Mark 11:22 So Jesus answered and said to them, "Have faith in God.Faith, the subject of scriptural debates all over the Christian world. Some say that we get it as a gift from God, others say that we begin with a small measure and nurture it through the words of God, some even say that it is just a fairy tale of believing in something you can't see or touch....ME? I go with what the Bible teaches, as it is inspired by God, either through the Holy Spirit given unto men or witnessed by men through the events that had taken place during the time of Christ.
Romans 10:17 So then faith [comes] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.Don't just take my word for it...Faith comes by hearing the Bible preached correctly and
by studying God's word ourselves. Faith comes by understanding and interpreting Scripture correctly, it comes by rightly dividing the Word of Truth.
Faith is our personal level of understanding and trusting in God and His word....personal because we deal with God and He with us one on one, I can't grow your faith for you nor you for me.
False teaching will eventually rob a person of his faith, but teaching truth results in a faith that grows and grows. Study the Bible carefully to learn the truth and grow in faith.
What do I mean by FALSE TEACHING? Oh oh, somebody's toes may be stepped on here, but the truth is the truth, infallible, never changing and always victorious in the end and the truth is when it comes to teaching the Bible, if it does not give God the Glory then it is not true teaching.
"Then the devil took Him [Jesus] up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, 'If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: He shall give His angels charge concerning you', 'and in their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.'
Jesus said to him, [the devil] 'it is written again, You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'" If in fact we are being taught that we can pick up a jar of strict-nine and drink it expecting God to keep us from becoming severely sickened or die....because ...
They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Ask me if I am gonna go to church this morning and grab a hold of a five foot Western Diamondback Rattler...and jump up and down kissing it on the mouth?
And follow that up with a shot of strict-nine....I say trust in God when the unusual happens, not by making the unusual to happen....then trust in God to intervene. Should I go out on the interstate and walk into the path of a semi rig and expect to walk away from it? Because for some reason I believe by "faith" that God will stop the truck ... we have to be careful how the word is being taught, should I let my child lay in bed dying from pneumonia instead of taking him or her to the doctor? Because my "faith" tells me that God will heal ..... oh my dear dear friends, listen very closely. How does all this get started? Misinterpretation of God's word....When the apostle Paul was en route to Rome as a prisoner for Christ (Acts 27:1ff), his ship was wrecked upon the island of Malta. The inmates of the vessel huddled together on that cold morning and built a fire on the beach.
The ever-industrious Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks; when he started to put them on the flames, a poisonous viper slithered out and fastened on the apostle's hand.The observers thought Paul soon would be dead; amazingly, he suffered no harm at all. His hand did not even swell (28:5-6)—as confirmed by Luke, the physician (Colossians 4:14). This sign demonstrated that the gospel Paul preached was indeed true. (did Paul plant the snake in the wood pile?)
All I am saying today is for each of us to re-examine our Faith in God, creating situations in order to prove our Faith is wrong, that is simply "tempting" God.....
