Yet with respect to the promise of God he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith giving glory to God.
Romans 4:20
I hope that yesterday was an encouraging day as you locked onto some of God’s promises. They are invaluable in helping you to walk and to pray with faith. That is why regular sessions of digging into the word of God are so important. Over and over, we must dig into the truth of the Bible so that three things will happen.
First of all, as we dig into the scriptures and our souls are nourished from the savory life-sustaining truth of scripture, we will not waver back and forth in unbelief or faithlessness. When our minds have been saturated with the truth of God’s word, when our souls have begun to drift away from the course of belief, we begin to waver or stagger. In the Greek language that simply means to separate or to withdraw from. When you and I feel the first tugs in our souls to withdraw from seeking God and studying His law, then we are on a collision course with unbelief and we begin to waver.
Look back over the last few weeks - the times when you have had the most faith were you continually in the word of God and clinging to His precious promises? When you have wavered in unbelief did you begin neglecting your Bible study time? If you are living a roller coaster ride in your walk with the Lord, up today and down tomorrow according to your feelings and your circumstances. God wants to offer you something better. He wants to give you a consistent and enduring faith, but this kind of faith must be nourished with prolonged times of prayer and walking through the word of God. There are no short cuts here. You cannot short-change the route of daily prayer and scripture reading if you want to have a consistent faith that endures with hope against hope.
Clinging to God’s word also causes us grow strong in faith. I think about the powerful examples of George Mueller and George Whitfield, and as I read about their lives I see that both of these men read the scriptures incessantly. Whitfield read the Bible while kneeling so he could pray over different passages as they spoke to him. Mueller read about Whitfield and adopted the same practice in the latter years of his life. Mueller reportedly read through the entire Bible one hundred times and then read through it again another one hundred times while kneeling. Is it any wonder these two men were used powerfully by God?
If you are committed to growing a strong faith you will not do it apart from devoting yourself to being immersed in the Bible. But you must do more than just read it, you must also believe it. When God gives you a word or a promise, you must trust that promise like your life depended on it. Many times I have written down the promises of God in my journal and reminded myself of them daily. In fact, when God gives me one on those promises I highlight it with a green marker after recording it in my journal and review those green highlighted sections often. This helps to grow and strengthen my faith. By continually reminding me of what God has assured me He wants to do, God empowers and enables me to believe Him for it. There is no way we can exaggerate the importance the role God’s truth plays in making our faith mighty.
There is a third thing that takes place once we have seized God’s promise, grown consistent in our trust, and stronger in our belief. We are able to give Him glory through the answers to our prayers. I have referred to this point many times over this days in this challenge. Today I would like to take a closer look at what it means to give God glory. The word “glory” means honor resulting from a good opinion. God wants this whole earth to look to Him, to recognize Him, and honor Him from the good opinions people have formed about Him. Nobody or no thing in this world deserves to be more honored and well thought of than God. If you and I were to have this opinion about ourselves, that would be sick. If we lived our every day wanting to be honored, well thought of, and for people to have a good opinion of us, there would be something really wrong in our psyches. If we tried to steer every conversation back on ourselves, to exalt, promote, and honor ourselves among people, that would become nauseating. So why is this self-promotion acceptable for God? Why does God make His glory such a big deal in general and more specifically, a big deal for our prayers? Because He deserves it.
God is the grandest reality in this universe. The best thing for this entire planet is God and God knows that all too well. God is not some insecure deity fighting for His place among all the other gods and idols in this world, He is so magnificent that in an expression of His love for people, He exalts, promotes, honors, and praises His name. He knows that as His fame spreads and His name is glorified, people will be drawn to Him and ultimately lost, sinful, hell-bound people will hear and eventually come to repentance and salvation. How? By the mouths of God’s people and by His creation. The mountains, oceans, streams, prairies, deserts, forests, and every place in between shout glory to God. God’s people praise and exalt God in response to answered prayer all the time. That is the ultimate end of prayer - God gets the glory. The one doing the praying does not get the glory. The answer to the prayer does not get the glory. God, who hears, who answers, and who does the impossible, gets the glory.
Steps to Trust and Obey:
1. What role is God’s glory playing in your prayers?
2. What role is God’s Word playing in strengthening your faith?
3. Is God speaking to you today? If so, what is He saying and what is He calling you to do?
4. In what ways will you seek to glorify Him today?
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