Where Did Everybody Go?

A message to those left behind.

Suddenly millions of people have disappeared from the earth. Perhaps, you are wondering what happened? Where did everybody go? What's going to happen next? I can tell you what happened. The Rapture of the Church has taken place. This is Jesus fulfilling His promise that He would return to get His people and take them to the place that He has prepared for them (see John 14 below). The truth about this mass exodus will rarely be heard. Instead, you will fictionalized accounts about what had happened. These stories will range from people being transported by aliens to the earth cleansing itself of negative energy to people being transported to another dimension. However, it is all a lie. What happened is the fulfillment of the following prophecies:

¹ “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. ² In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” John 14:1-3

⁵⁰ Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. ⁵¹ Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— ⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. ⁵³ For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. ⁵⁴ So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
⁵⁵ “ O Death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory?” –1 Corinthians 15:50-55

¹³ But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. ¹⁴ For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.^[b]
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. ¹⁸ Therefore comfort one another with these words. –2 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Think about the people you know who have disappeared. Weren’t they all Bible-believing Christians? There may be some who have died incidentally to the Rapture, for instance, due to planes crashing because their pilots were raptured. But for the most part, the majority of the missing will be children and Christians.

Where did they go? They went to Heaven. They are with the Lord and are receiving their rewards for the work they’ve done on the earth. They will return in around seven years.

How can you join them? Trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. You are a sinner (someone who has fallen short of God’s standard of perfection). The wages for sin is death. Jesus came to earth to die that death. He was then raised from the death three days later by God. According to Romans 10:9-10, if you believe that and confess it, you will be saved. You will not immediately join them in Heaven but God will write you name in the Lamb’s Book of Life and you will join them there one day; or perhaps, by the grace of God, you will be here when they return.

What to do next? Get a Bible and read it, particularly Revelation (the last book). There are many other books, videos, and podcasts that will explain what else you can do. Try to find other believers. Do not follow the new world leader. DO NOT accept the mark of the beast. Pray and persevere and, Lord willing, we’ll meet on that day when Jesus comes back (Revelation 19:11-21).

Words from the Father

“He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

I’ve always wondered what that phrase meant. I understood it in part but God gave me an opportunity to learn more fully what it means. As an outlet for writing, I’ve started publishing on Hubpages.com. From time to time I’ve visited the forums, a place where other ‘hubbers’ could discuss topics. One such topic was “Christianity Questions”. This, of course, drew my attention. Most of the posts there were from people who were decidedly unchristian. The same is true of another post, “Did You Really Think Human Beings Evolve from Primates?” In fact, most of these people were downright nasty. One person called the Bible a book of fantasy. That was the least harsh of the comments.

            One of the posters I engaged said that he was willing to discuss my point of view logically if I would reason with him with facts. I attempted to do so. He response was most illogical. It did not question my logic or my response. Instead, he proceeded to insult me and my faith. My response to him was that he seemed to have more insults than sense and that he needed to research before he argues. Again, in an attempt to appeal to his rational side, I tried to address some of his comments. Knowing he would come back with another argument, I decided that I would cease responding to him.

            As I was lying in bed, I tried to think of how I would end my correspondence with him. The only thought that came to me was “I don’t know why you don’t believe in the Bible because you are in there.” Then I would quote Romans 1:22, “Professing to be wise, they became fools….” Then the Lord spoke to me. He said you cannot teach someone who will not listen. Then came the verse, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

            Jesus often said this after He taught something difficult to grasp. The first time was when He told them that John the Baptist was the Elijah that was prophesied (Matthew 11:15). The next time was after the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:9). The third time was after Jesus taught about Hell and Heaven (Matthew 13:43). The final time it is used in the Gospels is when Jesus taught about being salt and the value of worthless salt (Luke 14:35). A similar phrase appears in Revelation where John writes, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

            What does this phrase mean? As one who preaches that Jesus always spoke spiritually, I don’t see how I missed the fact that it was not physical ears that Jesus was referring to, but spiritual ears. He who has spiritual ears (understanding), understand.  It means let him (or her) who has a teachable spirit receive what is being taught. Let him who is willing to accept it, receive the Word. There are some people who, because they have a closed mind, will not believe some things regardless of the evidence that is produced. Jesus taught us this. This is why He did not spend time arguing with the Pharisees. He knew that no matter what He said or what proof they saw, they would not be convinced. They didn’t believe what they already had and what they already knew. The same was true of the rich man’s brothers. If they would not believe God, why would they believe someone who supposedly rose from the dead? Jesus said to some it was given to know the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven and too others it was not (Matthew 13:11, Luke 8:10).

