What is Faith

Hello Everyone,

    Today I want to talk about how to define faith.  Sometimes Christians say that they are people of faith.  What they typically mean is that they believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior.  That's a great place to start but it's really only a start.  Now when I talk with the Lord about words, I want a working definition of the word because I realized that there are many words that Christians use and say with no true understanding of what the word actually means.  I think "faith" can be one of those.

    I have heard people say, and I have been one of them, that they have faith but what do they really mean?

   

    Hear is the definition of faith the Lord gave me.  Faith is believing that God will do what He said He would do.  God does this every time we let him.  Now many times people pray for something but they pray in hope not in faith.  Those are two different things and prayers in hope, not faith, won't work.  In fact in Mark 6:58 and Matthew 13:58 it says that Jesus could do no mighty works because of their unbelief (lack of faith).

    So let me show you the difference.  If I go ask a friend of mine to borrow his car, when I ask (or pray) I am doing it in hope.  I don't know what he will say but I sure hope he let's me borrow his car.  

    So think about this situation.  I want to borrow a friend's car so I call him on Saturday and ask him if I can use the car on Sunday.  He says, "Sure.  Come get the keys from me on Sunday morning and you can borrow the car."  So when Sunday morning comes, I go to him and ask for the keys.  But when I ask, because he is a man of his word, I know he will give me the keys to the car because he told me that I could borrow it on Saturday.  

    Do you see the difference between faith and hope?

    Well you might ask what this has to do with God and the Bible.  It's exactly the same thing.  I have heard many people ask for prayer about something without knowing what God's Word says about their prayer request.  They are asking in hope, not faith, because they don't know what God said He would do.  But on the other hand, when someone goes to God and knows what He already said in His word about a situation, then they can ask in Faith fully expecting God to do what He said He would.

    So for example if you need a financial miracle, you can go before the Lord and say, "Lord You said in Philippians 4:19 that You would supply all my needs according to Your riches in Christ Jesus.  Now you know I need the electric bill paid and I am asking You now to pay the electric bill."  When you do, if you believe that He will, then thank Him for paying it.  

    In the case of me borrowing a car from my friend, when I called on Saturday, I would tell him thank you when I got off the phone before I ever saw the keys.  We should do the same with God because it's good to be thankful but also because we believe He will do what He said!

That's another Opinion of the Minion

Holding Grudges

Hi Everyone,

 

Someone who follows me on Facebook, NP, asked me to write about holding grudges so here's my take.

 

We've all been there.  There's that one person who has really done something wrong to us and we want to get back at them so bad we can taste it.  We dream of all the witty things we would say or how we would act given the chance and we think about how good it would feel to finally let that person have it.  I mean we deserve to get even with someone if they have done something wrong to us.  If you are a Christian you have to turn the other cheek once but after that you are out of cheeks and it's time for payback.  Now many times we don't pay the other person back we just think about it.

 

But even when we do pay them back, we often feel worse for what we did to them than we did before we did it.  One time I was in a movie theater with my brother and his wife.  We were in line to get popcorn and all the things you need to see a movie and there was this guy who said that my sister-in-law didn't pay for her hot dog when I knew she did.  I don't remember how it started but he said something that was kind of insulting and I didn't wait to hold a grudge, I let him have it right there.  I said some really mean stuff that cut him down to size.  Then we went into the movie theater and I felt so terribly awful for saying the things I said.  See my mom always told me that two wrongs don't make a right.  So what did I do?  I went back and found the kid and apologized profusely for my words.

 

So now let's deal with what happens when we hold grudges?  First of all, the real person it hurts is us.  Grudges don't normally hurt the other person because they normally don't even know about them.  But what they do to our insides is pretty bad.  They make us feel all sorts of negative emotions that really can do us harm.  If we are not careful, we can spend a lot of time mediating on all the negative stuff which is really bad for us.  

 

But also did you know that when we hold things against other people that it will hinder our prayers to God.  The bible tells us to forgive others so God can forgive us.  That's pretty heavy stuff.  So I can hear some of you saying, "That all sounds good but I've tried everything and I just can't let go of this grudge."  Well that's not true.  Did you know that there is a lot of power in the words we say.  When we go around saying things like I can't let go, we only make it harder to actually let go.

 

The answer to this lies in that hole under our mouth.  If you want to let go of a grudge, make a conscious faith decision to let go.  Then say out of your mouth, "I let go of that grudge that I have against so and so."  At that point, it's a done deal.  So what do you do three minutes later when that negative feeling starts coming up?  You say to it, "Nope I have already let go of the grudge and forgiven that person."  If you keep saying that, eventually it will become a reality in your life and you can finally be free of the grudge.  Remember, if you are a Christian, you got saved by faith.  You can let go of a grudge by faith as well.  When you do, God will help you let go.

