article by site founder, Connie Rice
I’ve heard numerous people say that they wish they had a strong faith and wondered why they didn’t experience God’s peace and strength or sense of purpose in their lives as other Christians seem to have. As a result, some have walked away from church and even Christianity because they prayed a prayer that God didn’t answer the way they expected or they think that He isn’t faithful because a promise He gave in the Bible didn’t happen in their life or they were challenged with questions they couldn’t answer, etc. Several things can block God’s blessings in our lives and cause our faith to be weak. My faith walk was strengthened through a Bible study my husband and I were in about 25 years ago called “Experiencing God” by Henry Blackaby and Claude V. King. I just finished going through a revised version of that study again (with a couple of other ladies this time) with the added benefit of powerful videos with Blackaby’s son and grandson. We can trust the truth of the Bible:
“But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question to test Him. ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’ And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets’.”
Jesus’ answer to a question in Matthew 22:37-40
Recent research has shown that “51% of adults claim to have a biblical worldview. However, extensive testing through the American Worldview Inventory indicates that just 6% of the adult population actually has one.” This may be key to understanding why so many self-proclaimed Christians do not experience God’s power or guidance in their lives and do not realize how their actions and attitudes may be preventing God’s blessings. It’s so sad that many young Christians have been deceived by the world into believing that they can be sexually active or live together outside of marriage and still expect that God would bless their relationships. That’s just one example.
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.”
1 Thessalonians 4:3-7
“Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
1 Corinthians 6:18-20
Bible illiteracy: God has revealed Himself and what is true in His Word. Because He is our Creator and the source of all wisdom, truth, and all that is good, we can trust Him and heed His warnings to minimize the challenges in our lives. Life on earth is full of challenges and trials, but our own poor decisions, attitudes, and reactions can make things harder than they have to be. Bible illiteracy in America contributes to the problems we see in our culture and increases the level of hypocrisy that can negatively affect unbelievers who are watching. Without knowing God’s Word, we are vulnerable to believing lies and can fall prey to deception. Satan has had thousands of years to observe humans and learns our weaknesses in order to exploit them. He masquerades as and “angel of light” and can make things sound good and desirable even when they lead to evil. That’s why the New Testament cautions us many times to not be deceived.
“Every word of God proves true; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.
Proverbs 30:5-6
Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you and you be found a liar.”
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To Him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
1 Peter 5:6-11
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
2 Timothy 3:16-17
Doubting the truth of the Bible: This began with the serpent (Satan) in the Garden of Eden and continues to this day with indoctrination of Darwinian Evolution and skepticisms of historical events recorded in the Bible, even as recent research and discoveries refute them, including:
- lack of transitional fossils (should be multitudes of them if Darwinian Evolution were true according to Darwin himself)
- incomprehensible complexity of DNA
- no such thing as a simple cell (each cell in the human body has more information than numerous sets of encyclopedias)
- what had first been thought to be junk DNA have since been shown to have purpose
- soft tissue found in more and more dinosaur fossils
- Mt. St. Helens eruption – showed that geological features could be formed quickly by catastrophic events
- supposed examples of human evolution have not held up over time – the image of supposed transition of primate to human is about half all apes and the rest all human; just in my lifetime, Neanderthal depictions went from being a hunched over hairy brute to someone you would see today
- there is only one human race – human genome research has found that 99.9% of DNA between different people groups is identical, that
- All women were traced back to one woman through Mitochondrial DNA and all men were traced back to one man through the Y-chromosome
- evolutionist ideas of junk DNA and vestigial organs have not held up
- numerous archaeological discoveries – Dead Sea Scrolls showed that our modern translations of the Old Testament are accurate; walls of Jericho did fall down; statue of what appears to be the biblical Joseph found in a tomb in Goshen (where Pharaoh allowed his family to live); when look in different time, numerous evidences of the Exodus are found; Mt. Ebal curse tablet, ossuary of James (Jesus’ brother), and stone giving reference to Pontius Pilate, are just a small sampling.
- fulfilled prophecies in Scripture show us that the Bible is divinely inspired and that we can also trust prophecies that have not yet occurred to come to pass.
Pursuit of riches or pleasure: Our culture as a whole has not been seeking after God, but have instead been seeking after more of a self-centered approach with worldly priorities. Since each person has a sinful nature that tends to be selfish, it is easy to live this way and rationalize our sins. I remember a book in the 70s called “Looking Out for Number One” that promoted narcissistic goals rather than choosing humility and caring for others as taught by Scripture. Before I knew the Lord, these kinds of worldly messages influenced my thinking and attitudes, making it more difficult for others to get along with me. Many marriages and other relationships have been destroyed because of pride and pointing fingers at the the other person’s faults while making excuses for our own. Pride is now being lifted up in our culture as good and honorable when God’s Word tells us that it is actually destructive and evil. Scripture repeatedly warns against the sin of pride and encourages and blesses humility instead.
“Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble’.”
Proverbs 30:5-6
“And He said, ‘What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person’.”
Jesus’ words in Mark 7:20-23
“You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, ‘He yearns jealously over the spirit that He has made to dwell in us”? But He gives more grace. Therefore it says, ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.”
James 4:3-10
As we study biblical prophecies that are still to be fulfilled in the books of Revelation, Daniel, Ezekiel, and others, we see more and more of the circumstances lining up for those prophecies to be fulfilled. Nobody knows the hour or the day that Jesus will call His children home and remove the Restrainer from this world (Christians have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit with God’s goodness), but we know that in only a few years, things described in the prophecies have been lining up very quickly. I’m praying daily for a revival of God’s people and for another great awakening of historic proportion in America and around the world. We’re beginning to see that as reported in Christian news sites, which is so exciting!
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it.”
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Some think our nation is presently under judgment for our rebellion against God and we know from the Bible that unless individuals, churches, and leaders repent, cry out for God’s mercy, and turn from their evil ways to follow Him and His commands, things could continue to get worse. Even in the midst of judgment, God always preserves His faithful remnant. We cannot say whether or not the Lord will turn America around – all is subject to His will and timing. However, we can make the most of the time He gives us by seeking Him in His Word, in prayer, and through studies like “Experiencing God” while choosing to serve Him and share truth with others so they can also know the Lord and join Jesus with us when He comes.
“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18
© Constance Rice 2023
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