“Rewarded for Faith”
And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.
Hebrews 11:6
Yesterday we spent a great deal of time looking at faith. Today we are going to look at one of the reasons faith is so important and what God does for those who live and operate by faith. I remind you today as you continue to trust and obey, to not trust what you see but trust in Whom you believe and what you believe Him for.
Without faith it is impossible to please God. Apart from trust in Him a person cannot be saved and forgiven of their sins. Without belief in God’s character a person will be tempted over and over again in life to shrink back in unbelief. If we cannot trust God with the day-to-day affairs of our lives, how can we trust Him with something so big as our eternal salvation? Everything hinges on faith that God is able and trustworthy to do what He says.
It is utterly impossible and we are too weak to please God apart from our confident assurance in His ability. What is your motivation for living? Who do you seek to gratify? If we are honest, a great deal of the time we live to gratify ourselves, but our ultimate goal should be to live in such a way that we please or gratify God. This is done by committing ourselves to living day in and day out by faith. Hence the phrase “trust and obey.” Faith is trusting, but if we really trust God we will take steps of obedience even though they may not make any logical sense to us and our eyes may deceive us as to the wisdom of such steps of obedience.
Do we really desire to please the Lord? If so, we must surrender our lives, plans, and agendas and be willing to do what He leads us to do and to believe Him for what He is calling us to believe Him for, even if it looks impossible and appears outlandish to others around us. It is in obeying God by faith that we demonstrate our trust and confidence.
For eighteen months God called me to live without a salary. He also instructed me not to ask people for money or get a job other serving as the pastor of a very small church and traveling to preach as He gave me opportunity. That was a difficult time, a severe time of testing and trials, but God honored those steps of obedience and met our family’s every need. Few really believed that the Lord had instructed me to live this way, but I have walked with Him long enough that I know His voice. During that time, He came through for our family over and over again in tangible ways. I am talking about bags of groceries, money for utility payments, Christmas presents, house payments, transportation and car repairs. God called me to a lifestyle that did not make sense to the world, but He worked miracles in that season that silenced the doubters and has inspired hundreds and hundreds of people to trust God in their own circumstances.
When we come before the God of this universe we believe that He Is. He is the great I Am. There is not a need we have on this planet that He is not more than sufficient to meet. What do you need today? Healing? He has infinite power to heal every disease He wills to. If you need wisdom, He is the source of unlimited wisdom. If you need financial provision, His storehouse never runs dry of resources and He shares liberally among those in need. If you need strength to cope with adversity, He is the source of endless strength to help you day-by-day and even moment-by-moment. There is nothing that you will ever need in this life that He cannot and will not supply. He is Savior, Counselor, Wisdom, Peace, Healer, Provider, Refuge, Helper, Comforter, Deliverer, Leader, Mighty, Sustainer, Light of the World, Bread of Life, Great Physician, Shepherd, the First and the Last, and so much more. If we spent more time meditating on the character of God we would have more faith to trust Him and a greater willingness to follow His leadership. Because we do not really know Him, we therefore do not really trust Him, which does not honor or please Him.
This is what needs to be the focal point of our time with the Lord today. We need to ponder the greatness of God’s character until we come to the part of His character we need Him to be for us in our situations. Once we have settled on that we must diligently seek Him for intervention in our situations based on His character and the glory that will be brought to Him when He comes through.
What does God do for people who base their faith on His character and seek to please Him by living lives of trusting confidence in His abilities? God rewards such people. The word “reward” means to remunerate, pay back wages, to give. Each time you and I come to make our petitions in faith it is like making a deposit into the bank of Heaven. The reward is when God blesses us and we get to make the withdrawal of the thing we have trusted Him for.
Everybody wants the reward but we cannot skip the process of pleasing Him by living by faith and seeking Him. Each of those steps is vitally important. As we seek Him, do we want Him more than the gifts that He can give us? Ultimately He is the reward. Walking in relationship with Him is the ultimate reward. God also rewards those who take leaps of faith initiated by Him in other ways. I cannot even begin to recount all the times the Lord has rewarded my family when we have trusted Him.
During that eighteen months in which God led me to live without a salary, we learned to trust God from day to day. One summer we had mustered up enough money to put the boys in Red Cross swimming lessons. One morning after they finished we chose to take them to a park to play. When we arrived I noticed the mother of a lady who had formerly attended our church. We caught up and visited about the death of her husband and how the Lord was leading her. She talked about all the Lord was doing in her life. As I got up to leave she reached out to shake my hand and put something in it. I looked down to see it was some cash wadded up. I tried to refuse but she insisted the Lord had led her to do it. We parted ways and I discovered upon sitting in our car that she had given us $100. Only God could have orchestrated that gift.
A couple of years before, Brenda and I had been praying about buying another car and as I was seeking the Lord for direction one morning, my secretary’s voice came over the intercom, interrupting my prayer by telling me I had an unexpected visitor. This same lady walked into my office and she and I talked for a while. When she got up to leave she opened her purse and wrote a check for $2,500 which she felt the Lord had once again called her to give to us. Again, it was an answer to prayer.
As I sat in my car in the park that day, staring at the wad of cash in my hand, I was humbled and amazed to realize that I was sitting in the car that the same lady’s gift had helped us to purchase a couple of years earlier. Do you believe that God will reward you for the steps of faith He is leading you take? What is He calling you to do in this moment? Trust His character and you will be rewarded, but you have to be willing to obey Him and walk in complete trust.
Steps to Trust and Obey:
Find some facet of God’s character that correlates with your need and spend time searching the scriptures for verses that relate.
Ask the Lord what He is calling you to do and what He is calling you to trust Him for.
Commit to take steps of obedience regardless of how frightening that may appear as you sense Him directing you.
Ask the Lord to reward you for your steps of faith and your desire to please Him.
Reprioritize your life so that today you focus on living to please Him.
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