37:9) "Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day." (Psalms 25:5)
Can you see why the Lord said that anxious spirits are the archenemy to faith? Whenever we become so weighed down and blinded by the cares of this life, as I had, what we have in fact done is allowed our relationship with God to become severed. Jesus warns us of this, "And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares." (Luke 21:34-35) Anxious spirits will always serve to destroy our faith (our ability to trust, rest and wait) in God. If you think about it, each of these three keys that make up God pleasing faith are terribly disrupted whenever we succumb to anxious and impatient spirits.
When we succumb to anxious spirits, our ability to trust God usually becomes redirected toward relying on our own abilities or the provisions and abilities of others to fulfill the needs that we may have. We call this putting confidence in the flesh! "For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh." (Philippians 3:3)
Whenever we are anxious, our ability to rest in God is disrupted! As a matter of fact, when we are anxious, our tendency is to leave the protection of God who is our fortress, with all of His benefits, and wander away from Him. Remember the old military adage, Divide and Conquer!
When we are anxious, our ability to wait on God is also hindered drastically. When we allow ourselves to be swept away by anxiousness, our tendency is to try and "outrun God." When we don't get what we want when we want it, waiting is the last thing we feel like doing. So what do we do? We try to make things happen on our own. What we are doing then is telling God, "I don't believe you or your word!" Can you see where this would "displease" God? Remember, God's only pleasure is to be believed! When we try to possess something before it's God's time for us to have it, what we are doing is calling a curse down on our own heads.
Anything that stands in the way of our trusting in, resting in and waiting on God for everything in our lives displeases Him! What God truly desires for us is that we learn how to trust Him for everything in the same way that a little child knows without a doubt that he or she will have all their needs provided without fail. "And Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:2-3) It is this same kind of child-like faith in Him that God desires that each of us acquire. How do we get it? We get it by first letting down the walls in our lives that have hindered us from opening ourselves up to sound Biblical counsel and investing the time necessary to get to know both God and "His" people in a close and intimate way. Remember, everything that God does is for the purpose of our being able to possess a close and deeply personal relationship with Himself and it is our faith that bonds us together. Without faith, we are separated from God! When we are separated from Him, we have no relationship with Him, and if we have no relationship with Him, it breaks His heart. We must place all of our confidence in God! This is why Paul so emphatically teaches us, "But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him." (Hebrews 11:6)
Your friend and fellow servant in Christ Jesus,
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