Are you sick?
Are you sick?
Are you discouraged?
Have you lost a relationship, a position, or your finances?
What does the Bible say? Let’s examine walking in faith and not by sight!
The first step in confronting a calamity begins in the little book of Jude:
Jude 20-21
20 But you, beloved,
building yourselves up
on your most holy faith,
praying in the Holy Spirit,
21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.
1. Build yourself up on your most holy faith by reading the Gospel of Mark. Read it again! Immerse yourself in the ministry of Jesus from the Gospels so you begin thinking more of Jesus than you have before. See Him in your life!
2. Build yourself up by praying in the Spirit. I understand that to mean that I pray in tongues, praying in the Spirit is described in Romans 8 as a place where the Holy Spirit knows what we need more than what we know, and He prays according to the will of the Father. Pray in the Spirit!
Philippians 4:6-7
6 Be anxious for nothing,
but in everything
by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving
let your requests
be made known to God.
3. Then present your need to the Father in the name of Jesus. Because you have built yourself up you can now pray without anxiety – with prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving you can let your requests be known to God.
Philippians 4:6-7
7 And the peace of God,
which surpasses all comprehension,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
4. The result of praying from a place where your faith has been built up by reading the Word and praying in the Spirit, is you begin to experience the peace of God as you present your prayer request to God. There is a confidence, and expectancy, that He has heard your prayer and He has your best in mind!
Philippians 3:7-11
7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
5. Here is a transition! Your calamity is an invitation by God to grow spiritually! The first step of spiritual growth comes from examining what we are holding onto in life: our own plans, our expectations, our money, our health, our relationships, or ….. what? Paul gave it all up for Jesus:
Philippians 3:7-11
8 More than that,
I count all things to be loss
in view of the surpassing value
of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,
for whom I have suffered the loss
of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,
10 that I may know Him
and the power of His resurrection
and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;
11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
6. Our calamity is an opportunity to know Christ! It is an opportunity to know the power of His resurrection working in us … and to know the fellowship of His sufferings as we are conformed to His death. Read that again! Our sickness, our loss, our hurt, is an opportunity to know Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection! We often miss knowing the resurrection power because we have avoided being conformed to His death! Can you embrace your difficulty as an opportunity of becoming better acquainted with Jesus?
Jesus attempted to explain this thought to the multitude who followed Him:
John 6:54 & 66
54 "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life,
and I will raise him up on the last day."
66 As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew
and were not walking with Him anymore.
7. Jesus made an invitation to the multitude to know Him in the crucifixion and the multitude withdrew from Him. If an invitation was given today in church for us to endure the cross with Jesus … to endure suffering … how many of us would readily respond? Perhaps that is the invitation you have already received? Pain, losses, discouragement, calamity … is that Jesus inviting you to know Him? If we ignore Him and demand instead that our need be met … have we found Him? Has the need continued to go unmet? Perhaps we need to hear His invitation again to eat His flesh and drink His blood … to suffer with Him … to count all things as loss … in order to gain Christ.
Jesus asked the Disciples …
John 6:67-69
So Jesus said to the twelve,
"Do you also want to go away?"
8. Have you ever been disappointed in not getting your prayer request answered the way you wanted it to be answered? Did you go away upset at Jesus? Did you just want to go away? That is what Jesus asked the Twelve. Listen closely to Peter’s answer:
Simon Peter answered Him,
"Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have words of eternal life.
We have believed and have come to know
that You are the Holy One of God."
9. Peter didn’t really give a good answer … he said they didn’t know where else to go. Not a strong vote of confidence … but a realization that there weren’t any answers anywhere else. He was confident of this one thing: Jesus is the Holy One of God. And that was enough. He didn’t understand the suffering, he didn’t understand the cross, he didn’t understand what Christ would ask him to do … but he understood that Jesus had authority to call Him to follow.
Does that mean we will follow Christ and all of our needs will be met? I believe it means that if we follow Christ, He will be Lord of our lives regardless of what road we travel, what loss we experience, or what pain we endure. He is the Holy One of God … and for Him we count all other things as loss!