Growing in Faith - Part 2

By Iverna Tompkins
Transcribed by Jane Vaughn

A classic illustration from my own personal background fits here: When my son was 4 years of age, we had the greatest battle we ever had.  We were going out in the car and I had forgotten something in the house, so I returned to get it.  When I came back outside, Dan had locked the driver’s side of the car and was sitting behind the steering wheel.  He said, “I will drive.”  It was so cute, you know, at four.  I calmly said, “Honey, open the door.”  But in all sincerity, he declared, “Dan will drive.”  After about the third time, I demanded, “Open the door or I’ll kill you!” in my most maternal tone.  :-)   When I finally got inside the car and rewarded him openly, :-)  it was then that I realized the pained expression on his face was not because of his “reward.”  He was devastated because I did not trust him with some 350 horses.  After all, he had been watching me drive for four years!  Little Dan was confident he knew how it was done.

Oh, we think we can just study it.  “I watched how they do it.  Boy, I know how to do it!  They said it like this, and then you throw that little, ‘in the name of Jesus’ in there, and then it’s all done.”  So we say the right words and try to make them work.  And when we’re tiny babies, the Lord says, “Give them anything.  What they need is to learn to trust.” 

So, everything we prayed for we received when we were little babies.  Everything.  We prayed for the sick and they recovered.  If we dared to pray for the dead, they would have risen – I’m just sure of that!  It was wonderful!  Very faith building.  Oh, the wisdom of God!  Then as we started growing up, the Lord said, “Let’s talk about the lessons of life.  We need to gain some understanding.  Why don’t you get to know Me?”  “Lord, I don’t need to know any more than I know right now.  Oh, this is wonderful!  Be done.  Be done.  Be done in the name of Jesus.” 

It’s easy to get your storms calmed when you’re an infant.  Everyone knows what we often do for infants is – to change them.  Someone else cleans up after their messes.  But the day finally dawns when you complain, “I need a change, Lord.  I want out of this mess.”  And His parental response is, “Well then, clean it up!”  This is not a popular perspective, but it is true. 

“Why Lord?”  He says, “Because I will entrust great things to a people who know Me.  I bestow more privilege and responsibility as our relationship matures.  I’m going to give power and authority to my followers (see Lk.10:19); and they shall speak to mountains and see them removed (Mk.11:23).  They shall heal the sick (Mk.16:18); they shall be lights (Mt.5:14) and witnesses (Ac.1:8).  The whole world will come to them for their great knowledge and riches, but I cannot entrust all of that to 4-year-olds.”

And then there was my day when I said, “Lord, I want more power, and Your Word says if I ask the Father anything in the name of Jesus, He’ll give it to me (Jn.14:13,14; 16:23,24).  So, Father, in the name of Jesus, I’m asking for an increase of power.”  I saw my prayer going right up into heaven, like an arrow, and Jesus said, “Father,” almost apologetically, “Father, Iverna is asking for power, and I told her if she asked for anything in My name, You’d do it.”  The Father smiled in that omnipotent, omniscient way, and said, “Petition granted – but put a hold on it while we get her ready.” :-)

That’s what is happening to some of you.  “I don’t know why I’ve been going through what I’ve been going through…”  You’re getting ready.  The Lord is about to answer your prayer.  Is that good news?  Let me put it another way.  That is good news!  Hallelujah!  He’s getting you ready, but first, you’ll get into a little trouble.  Interesting, that when you are first filled with the Holy Spirit, the first words you think you get from the Lord are correction for your pastor.  :-)   “Pastor, I just feel the Lord shared something with me that will make a tremendous change in this church.”  We begin this walk with such great zeal but lack the wisdom and knowledge of God that greater maturity brings.  We truly need to get to know Him so we can grow up into the men and women of God for whom He is looking.

What then, are we supposed to do with faith if we’re not to take what we believe and make it operate or produce?  We’re supposed to begin right where we are, at home and in ourselves.  If your faith cannot work in you and for you, don’t try to exercise it outside.  If you can’t get your own life in order… don’t try to export your mess to someone else.

