The Crisis Of Belief

There is a two-fold purpose for God doing this: First, God desires to receive glory and honor from His people. He will not share His glory with any other. We may make idols out of athletes, preachers, politicians, and others, but God detests that practice and He will not share His glory. God said, 8 "I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. (Isaiah 42:8)

If God gave you and me assignments that we could accomplish on our own then we would be confused as to who deserves the glory. When God gives us God-sized assignments and we see His purposes accomplished in our lives and His world then we know beyond a shadow of a doubt who did it. The glory belongs to the Lord!

A few years ago there was a church in Canada who sensed that God was giving them a God-sized assignment and they followed His leadership. Their experience changed their lives forever. Henry Blackaby, the writer of Experiencing God, the Bible study that many of us have gone through, was the pastor of the church at the time and he tells the story for us.

One year the people on our finance committee said, 'Pastor, you have been taught us to walk by faith in every area of the life of our church except in the budget.'' Henry asked them to explain. They said, 'Well, when we set the budget, we set the budget on the basis of what we believe we can do. It does not reflect that we expect God to do anything.' Henry said, "Hmmm. Then how do you feel we ought to set the budget?' They said, "First, we ought to determine all that God wants to do through us. Second, we need to put down what that will cost. Then we need to divide the budget goal into three categories (1) what we plan to do through our tithes. (2) what others have promised to do, (3) what we must depend on God to do.'

As a church we prayed and decided God wanted us to use this approach to budgeting. We did not try to dream our own dreams for God. we had to be absolutely sure God was leading us to do the things we put in the budget. Then we listed what that would cost. We listed what we thought our people would give and what others (denominational board, partnership churches, and individuals) had said they would give. The difference between what we could reasonably expect to receive and the total was what we would ask God to provide. The big question was: What was our operating budget? Well, by faith we adopted the grand total as our operating budget. At this point we reached a crisis of belief. Did we really believe that the God who led us to do these things also would provide the resources to bring them to pass? Anytime God leads you to do something that has God-sized dimensions, you will face a crisis of belief. When you face a crisis of belief, what you do next reveals what you really believe about God.

The budget of our church normally would have been $74,000.00 The budget we set was $164,000. We pledged to pray daily that God would meet our needs. Any money that came in that we did not anticipate we credited to God. At the end of that year we had received $172,000. God taught our church a lesson in faith that radically changed us all. (Henry Blackaby, Experiencing God, pg. 108)