 

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The Apple Seed

 Today I want to encourage you to hold fast to the dreams that God has put in your heart.  Sometimes we have to continue to work a while before we see results.  I bet there are some of you who read my blog that are saying to yourselves, "I want to quit.  I've been working toward a goal for quite a while now and it seems like I will never get there.  I'm not even seeing results or at least not the results that I want to see." 

Well I can tell you I have been there before and I even face that now (well sort of).  There are a couple of areas in my life where I truly believe I know what the end result looks like.  But right now it doesn't exactly look that way.

Do you know what happens when you plant an apple tree seed?  If you water it properly and take care of the soil sooner or later it will sprout up an apple tree.  After a while the apple tree will produce apples.  But guess what.  The apple tree doesn't start producing apples the day after you plant the seed.  As a matter of fact, if you were to dig up the seed and look at it right after you planted it there would be nothing different about it.  It would just look like a dirty seed. 

See that seed needs to go through some days where there is no sunlight.  It goes through days that are rainy and it goes through days where people are putting fertilizer (that is manure) on top of it and all around it.  It needs to go through some days where there is nothing but darkness and pressure all around it.  If you left it above the ground where it was always bright and there was no pressure, it would wither up and die.  It would turn to dust.  But if you take away the sunlight, throw in some pressure, manure and plenty of rainy days the next thing you know that apple seed will begin to multiply and push it's way through the dirt to the surface.  It takes the pressure of the soil and the manure and takes nutrients from them.  It takes those rainy days and uses the water to grow.

I believe we are all in places where there is pressure in our lives.  For me personally, I know of a couple of places where I feel pressure.  If I look with my natural eyes, I don't see much movement or much way of getting through the dirt to the sunlight.  I've seen plenty of rainy days lately.  But I know what those rainy days mean.  Those rainy, pressure filled days where I see know light at the end of the tunnel mean that I am one step closer to getting above the ground and bearing fruit.  I'm one step closer to the success that I want and to the goal that I set.

So let me encourage you in this.  If you are facing what seems like an impossible situation right now.  If you are trusting God and putting your faith to work but you aren't seeing the results you want, don't quit.  All the bad stuff that is being thrown at your dream is a sure sign that your sprout is about to push through the surface!  You may only be one step from getting the result you wanted.  So don't stop trusting God to do what He said He would.  This could be your last day in the pressure!

It's happened again.  I've blogged myself happy. 

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Prayers that Work

 

Hello everyone,

 

Today I want to talk to you about prayer. I once heard a man in a gathering say, “Pray your best prayer.” It sounded like I was supposed to come up with something really cool to pray and pray it. But that doesn’t work. Have you ever prayed a prayer and it wasn’t answered? I know I have. I heard someone else say that God’s answer to prayer is always yes, no, or not now. But that’s not true either. The Bible says that if we ask in Jesus’ name, and ask according to the will of God, He will do it.  How do we know if we are asking in the will of God, we find out what He says about something in His Word, the Bible. 

 

For example, if someone came up and said to you, “I am believing God, and praying that He will make that girl marry me,” you would think he’s crazy. It’s simply a prayer that God cannot answer because it would be manipulating that girl to do something. God is not a manipulator. That girl might ultimately be the person that the boy marries, but it wouldn’t be because God answered his prayer around that. Along the same lines, I don’t think we can ask God to save someone. But I believe if anyone sees God and knows who He is, they will want to be saved. The Bible says in Corinthians that the devil blind the eyes of unbelievers so that they can’t see God. We have been given authority over the devil, and I believe scripturally that we can pray, like it says in Corinthians, that God removes the blinders off of someone’s  eyes so they can see God. That’s a prayer that He can answer. 

 

So let me ask you this, what are you praying? Is what you’re praying in line with the Word? If it is, believe that you receive it, and never back down from that. If it’s not or you don’t know if it is, get God to show you how you’re supposed to pray and pray prayers that work.

If you are reading this and you don’t know Jesus, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to my friend Jesus. Would you like a personal relationship with Him? All you have to do is pray this simple prayer. Say, “Jesus, come into my life. I make you my Lord and Savior.” If you prayed that prayer, I believe you got born into the family of Christ. The Bible says that Jesus will always be with you. He wants a relationship with you.

 

If you prayed, would you please leave a comment saying, “I prayed”. We would love to know you did.

 

Also, if you would like to learn more about who you are and how God really sees you, please click the link below. We would love to send you study material absolutely free.