The day is soon coming when the Holy Spirit, who is the searchlight of God, will be searching out homes, individuals, families, pastimes, bookkeeping practices, our honesty with the government, and much more on a personal level.  He is coming down into your life, Sir, to see if you love that woman like Christ loved the church (Eph.5:25).  He’s coming down in your life, Sis, to see if you’ve chosen, if you’ve brought yourself into submission to the authority He set over you (Eph.5:22).  He’s coming young people, to see if there is honor and respect for father and mother (Eph.6:1,2).  “Well, if you knew my mother and dad, you wouldn’t say ‘honor and respect them.’” 

Listen, for this will set you free.  There is nothing in the Bible that’s hypocritical or encourages deceit. Nothing.  Not a single verse.  There’s nothing in the Bible that teaches you to be a liar or pretend that something is so if it is not.  Some young people have been terribly mistreated by fathers and by mothers.  When they read that verse, “Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long on the earth” (Ex.20:12), they think, “There’s no way!  I can’t.”  The Bible says you’re not to hate them, you’re to love them.  “How do I do that?  Under my circumstances, tell me how!”  God always has a way that we can rise above our most difficult situations.  It’s by forgiving them.  Impossible? 

It is possible under the grace and inspiration and power of God.  Forgiveness does not mean you lie about everything and say, “They were wonderful parents.”  Oh, no.  It helps if we have an understanding of what God means by the word.  Honor means “put a price on them.  Set a value.”  “Well, I don’t know what possible value I could set.”  Let me give it to you: because of them, you can enter into eternal life.  Had you not been born, you could never have been born-again.  Hallelujah!  Set a value on that.  So, we can at least say, “Alright, thank God for them bringing me into this world.”  At least that much is for real. 

The Holy Spirit is coming into homes and individual lives saying, “Exercise your faith at your own living levels.”  As we study God’s Word, we get to know Him and learn that He has a way of living that is higher than the way we live in our own natural strength.  Look at Paul’s words.  He said, “I move on by forgetting what’s behind” (Phil.3:13).  Now, Paul often spoke in nautical terms as he was well-acquainted with the sea. Every time he was driven out of one country, he boarded a boat and went to another place.  He knew about boats.  In this passage, if Paul was speaking in nautical terms, what he meant by, “forgetting those things which are behind,” could be interpreted this way: “pulling up the anchor of the past.”

Some of us have been going around in circles, just drifting along because we have an anchor buried down in the muck of the past.  We have convinced ourselves we could never go very far because of inherited traits, or things that have been done to us, or because of wrong choices we made in earlier years, or because of anything negative.  There’s an anchor down there and we don’t go anywhere because when the winds blow, we’re stuck in the past and tossed about almost at random.  And Paul says, “I choose to pull up the anchor!  I am moving on.”  Hallelujah!

Can you say, “I’m sick of this whole cycle?  I’m pulling the anchor up off of this old thing.  I’m about to get on with God’s program.” He will not force an anchor loose and He won’t force you to make a right decision, but He will lend His faith to stir you to the place where, like Paul, you can say, “forgetting those old things, I pull up that anchor.”  He will help you to say, “Blow, O winds,” and when they come they will blow in the right direction.  And that action is always followed by either obedience or disobedience – period.

Paul continues: “I reach out and press forward.”  That’s his way of saying, in nautical terms, “Let the winds blow.  Let the north winds blow, those cold chilling trials.  If they must be here to get me from this point to the next destination, let them blow.  And let the warm south winds come.  Let them blow this boat to the place where I need to go.”  This demands an uplifting of the mind and an action of the will. 

An important aspect of maturity is the discovery of that portion which belongs only to God and that which belongs only to us.  Our part and His part.  Then bringing the two parts together as co-workers appropriating truth.

How does faith reach?  In 1 Kings 17, there is a story about Elijah.  I love Elijah.  He is a wonderful man.  He was so strong, so stalwart, so full of faith and power.  We know little of his background – it just says “Elijah the Tishbite.”  He comes on the scene with no introduction and suddenly starts speaking in the name of the Lord.  No one knows what preparation took place in Elijah.  The Bible is silent about it.  He was the kind of man that went before a king and said, “King, you’ve been wicked in the sight of God and this is what God says to Israel.  ‘It’s not going to rain for awhile and you’re going to have trouble in your land.’  It’s been real nice talking to you, King.  Good bye.”  And Elijah would simply depart while the king was standing there reeling, “Who?  What?  Where?  Why, why some kook came in here!”  He may have seemed a little strange to that king until it didn’t rain one year, then two years.  The third year, the king says, “Somebody find that nutty prophet.  I want to kill him.” :-)   It’s a little different in your King James Bible.

