Walking in Faith

Luke 9:10-17, 37-43

What would you have learned about him from these two occasions? Write down your own observations.

• When Jesus was with the people on the mountain, I realize that His faith was, and is, immensely greater than mine. He was confident that they could feed the five thousand people with only five loaves and bread and two fish. I would have panicked and had no idea how to help these people. Jesus didn’t stress out about that at all.
• People followed Jesus where ever He went. The Scripture tells us that when the crowds learned where Jesus had gone they followed Him.
• Jesus loved people. When the people followed Jesus, He always welcomed them. He loved them and wanted them to know the Father’s love. He also wanted them to know about the kingdom of God. This wasn’t because He was commanded to do so. He did it because He didn’t want to see people separated from God from eternity. He knew how much our Father loves us and He wanted to see us in Heaven with Him.
• Jesus was a teacher. He was always instructing the people with the word of the Lord. He knew the Scriptures but He also know the eternal plans of the Lord.
• He knew who needed healing. The Scripture is interesting because it says that he cured those who had need of healing. I imagine that the word needed is in the Scripture because there were plenty of people there that wanted Jesus to “heal” them but they did not have the faith necessary. I don’t imagine that Jesus healed anyone that didn’t deserve to be healed. Jesus knew these people’s heart. I am curious how much the Spirit worked through Him in order to provide Him with wisdom and knowledge as a man. Jesus cured those who needed healing. He cured the sinners, he didn’t cure the righteous man. Remember that if Jesus came back to earth, it isn’t the believers He would want to spend time with — it is those who do not know the Father.
• Jesus knew the right priorities. He didn’t tell the disciples to immediately start handing out food. He prayed towards heaven and asked the Lord to bless the food.
• Jesus knew the evil nature of man. He asks about the faithless and twisted generation and how long He would be with them. He knew that He was to leave the earth soon to be with our Heavenly Father but wanted people to turn from their evil nature and have faith in the Lord like He had. Unfortunately, man is not capable of that without the Lord working in us through the Spirit.

Spend time considering each of these different aspects of Jesus’ life and ministry. Ask yourself how far you have seen evidence of his activity in your own life or in the life of your church. How much is this the Jesus that you are getting to know?

• On a daily basis, I see people in my church, my family and even my own faith increase. Even tonight I talked to a fellow brother about having the “faith of a mustard seed.” Unfortunately, I am not there. Many people are not there. Luckily, there are Godly men and women in my church that have the gift of faith from the Lord and are contagious with their faith. My daily quiet time certainly helps to improve my own faith, as well.
• In work situations, I feel that many people would follow me. I try to lead through my passion in my work. I am extremely passionate about what I do and it shows in my work. Unfortunately, I am not as capable in spiritual things. I am not sure if it is because I am not as confident or what, but I do not think many, if any, people would follow me with respect to spiritual things. At my church, it is quite evident that there are several leaders within the church that people follow. Our Senior Pastor, Danny Box, is incredible. He speaks with incredible passion and vigor. He is knowledgeable and able to provide insight into the Word that I am currently unable to see. He is filled with the power of the Spirit when he speaks on Sunday morning. Our other pastors, Bo Thompson, Bobby Pruitt and Keith Ferguson and very similar. These gentlemen all seem to have the power of the Spirit inside as they preach to us on Sunday and fill our minds with their exhortations and convictions.
• I struggle with love. It is not easy for me to love people, for whatever reason. I love my wife, my children and my family. I really love those people in my church close to me. As I start to think about others that I do not interact with, I have a difficult time thinking of myself as someone who would lay down my life for these people. I have a hard time thinking about me giving up my night or a weekend for these people. Several in my church do a better job than I but this is an area where I feel my entire church could use an “overhaul”.
• I don’t fancy myself a good teacher. There are people who have the gift of teaching and I don’t think I am one of them. I can share a vision, I can talk about things that I am passionate about but I can’t teach someone something they already know very well. As I think about sharing my faith and getting others to understand, I think this becomes part of my impediment to sharing my faith frequently. I want to clearly and concisely share with others and instruct them properly on the teachings of the Lord, but I feel like my ability to do that is limited by my capabilities as a teacher. At our church, I think we do an average job of this. I would personally like to see more “Sunday school” type of offerings (at our church, we call then Ed Center classes). I would like to see more people in our church “educated” on the Word not only from a personal perspective in quiet time, but through instruction by those in our church gifted by the Lord with the ability to teach others.
• Priorities are a big problem in my life. I have a completely upside-down view of priorities in my life. I prefer to sleep late, work late, keep my kids up late and then read God’s Word late. Jesus modeled prayer and quiet time in the early morning (before the sun rose) yet I can’t seem to get myself there. I also find that I spend more time on work, my personal hobbies or other items than I do time with the Lord. I’ve studied Tyranny of the Urgent which opened my eyes to where I spend my time and still have not made some of the necessary changes. My sin nature will get the better of me time and time again as I do not make the Lord the priority in my life.