Building Your Faith

This morning I am reminded of a message I have believe God has told me to share many times. Many of my brothers and sisters in Christ are facing things that are hard. There is illness and tragedy all around. The message is simple; we must build up our faith before we need it most. You do not want to be in the midst of a trial and be looking for your faith. Satan knows the best time to attack. He knows that if you are struggling with troubles in your life, then your defenses are down. He will come at you with his best weapon and that is deception. He will tell that God doesn’t care. He will try and convince you that your prayers don’t matter. He will call God’s Word weak and ineffective. He will try and convince you God isn’t there. He will say if God cared He would bring healing. He will add to your fears, your anger, and your doubt. He is a liar.

This morning if things are going well then Satan will tempt you with busyness. He will do anything to keep you from spending time with God. He will remind you how hard you work, how smart you are, and even tell you how good of a Christian you are. His goal? Convince you of your own self-worth. Then you won’t see the need to pray. You will be too busy worshipping yourself to spend time worshipping God. You don’t have time to read the Bible. You did that last year he will tell you. You know those scriptures. Why bother thinking about those? He will remind you about all the activities you just have to get accomplished. Work, the housework, the kids, all the places to go and things to do. Then tonight He will remind you how hard you worked today and convince you that you deserve to just kick back in your chair, pop open a beer or pour a glass of wine and just watch the game or your favorite TV show. Then you will get sleepy and go to bed. Tomorrow it all starts all over. Then Sunday comes and you will go to church, drink your coffee and enjoy the music. You will take communion and write a check to the church. You will fight to stay awake during the sermon and check you watch to be sure the pastor doesn’t go too long. Then you rush out of church and go eat a great lunch. Maybe a little yard work and a nap. Then it will all start over Monday morning.

Life will become like the movie Groundhog Day. Blah, blah, blah. But then suddenly out of the blue it all hits; Cancer, kids in trouble, car breaks down, and you lose your job.  Where is God you say?

Friends the time to build your faith is now. The way to build faith is through relationship with Jesus. It is by reading God’s Word daily. It is by praying without ceasing. It is through leaning to be thankful in good times and bad. It is by sacrificing your time to just be simply worshipping God. It is though Christian fellowship by sharing both our good times and our bad times with other Christians.

Trouble is coming friends. Sometimes that trouble will leave you with nothing but your faith.  The time is now to build your faith. It really doesn’t matter how hard you trained last year if you lay on the couch eating Bon Bons all day for months at a time you will not be able to run that marathon or bench press the same weight you could while you were training hard.

Going to church is nice. We should do that. But we need daily nourishment. Open your Bible, get on your knees, lift up your hands, sing to the Lord, and reach out to others today. First of all it will change your life. But more importantly it will shine the light of Christ to others. It will bring glory to God.