Thought for Today
“Nevertheless”
“And Simon answering said unto him, Master,
we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing:
nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net”
Luke 5:5
True living faith will never be conditioned by experience. Faith, to be faith, must always find its dependence in God not ourselves. Though experience says one thing the cry and purpose of faith must remain undaunted. “Nevertheless” is the word of a man who sets aside his own resources, strengths and abilities and believes God in the moment. This faith must birth a doing in the now. “Nevertheless” is a word that gives way to the doing of a thing regardless of our past experience. It is a word that comes to those who believe, and by that believing there is a response in the now of our life. It is not the “faith” of Mary who said Lord I know “… in that day…” something will happen, for the Christ stands in our midst speaking “I AM the resurrection and the life…”
Let this word “nevertheless” speak to us of better things than what our experience would teach us; for those who listen and regard their experience cease to walk and live by faith. “Today if ye will hear HIS voice…” is the creed by which we must live. Men who don’t do won’t hear. The Word is to those who “have ears to hear” for with every hearing there must be a corresponding act of doing and obeying HIS WORD.
The Spirit of God is HERE to press us beyond our circumstances, our former experiences, and our own resources into the glorious provisions of a God who is constantly calling us to deeper waters, a higher vision and a greater dependency upon HIM. How good is our God! How gracious are HIS ways; the thing we are confronted with is HIS doorway into greater things in HIM!
Faith, to be faith, must always be fresh, living and beating within our hearts. Faith IN a teaching or an idea will eventually become stagnant and dead; the faith of the living Son is active and real! It is never static for it is always moving from one faith unto a greater faith (Romans 1:17). Every living thing grows and everything static and stagnant remains the same. Obedience is the evidence of faith.
“So David went on his way,
and Saul returned to his place”
1 SAMUEL 26:25
Two men; one ever moving on in the WAY of God the other returning to “his place” of stagnation and disobedience.
Ω
“Belief is truth held in the mind;
faith is fire in the heart”
J. Newton (1880–1950)
Brian Troxel
www.aword.info
That is a good quote on belief versus faith by J. Newton.
I can say that I asked Christ into my life twenty, thirty or fifty years ago, but if there is no obedience to the voice of the Lord, what good is that? What is the Lord doing in your life today? What is the Lord revealing to you today? What is He telling you to do today?
In the Kingdom of Heaven, today is past, present and future in the eternal now of the Presence of God. We are living by faith and obedience in the Lord today or else we are not living.
Amen.
Brian