Pleasing God, Making Disciples of Jesus Christ

The Challenge Of Faith

DEUTERONOMY 29:29 – The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

THEME OF THE DAY. THE CHALLENGE OF FAITH. As we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus, today’s scripture will become increasingly important as well as relied upon more frequently. It is the place to run to when God does what is inevitable in our lives – challenge our faith in order to develop our faith.

Even though faith is a gift of God that leads to salvation – For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9), it is a gift that must be used and developed. And God will see to it that both occur in the maturing of His children. In the process of Him doing this work, we will be faced with situations, circumstances, and things in our lives that simply don’t make sense to us. It must be that way. So with that as our starting point, let’s apply today’s scripture to the challenge and development of our faith.

Today’s verse is an anchor to our soul when God challenges us to exercise faith in Him when we don’t have a clue with what is happening in our lives. By nature, and sinful nature of that, we humans want to have everything figured out in our lives. Even as Christians. We want to know what God is doing in our lives, how He is doing it, why He is doing it, and those answers given to us right now. We want to live by faith AND sight. And when God doesn’t tell us immediately why things are happening in our lives which are painful, cause us to suffer, and just are hard to handle, we cry out and that often more in the spirit of complaining, not submitting. Here is where today’s scripture is a life-preserver saving us from ourselves and the need to have everything figured out immediately. The application? The secret things belong to the Lord our God. He doesn’t owe us immediate revelation of His work in us. Fight the good fight of faith by letting go and letting God be God. Father does know what is best. Meet the challenge of faith head on by saying to self, “Self, I don’t need all the answers right now. I can rest in the goodness of my God that He knows what He is doing and, in His doing, He has chosen not to tell me all “the secret things” He is doing. I rest in His ways, though I don’t understand His ways.”

Friends, if our faith is real, then it must be challenged. In the challenging of our faith is the development of our faith; a development that weans us from the spiritual immaturity of trusting our feelings and what we see and taking us to a spiritual maturity of trusting God and His always perfect ways.

PRAYER: “Father, help me to trust Your ways when I don’t understand Your ways.”

QUOTE: “In order for faith to grow, it must be exercised and that means in difficult times.”