The Widow's Faith

Luke 18:  And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. 3 And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. 7 And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? 8 I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

This is a picture of faith.

Will Jesus find this faith when he comes? 
 

Faith is believing God and continuing to pray until you get the answer. 

And sometimes it's not so simple as, "yes, no, or wait." 

There's many reasons the Bible gives as to why we might not be receiving an answer to our prayers: shutting our ears to the poor, sin, doubt, pride, a violent temper, selfish motives, loving your sin, mistreating God's people, husbands not being understanding and honoring with their wives. ( Proverbs 28:27, James 1:5-7, James 4:6, 1 Peter 3:7, James 4:3, Psalms 66:16, Proverbs 3:31-33, Micah 3:2-5 ) 

In other words, it's more complex that what prosperity gospel and word of faith preachers would have you believe, not that they've ever been known for biblical integrity or scholarship, although they're full of special revelations outside of God's Word. Know your Bible; that's the best way to combat this stuff. 

And like the widow, believe and persist. That's faith. Our persistence demonstrates trust in God. Not in our faith, but in God. And in the process, we are growing in our sanctification process. 

And that's what the Bible has in view here. This is important; we can't miss this: 

"For this is the will of God, your sanctification:" ( 1 Thessalonians 4:3 ) 

Don't lose sight of the goal for believers in all the prosperity and word of faith propaganda that plagues our church culture. 

The Scriptures clearly teach us that our sanctification is what is in mind. Not our health, wealth, and success. They move the Gospel out of the center, and in doing so, remove the only thing that can bring eternal life. 

Along the way, as God completes the work he began in us, God meets our needs, more so than his birds and flowers because we are of more worth to him, and this is the beautiful relationship that we develop during our transformational process as a child of God.  ( Philippians 1:6 ) 

Trusting that God knows best for us. 

Not only must we be convinced that God is good, but that he always has good in store for us! We're his children, and if he is not allowing something into our lives that we want, there is a good reason. Trust him. And may we ask the Holy Spirit to teach us and show us our own hearts in our daily walk with him as he is the One conforming us. He knows us better than we know ourselves. 

Do not manipulate God or treat him like a vending machine as word of faith preachers would have you do. Trust him each moment of our lives. Notice that the persistent widow in Jesus's parable didn't attempt to work the situation or engineer any results. She simply kept "asking, seeking, and knocking." 

This is the faith Jesus will be looking for. "That they would pray." Not demand or command or declare or decree. Pray. 

Not getting God to "work for us" or getting the Word to "bring us results" or "act on it" or "be obedient" to get God to "work for you" like it's all based on our performance. It's based on Christ's work at the cross, not ours. If you hear any of these catch phrases, that's word of faith nonsense. Run. 

Who wants a relationship with God like that anyway? He becomes nothing more than a means to an end. It's beyond irreverent.  

Never does the Bible use this kind of language. Never. 

And neither did any of our church fathers throughout church history. In deed, they had their hands full fighting to preserve orthodox Christianity from heresies and false teachers. If word of faith doctrine was a part of the Bible, why didn't they endorse it? It wasn't; that's why they didn't. Think about that, my friends. 

I'm still working on part two of the progressive gospel series, Lord willing, and I'd like to give the roots and history of where some of this prosperity/seed-faith/word of faith theology comes from that poisons our church culture, and most importantly, share the Truth it attempts to replace. 

Happy Thursday Everyone!  

Contend for the faith!

Let's keep running our race! 

💜