Give God Another Chance --- Do you have faith?
Why Don’t You Give God Another Chance?
Pastor Rory Clark Barah Ministries www.barahministires.com
Hi there!
My name is Rory Clark and I am the Pastor of Barah Ministries…a worldwide Christian Church based in Mesa, AZ
I have a question for you…
Why Don’t You Give God Another Chance?
That’s the focus of these ten-minute lessons. You can give God another chance.
In today’s lesson I’d like you to ask a question of yourself…
Do you have faith?
First Corinthians, Chapter 13, Verse 13 says…
First Corinthians 13:13 But now faith, hope, love, abide in the sphere of these three; but the greatest of these is unconditional love.
Do you have faith? Yes. Of course you have it, because faith is a gift from God. Ephesians, Chapter 2, Verse 8 says…
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that faith is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God…
I guess a better question for me to ask is…
In what or in whom do you place your faith?
Do you put your faith in yourself? Do you put your faith in other people? Do you put your faith in things?
Faith is never placed blindly. I’ve heard people say quite often, “I guess since you can’t see God, you just have to have blind faith.” I say no. We place our faith in something after inspection. We place our faith in something after experience. Faith is never blind. When we have faith in someone or something, there is no doubt. Hebrews, Chapter 11, Verse 1…
HEB 11:1 Now faith is the assurance that you already have the things you hope for…faith is the conviction that you already have the things you have not yet seen.
Do you have faith? When you have faith, you could say faith is merely, “I accept” it as true … you could say faith is merely, “I believe” it is true… you could say faith is merely, “I trust” that it is true… but when you really understand faith, you realize that “I” is not the key to faith. Faith is only as good as the one in whom you place your faith…faith is only as good as the one in whom you place your confidence… when you place your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the One and only Sovereign God, what you are really saying is, “I already know I have what I am asking for, because You put it in place for me a billion years ago Lord, and even though You have not revealed it to me yet, I know what I am asking for will show up “in due time.” Second Corinthians, Chapter 5, Verse 7, says…
2CO 5:7 …we walk by faith, not by sight—
When we walk by faith, we have a lifestyle of absolute confidence that we already have everything we want, and that we don’t have to see it to believe it. Do you have faith?
So you may ask, “Why don’t I give God another chance at what?” Well I ask, “In what or in whom do you place your faith?” That’s why I want you to give God another chance. I want you to place your faith in Him.
Maybe you are completely turned off to God. Maybe you have had bad experiences that left a bitter taste in your mouth about God. Maybe people have helped turn you off to God…people who are hypocritical and negative…people who ostracize and exclude other people…people who are homophobic…religious…self-righteous… judgmental and boring…people claiming to be “spiritual” who have taken your money and given you nothing in return. Maybe you just don’t have time for God… at least that may be what you tell yourself even though you have 168 hours a week like everyone else. Maybe you’re mad at “church.” Maybe you were forced to go to church as a child, and that left a bad taste in your mouth, and now, as an adult, you can get back at your parents by not attending church. I get it…but I’m asking you…
Why Don’t You Give God Another Chance?
Maybe you don’t think it is necessary to pay much attention to God…to give Him a time and a place in your life. We’ve all been there. I’ve been there. I’ve had times in my life when I pushed God to the background. But then something happens. I face a problem that I can’t solve. I face a problem that only God can solve. I face a problem that requires a miracle. At least that’s the way human beings like to look at it. What it really means is that human intervention in the problem is unreliable. Only divine intervention will help. Such a problem happened to a friend of mine. I’ll let his words tell you the story. His name is Tony.
There I was in September of 2011, hustling and bustling in my busy life, working too many hours in my sales job, spending too little time with my wife and kids, too little time listening to my Lord, and frankly too little time just pausing to smell the roses of the so many blessings I was receiving. It didn’t seem that way to me at the time…that I was too busy…that I was ignoring what was important.
I was so busy that I thought it was a nuisance that I needed to get a routine physical just to avoid the 0 per month penalty my company’s health plan was going to charge me unless I provided a health screening form filled out by a doctor. I was too busy to really think much about it when my primary care physician said there was an abnormality with my red blood cell count, and he needed me to go for a different blood test at a “specialty” clinic. I recently had stomach flu, and my doctor said the test results may have been affected by that, but he wanted the specialty tests run to get a better diagnosis.
So I took down the time, the date and the address of the appointment he had made for me, and punched it into my calendar as if it were just another business meeting. I told my wife what the doctor told me, but I convinced her that there was nothing to worry about, because I felt great. So the notion that there could be anything wrong with me was inconceivable. And unbelievable.
There’s that word: unbelief. The first instance of my unbelief is a subtle one. I possessed a blinding form of unbelief, a willing ignorance of the signs God was sending me, of circumstances God was putting me in for my own good, like my insurance penalty if I didn’t get the routine physical. I was failing to acknowledge the existence of the Lord Jesus Christ’s every-moment presence in my life, perhaps because of a delusion that I was the one in control of my life. My willful ignorance was manifested in my habit of being too hurried and too impatient to fully be present in each blessed moment of my life. I was too preoccupied to smell any scent, to hear any sound, to see any sight, or to feel any emotion that the Lord was sending my way. It was an unhealthy and toxic way to be.
The special blood test was set. My wife had plans for a long-overdue weekend visit with her best friend. She asked me if she should delay her trip, but I insisted she go as planned, again assuring her there was nothing to worry about. She should go enjoy herself!
It wasn’t until I arrived at the appointment and saw that the “specialty clinic” was actually an “Oncology and Hematology Center” that the reality of the situation first entered my thick skull: “Oh GOD, do I have CANCER?!” The test results were ready that very same day. My universe came crashing down as I sat listening to the oncology doctor as she explained in a very unemotional, business-like tone how the tests revealed the presence of a protein that is the telltale indicator of Multiple Myeloma, a rare cancer of the blood plasma residing in the bone marrow. “I am very sorry,” she said in a slightly more sensitive tone that I can remember very clearly, “You have cancer.” To determine the stage of my cancer she then immediately put me through a set of full body x-rays, since Multiple Myeloma deteriorates your bones in its more advanced stages. I kept a positive upbeat veneer with the x-ray technicians, but I remember clearly it was while I was laying on that x-ray table in that dark room that I first broke down into tears.
Those were Tony’s words. It took one year for God to completely cure Tony of His cancer. I have had three friends in the last year have “surprise” battles with cancer. I have prayed all three of them through the situation back to being cancer free. My faith in God is total. I know He is perfect. I know He can do anything He wants to do. He has all the power. So when I am at the end of my human power, I have faith that His divine power will come through for me every time. I am so confident in Him that I find my human power to be a bit of a joke. Why would I ever use human power when I can use divine power, a power that never fails?
Do you have faith? How much faith do you need? Matthew, Chapter 17, Verse 20 says…
Matthew 17:20 …for truly I (the Lord Jesus Christ) say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain (any obstacle), ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.”
A mustard seek is a speck. That’s all you need…a speck of faith.
Why don’t you give God another chance? Make time for Him in your life. Listen to Him. Listen to His Word. Have faith in Him. His strength is perfect, when our strength is gone. When your human power runs out, which it will, He’s the one you can turn to. But why don’t you turn to Him now. Why don’t you give God another chance?
If you like these short lessons, visit our website at www.barahministries.com. That’s www.B-A-R-A-H-ministries.com We have two different one hour lessons per week to edify your spiritual life. Please join us. And keep on giving God another chance. I’m Pastor Rory Clark.
Pastor Rory Clark Barah Ministries www.barahministires.com
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