Devotional 061108

Dear brothers and sisters,
Good morning. It was heart warming to see birds dancing on the tree outside my office window. The words of Jesus immediately emerged to my mind, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (Matt 6:25-27) The minute my heart was filled with this promise form God, indescribable joy just flood into my soul. Praise the Lord! How blessed we are to be His beloved children. Amen?
When the whole world believed that Lazarus was “hopelessly” dead (he had been dead for 3 days), Jesus said to Martha, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25-26) Martha believed in the power at the disposal of Jesus Christ, she believed that if He had been present He could have healed her brother (Lazarus); she also believed that Jesus had a peculiar intimacy with God and that whatever He asked of God, God would do; but she needed a closer personal intimacy with Jesus. Martha's program of belief (power of resurrection) had its fulfillment only in the future; Jesus led her on until her faith became a personal conviction (not just a theological lesson), and then slowly came to an intimate proclamation - "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world " (John 11:27).
Is there something like that in the Lord's dealings with you? Is Jesus educating you into a personal intimacy with Himself? Let Him press home His question to you - " Do you believe this?" What is your ordeal of doubt? Have you come, like Martha, to some overwhelming passage in your circumstances where your program of belief is about to emerge into a personal conviction? This can never be until a personal need arises out of a personal problem that you encounter in life.
To believe is to commit. In the program of mental belief I commit myself, and abandon all that is not related to that commitment. In personal belief I commit myself morally to this way of confidence and refuse to compromise with any other; and in particular belief I commit myself spiritually to Jesus Christ, and determine in that thing to be dominated by the Lord alone.
When I stand face to face with Jesus Christ and He says to me - "Do you believe this?" I find that faith is as natural as breathing, and I am staggered that I was so stupid as not to trust Him before.
Indeed, why do I doubt that my Lord Jesus is truly the Lord of Resurrection? Do I really believe Him to be a God of impossibility? If He can raise people from the dead, it means He is fully capable to give life to dead, hope to hopelessness, light to darkness and joy to catastrophe. Do you believe this? This season is a real test of faith as we are undergoing this global financial tsunami. Pray that this unpredictable experience will revive and deepen our personal faith in Christ Jesus as the Lord of Resurrection (God of impossibility).
Love you because of His relentless love for us,
Lawrence