 

http://eepurl.com/gLci8D

 

That's Another Opinion of the Minion

 

Disclaimer: This add was paid for by me.

The God Thing

 

Today I want to talk about the whole God thing.  When you say God, most people thing about a religion.  But God is not a religion.  As a matter of fact, God is not a big fan of religion.  In the new testament, there are several places He rebuked the religious leaders.  At one point, he ran people out of a church with a whip because of what the religious leaders were allowing.

God is a person and he wants a relationship with you.  It’s hard for me to believe that the person who created the universe wants to have a personal relationship with me but it’s true.  This is what makes Christianity different from all others – personal relationship. 

The way to personal relationship is through His son Jesus.  That is who I want you to know today.  Jesus came to earth as a man and faced every temptation that we could face. He saw his whole nation turn on him and crucify him.  He did it willingly so that He could be with you and I. He wants to be with you wherever you are and in whatever you're going through. In Matthew 28:20 he says that he will be with you always even to the ends of the earth.

He was beaten so you could be well, he was made fun of and spit on so that He could have the opportunity to be crucified for our sins. He could have called down 10,000 angels to destroy the world when they were doing all those mean things to Him. But He didn't. He endured the shame for you and I and shed his blood so that we could have a relationship with He and His Father. There's nothing he wants more in all the earth than to be in relationship with you. He loves us that much. 

He's not asking you to follow a bunch of rules, he's asking you to follow Him. You see following the rules is not the way to Jesus. Jesus is the way to following the rules.

If you struggle with something, Jesus knows, and he wants to help you find freedom.  He’s not mad at you for struggling and you don’t have to be perfect before you come to him.  You and I will never be perfect and that’s why He wants us to come.  He can and will set us free from the things that we don’t want to do.

Jesus is not a religion, he's a person. And he wants to spend your whole life with you. Will you let him today?

If you are reading this and you don’t know Jesus, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to my friend Jesus. Would you like a personal relationship with Him? All you have to do is pray this simple prayer. Say, “Jesus, come into my life. I make you my Lord and Savior.” If you prayed that prayer, I believe you got born into the family of Christ. The Bible says that Jesus will always be with you. He wants a relationship with you.

If you prayed, would you please leave a comment saying, “I prayed”. We would love to know you did.

Also, if you would like to learn more about who you are and how God really sees you, please click the link below. We would love to send you study material absolutely free.

http://eepurl.com/gLci8D

That's Another Opinion of the Minion

 

Anatomy of a Miracle

Today I want to talk about miracles. Currently I am spending time studying prayer. There are times when we pray for a miracle so what is it? A miracle is simply something happening that is good that we don’t understand. If you come from a Christian faith background, you might think that we should expect miracles when we pray. If you pray for God to heal your physical body, and don’t see an immediate healing, you may think that you didn’t get your healing because it didn’t happen instantly. In other words, you were looking for a miracle. You wanted to see something supernatural. Just because you didn’t see a supernatural healing doesn’t mean that you did not receive your healing. Not every miracle in Jesus’ ministry happened instantly.

For instance, look at what happened to the fig tree in Mark 11. Jesus spoke to the fig tree and walked away. When he walked off, there was nothing about the outside appearance of that fig tree that would say anything had happened but the next morning, it was dried up from the root. Jesus didn’t say to himself when he walked off, “Oh well, I guess that didn’t work.” To say something like that would have countered his faith with unbelief and stopped the process. It’s very important that we don’t stop our miracle from happening by saying something or doing something that is not in line with what we are asking God to do.

Here's another thought. We take drugs from the doctor today that help our body heal. We use all kinds of modern medicine for this purpose. If we went back in time 1000 years and told someone who was sick that if they swallowed this pill, their body would recover, what they call it? They would say it was a miracle because it gave them something good and they didn’t know how it happened. We wouldn’t call it a miracle, we would call it an antibiotic. But many times we don’t have to wait for the miraculous to be healed. In fact, that can be very dangerous. If you are sick, go see a doctor and do what they prescribe. It doesn’t make you less spiritual if it doesn’t happen miraculously.

If you are reading this and you don’t know Jesus, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to my friend Jesus. Would you like a personal relationship with Him? All you have to do is pray this simple prayer. Say, “Jesus, come into my life. I make you my Lord and Savior.” If you prayed that prayer, I believe you got born into the family of Christ. The Bible says that Jesus will always be with you. He wants a relationship with you.

If you prayed, would you please leave a comment saying, “I prayed”. We would love to know you did.

Also, if you would like to learn more about who you are and how God really sees you, please click the link below. We would love to send you study material absolutely free.

http://eepurl.com/gLci8D

That's Another Opinion of the Minion