NOT ALL FAITH PLEASES GOD
Matthew 9:29
Morning Meditation 4/6/2013
"Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you."
Without faith it is impossible to please God, but not all faith pleases God. There are those today who would tell you that if your faith is strong enough you can get anything you want. However, this simply isn't true. The New Testament is filled with examples where when faith is exercised great things happen. This was true in the text of this meditation. But there are breakdowns in faith that leaves one waiting in vain for the answer.
Jesus was disappointed in His disciples when the lack of faith was evident. This truth is brought out in Matthew 8:26, "And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm." I'm sure if I had been in the boat with Jesus and the disciples that day, I would have felt the stinging rebuke of Jesus when He said, "Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?"
Then again the disciples failed in delivering a lunatic boy whose father brought him to the disciples for deliverance while Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration. When Jesus came down from the Mount, Matthew 17:14-18 says, "And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatic, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour."
Faith is good only when it is joined to truth. When it is made to rest upon falsehood it can and often does end in tragedy. There are many on this planet earth who have in the past professed faith in Christ. But they no longer believe. They feel that if there is a God He has let them down. So they leave the assembly of the saints and join with an unbelieving world.
Were these people ever saved? It is doubtful. The reason I say this is because faith in faith, or, faith in the existence of God is not saving faith. James helps answer this question in James 2:18-19, "Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble."
So, if we believe that God exists, we have done no more than devils.
True faith requires that we believe everything God has said about Himself, and also that we believe everything He has said about us. Until we believe that we are as bad as God says we are, we can never believe that He will do for us what He says He will do. Here is where religion breaks down. It never quite accepts the severity of God or the depravity of man. To this religious view God is good and is not too upset over sin. Man's condition is just misfortune.
Man does not have the right to pick and choose from the Scriptures what he wants to believe while rejecting those Scriptures that makes him feel condemned or uneasy. Again, true faith requires that we believe all that God has said.
Tozer said, "To manipulate the Scriptures so as to make them excuse us, compliment us, and console us, is to do despite to the written Word and to reject the Living Word."
"Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you." Jesus asked these men when they came to Him for the healing of their sightless eyes, "Believe ye that I am able to do this?" They answered Him, "Yea, Lord." And Jesus healed them. They believed He was able. Herein is the secret of faith. Faith is only savingly effective, when it has absolute confidence in the One who is to affect the answer.
May the Lord bless these words to our hearts.
In Christ
Bro. White
