Tag: faith

Where Is The Faith?

Nevertheless when the Son of man comes, will He really find faith on the earth? Luke 18:8

Often when I read this scripture, I wonder if He was thinking of marriage when He spoke those words. Walking with our daughter through their divorce this past year has once again opened our eyes to the dismal lack of faith for marriage healing that surrounds all of us. Far too many Christians, many of them leaders in the Body of Christ, have expressed their joy for Cristine that she is now free and can seek a new husband.

I wonder what their reaction would have been had she told them her husband was battling cancer. I imagine they would have met that news with promises to pray for his healing. There is a lot of faith in the Body of Christ for physical healing. Not so much for the healing of a marriage.

Why can’t people see that God has plans for every person? When Jesus hung on the cross, He saw everyone of us as we are and as God has designed us to be. He had faith for all of us and gave His life that we might become that vision of God.

Yet, so many only see people the way they are today. Imagine what Saul’s friends must have thought of him before the Damascus road. Would any of them ever have imagined that God could transform a man’s heart so completely? Paul became a man filled with the Holy Spirit and fire. His heart and his life were totally transformed by a touch from Jesus.

Can that not happen today? Is God limited by time and place?

Is He a respecter of persons?

I remember how many people told me years ago that Michael would never change and that I should just get on with my life. They saw him only as he was, not as God saw him. They told me God had a good husband for me, a Christian man who loved Jesus, and they were right. The only problem was they never realized it was the same man!

It amazes me that people believe one human being is so powerful! That one person, man or woman, has a will stronger than God’s. Think about it. That is what people are saying when they believe a person will never change. Yes, he or she needs to make choices. We cannot do that for someone else. But scripture says, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”  2 Corinthians 10:4-5 NIV

God has given us divine power in warfare. The enemy may be pulling one way, but what God says carries more weight than that. It is not an even battle! Where will we place our faith? In what God says? Or in what we see the enemy doing? Who is more powerful?

I think the reason people have lost faith for marriage is they have only been watching the work of the enemy. The destruction they have seen has convinced them that there is no hope for change. How truly sad that is!

We need to fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, and listen to what He is speaking about marriage and family. His Word stands for all eternity! What we see with our natural eyes does not even compare with what we should be seeing in the supernatural. If we keep our eyes on Him, and not on the circumstances, we will begin to walk in His faith for our situations.

No one is impossible. No circumstance is beyond God’s ability. How I long for the day when the Body rises up as one to confront the enemy who has the gall to attack a marriage and family. May we all begin to realize that Jesus died for the transformation of hearts. May we begin to see each person through eyes of faith and stand solidly, unwavering on God’s promises for him or her. Love, Marilyn

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:17-18

What Are the Odds?

It’s been a while. Our youngest son got married and many other events made life a bit crazy for a few months. You are always on my heart and in my prayers, though, even when I am not blogging.

Over the past few months I have been struck again and again with how much divorce has become an acceptable solution for society at large and for the Church specifically. I am so tired of hearing that, of course, it isn’t God’s best and it is too bad that it had to happen. I am also growing extremely weary of hearing that I don’t understand the circumstances and that there was no other alternative.

I do not understand how this side of the cross there can be any difference that is irreconcilable for a Christian. Jesus paid the price with His blood for all sin and to reconcile us all. When He lives within us, how can we ever believe that the differences between us cannot be reconciled?

The problem is the Church has lost its will to fight for marriages.

When circumstances seem more powerful than victory in Jesus, we have forgotten that in Him we are more than conquerors. When we allow another human being, who is probably following what the enemy is saying, to tell us what our future will be, we have forgotten that greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.

When we give up and give in and accept the destruction that Satan has brought into our lives, we forget that at the cross he was stripped of all power. “Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it” Colossians 2:15. Jesus said, “ALL authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

Hope is the key. When you have no hope, you cannot have faith. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for… “ So many times we have been told, “Don’t get his or her hopes up. You don’t know that God will heal that marriage.” I say if you don’t get people’s hopes up, there will be no stand for the healing of the marriage. That is where the Church is today. No hope and no faith when it comes to marriage healing.

Let’s face it, the odds are against you. If you simply go by statistical data, your chances of seeing your marriage healed are bleak. But statistics are only natural reports. They only reflect what others have experienced and most of those others did not have hope or faith that anything could change.

For centuries missionaries have carried the gospel to the corners of the earth. What were the odds of meeting a Christian in those places before they arrived? Probably pretty low odds of that happening. But they were willing to pay the price, to go, and to give their very lives to see those odds change. That is the only way it can happen.

Are you willing to buck the odds? Are you willing to allow God to flood your heart with His vision and your life with His power? Are you willing to swim upstream while others float by you in total defeat? Standing isn’t easy, but it is the only way to see victory. Jesus paid the ultimate price to give us a victorious life. That includes our marriage. But we must be willing to stand in the gap and fight the good fight of faith. Love, Marilyn

“There was a little city with few men in it; and a great king came against it, besieged it, and built great snares around it. Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city.”  Ecclesiastes 9:14-15

“Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” Matthew 7:14