Got Faith?

Got Faith?

The four battles

Your degree of faith (How Hot) is measured by your emotions, feelings, and Actions!

The level of your faith (How solid) is based on your experience with God!

If the mountain you are facing is too big, maybe it’s God who put it there.

Judges 6:11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 36-40

Judges 7: 2,7 Gideon started with 32,000 against 120,00. Then the Lord dropped that number to 10,000, and then again to 300.

V9, 11-15

I Samuel 17:45 –48 David & Goliath

2Chronicles 20: 10,11,12,15, 17,22,23, 24, 25 Jehoshaphat

2Kings 6:15-23 (Elisha & his servant paraphrase) The king of Syria tried on several occasions to ambush the king of Israel, and thought that there was a spy giving his secrets away, because the King of Israel knew where he was going to be each time. Then the Syrian king’s servant told him that Elisha was warning the king of all that he was doing. Now read 2Kings 6:15-23

Let’s look at each of these men, each battle and the way that God worked through them. Let us compare the first two:

Gideon was the one with the lowest self-esteem. He saw himself as being in the least of the tribes of Israel, He saw his family as the least family of that tribe, and he saw himself as being the least in his family. Mr. Gideon was about as low on the self-esteem register as one can get.

Yet God chose Gideon. I wondered why? There had to be men better equipped for the task. There had to be at least some warriors in Israel.

God chose Gideon, because Gideon knew that he was incapable of doing this thing, and not only that, but God knew that everyone in his family his tribe, and for that matter all the tribes knew that Gideon was the No intellect, no Character, no strength, and no courage!

God allowed Gideon to test Him twice. Gideon wanted the fleece to be wet and everything around it dry, then he wanted the fleece dry and everything around it wet. After all of that God still knew that Gideon was terrified, but was too afraid to ask God to give him one more sign, so God without even being asked gave Gideon another sign in order to give him the courage that he needed to obey God. (Sometimes when God tells us something we start to wonder was that really You Lord or is my imagination working over time? We feel better if someone who is not aware of what is going on comes up to us and confirms what we have been struggling with.) So God knowing Gideon says, “Go down there with your servant and you will hear what the enemy has to say about you! That was the extra-added bit of faith that Gideon needed to obey what the Lord had asked of him.

So what was Gideon’s job? Let his light shine, and blow God’s horn. It was God who turned the enemy against itself. And God got the Glory!

On the other hand David had a different life experience, then Gideon. David being a shepherd developed courage for that task. By necessity being alone in the field when an animal came after his flock he chased it down, killed it and rescued his sheep. David didn’t know he could, until he did. Now because he did, he knew he could. Once you have experienced the empowerment of the Lord, you become confident that He will allow you to experience it again.

Because he had a relationship with God already, he having made up songs and had been singing to the Lord for quite some time, and God inhabiting the praises of His people, God inhabited David, and David knew it!

Hear the difference in the two men when confronted with their mountain and see which question you are asking when you are confronted with yours.

Hear Gideon, Judges 6:13 Gideon said to Him, “O my Lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all the miracles….. (Why me Lord?) This is a man who has no relationship with God. This is a man who not only doesn’t know who he is, but he doesn’t even know whose he is. Yet God had and wanted a relationship with him.

Contrast this with David’s question when confronted with his mountain:

I Samuel 17:26 Then David spoke to the men who stood by him, saying what shall be done for the man who kills this philistine and takes the reproach (meaning the shame) from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?

David simply assumed that someone would step up to the plate and kill this guy! He said in v45 you come to me with sword, spear, and javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord! In verse 47 he said for the battle is the Lord’s.