Last week we discussed, "...the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might" (Ephesians 1:19). It should be the ultimate goal of every Christian to live by the strength of His might and not just our own strength. The next four verses direct us to the way in which we do this:
True faith is not an emotion or feeling. It is not even confidence that something can be done. True faith is the recognition of who Jesus is and the authority that He has. Miracles are done in His name. That means that they are done by His authority, not our own. We will never be able to do great works of healing because of being a great apostle or prophet, by writing great books, or because we have built a great church. All true spiritual authority comes from His throne, not our own position. Therefore, our goal should be to gain authority with Him, not just over people or things. How do we do this? Hebrews 11:6 tells us:
We must first settle in our hearts that it requires faith to please God. Faith is not just believing that He can or will do great things, but it is trust—for the present! If we are going to come to God we must believe that He is. This is much more than just believing that He exists. Many claim to have faith in the Bible because they believe the things written in it literally happened, but that is not the true faith in the Bible, or in God. True faith is believing all of the things that were written in the Bible in order to see them happen in our own lives. True faith is for what is, not just what was.
As someone once said, "God is not an author who wrote just one book and then retired!" He is still doing everything today that He did when the Scriptures were written. He is the same today as He was then. His name is not "I was," or "I will be," but it is "I Am!" True faith begins with seeing the depth of God’s love that was forever demonstrated for us on the cross. However, it must go beyond the cross and see Him in the power of His resurrection. True faith is seeing Jesus and where He is today, above all rule, authority, and dominion.
The Lord wants to intervene in your personal life today. If we converted the time that we usually spend worrying about our problems into prayer, we would see more and more of His activity in our life. By this our faith grows. Do not believe for one moment the foolish thought that He does not want to be bothered by our little problems. To turn to Him for help is in fact what pleases Him! As we see Him intervene in the little things we will grow in faith for bigger things. Faith really is like a muscle. The more you use it, the bigger it grows. If you do not use it, atrophy will set in. The Lord wants you to exercise your faith, so do not miss a single opportunity to do it.