Meanwhile back at the brook, Elijah has had a little vacation.  Oh, this is great!  Oh, I just love the little brook.  I can almost hear the conversation with Elijah: “Brook.  Brook.  Where’s the little brook?”  “It dried up, Elijah.”  “Why did it dry up?”  And then we have the ravens.  “Where’s the food?  They’re late today.  This is the first time they’ve ever been late.”  No ravens, no brook.  You’d better look for sin in your life, Elijah! - - - Sounds like what we might hear in the church today when things cease producing as they had been.

God says, “You’ve had a three-year vacation, now get up.  I’m going to move you on.”  “What king this time, Lord?”  “No king, Elijah.  I want you to go to this little widow down the way.  She’s had a few problems.  Things have been tough because of no rain, you know, and I want you to go down there and ask her feed you.”  “Oh, thanks, that’s wonderful.  She’ll just love that.  :-)   And wait until the word gets out: ‘Man of God went to a poor widow and asked her to feed him.’” :-)    Might that have been our response to such instruction?  We don’t actually have the nerve to say so, and perhaps that’s wisdom on our part, but often our actions prove that our answer to God’s direction is, “Lord, that would be so unreasonable!”

“Go and find the woman.”  Elijah gets up.  I mean, what option does he have?  :-)  There is no brook and no raven.  Isn’t that interesting how the Lord sets the circumstances just so?  Squeezed, pressed in, the enemy is coming behind, water ahead, and mountain on both sides.  We’re not much different from the Israelites when they were leaving Egypt (see Ex.12:37-14:10).

God asks Elijah, “What are you saying to Me?”  “I believe, Lord.”  “I thought you might see it My way.”  So, Elijah finds the little widow.  She’s out gathering a few sticks to make a fire.  He says, “Hello there, Ma’am.”  She recognizes him.  “Oh, how good!  The man of God.  He’s come to bless me, I’m sure.”  Then Elijah makes his request: “Could you get me a drink of water?”  “Certainly, Sir.” And she starts off to get the water but he adds, “While you’re at it, make me a little cake.”  It’s at this point, she turns around.  “Let me explain to you the condition I’m in.  I have just enough meal and oil to make two little cakes, biscuits, one for my son and one for myself.  And then we shall sit down and die together.”

Here’s a side sermon – many churches are in the same condition.  It’s been so long since they’ve had any fresh corn and wine from Zion.  They baked their last biscuit seventeen years ago and have been sitting there trying to succumb ever since.  But that’s not the message we’re going to discover here.

The widow says to Elijah, “I’m about ready to die.  I’m going to do this last thing.”  And he says, “Go ahead with your plans – except for one itsy bitsy little thing.  Before you make the cakes for you and your son, make one for me.”  Be honest.  We wonder: “Elijah!  Are you some sort of selfish egomaniac?”

Sadly, the truth is, from time to time, we have a similar concept of God.  We question if He isn’t some egomaniac sitting on a throne demanding, “Praise Me!  Worship Me!”  Why does the Lord require our praises?  “Praise Me.  I’m looking for worshippers who will praise Me.”  The answer to that question is, “Because in our praise and adoration, He can change us.  In praising Him, our channels of faith and trust and love are open through which He can fully minister to us, grow us up, mature us.”

Elijah is a type of Christ.  The spirit of Elijah is there to show us that when we give the first fruits to the Lord, we open the channel of love and faith through which He can bless us with an abundance, exceedingly beyond anything we ever believed for (Eph.3:20).  “The first fruits.  You mean we’re to pay our tithe?  I pay my 10 percent.”  If your attitude is that you pay your 10 percent, I feel sorry for you because you’re caught up in legalism.  When we give at least 10 percent, and then freely give offerings above that, we have learned the secret to prosperity.  The true secret to prosperity, spiritually, physically, financially, materially, in every way is – flow.  We are to be conduits for everything God brings to us allowing His grace to flow through us.

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