Wednesday, May 16, 2012

May 17, 2012

"........the God we serve is able to deliver us......" Daniel 3:17

What can you expect from God? That has been the question we are considering for several weeks. There are probably not enough enough weeks in a lifetime to fully answer the question, but so far we have several:

When God puts a giant in front of you, expect Him to demonstrate His giant power.

When He puts a giant in front of you expect Him to raise up the giant within you.

When He raises up the giant within you expect Him to raise up giants around you.

Expect joy from God as you celebrate your salvation.

Expect joy from God as you share your salvation.

You can expect that when God leads you into trouble He will bring you out.

In this week's message you will learn that you can expect if you stand for God and take the heat, God will stand with you!

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood for God against the king and faced the heat. In so doing they demonstrated a fireproof faith!

What is a fireproof faith? How did they develop it?

Fireproof Faith Is Relationship

Sometimes people say that they have a faith or they belong to a certain faith and others claim they have faith.

To clarify, I will say that faith is more than:

- A Concept

Faith contains a lot of big ideas but just believing in a big idea is not what fireproof faith is made of. You may believe that there is a God and that He sent His Son, Jesus to be a Savior. But a simple intellectual acceptance of that concept is not what constitutes faith. Demons believe in God and Christ, but what does that faith do for them?

- A Creed

A well organized system of beliefs can be referred to as a "Faith". For instance, the Catholic faith has a creed they expect their adherents to accept.

Creeds are valuable and useful to define a doctrinal system. But fireproof faith does not arise from a creed.

Concepts and creeds are important components of a belief system. They can aid in the development and definition of faith, but fireproof faith requires much more than head knowledge.

Faith is:

- A Connection

Fireproof faith begins with a personal spiritual connection with God through accepting Christ as your Savior. As Romans says, "His Spirit bears witness with your spirit that you are a child of God. '

- A Commitment

Fireproof faith grows out of a commitment of your love and your loyalty to Jesus Christ. After making the spiritual connection with Christ, you then commit to giving Him first place in your life and living in obedience to His Word and His will. Commitment is what you give to God in exchange for what He has given you through Christ.

- A Communion

Additionally, fireproof faith arises out of a close personal faith Christ through the Holy Spirit. Communion is the intimate personal relationship that a converted Christ-follower enjoys and maintains through obedient living. Communion is the strong spritiual connection between God's spirit and yours.

For the person of faith, communion happens through prayer, through reading and studying the Word, and through worship.

These three Hebrew children understood that the most important priority for them as followers of Jehovah, the only true God, was to know God through personal intimate spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ, the on of God.

You were created for fellowship with God and God's people. That fellowship comes from a spiritual connection with God and a spiritual commitment to Him. Connection with God is the starting point of faith. Anything short of that spiritual connection with Jesus is NOT faith.
If there is no spiritual relationship with God, there is no faith!

How is your faith relationship? Do you know God in a personal spiritual connection? Are you in the Word? Are you praying regularly?