            What does it mean to have ears to hear? Jesus again gives us the answer in Matthew 13:14b-15

‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,
And seeing you will see and not perceive;
¹⁵ For the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So that I should heal them.’

Having ears to hear means that one will understand with their heart, turn and follow God in response.

            So what did I learn from this encounter? Proverbs 26:4 says “Do not answer the foolish arguments of fools or you will become as foolish as they are (NLT).” In other words, we should attempt to rebuke and correct, but when you see your answers falling on deaf ears, cease and move on. They do not have ears to hear so you are just wasting your breath and/or time.

Is America Finished as a World Leader?

Is her dominance as a world power over? Has she jumped the shark, so to speak? Has the sleeping giant lost her teeth?  Some might argue that America is on her last legs. Saddled with a multi-trillion dollar deficit and rapidly losing the ability to pay her bills, America is slowly sinking. She appears to be heading the way of Egypt, the Holy Roman Empire, and Great Britain. Once they were the most powerful nations in the world and now they are all but shadows of what they used to be. Is America the Next Great Used-to-be?

            There are a number of reasons I ask this question. But before I get to them, I want to first say that I am a proud American. I am glad that God saw fit to place me in this great country, despite her faults. But history has shown us time and time again that nations rise and nations fall. Just as there are no exceptions to death (Rapture aside), America will have no exception to her demise. The question becomes when will it be and will it be during our lifetime?

            The first thing I want to discuss is America’s mounting debt and her ability not to pay it. As I wrote in my book, For Such a Time as This: The Darkness Cometh, people should live within their means. This means that we are not to spend more than we bring in. If we do, we are in debt, and thus at the mercy of the debtor. America has constantly spent more than she brought in. She is now at the mercy of her debtors who could call her loans at any time. There are those who speculate that it won’t be long before the dollar is no longer the world’s currency. If that happens, our prices will skyrocket. Gas will be $6/gal. I don’t even want to speculate on food.

            Our justice system is overtaxed. The jails are overcrowded. Some jurisdictions are giving slaps on the wrists or even releasing those who have committed small crimes and misdemeanors and those who have good behavior. The courts are so overcrowded; it takes over a year before a case goes to trial. Casey Anthony was tried for a crime that was committed in 2008—so much for a speedy trial. Two men were executed in Arkansas for crimes that were committed in 1997, 24 years after their conviction.

            Why are the courts overcrowded? That’s for another post but I will say that part of it has to do with the decay or our society’s morals. As a society, we protect the whale and abort babies. Profanity is widespread on television. Words we couldn’t utter in our parents’ presence is broadcast loudly every night on broadcast television. Sex is too. Nearly every sitcom is sex-oriented in nature. Sex is promoted through billboards, television advertisements, magazines, and a host of other sources. Pornographic internet sites are easy to access regardless of age restrictions.

            Our education system was at one time the rival of the world. Now, it is on the brink of collapse. Years ago, I had a friend from Arabia who told me that they learn in high school the things we learn in college. Texas’ education system I know is messed up because their teachers teach not to necessarily broaden the minds of its students but help their students pass the TAKS test, the Texas Standardized Test. Because of budget cuts, school programs such as band, drama, and sports are being cut and teachers are being laid off. This will cause overcrowded classrooms and teacher stress, resulting in problems in teacher retention and recruitment. As if the teachers don’t already have enough problems with classroom discipline.

            Our government is leaderless and aimless. I believe in supporting our president, regardless as what political party he (or she) belongs to, as I wrote this in my book, For Such a Time as This, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t criticize the work he (or she) is doing. When Obama was elected president, he announced that change had come to America. Either I don’t see the change, the change has not come, or his version of change was different from mine because things seem to have gone from bad to worse. To his credit, Obama is not solely responsible the multi-trillion dollar debt this nation has, but what has he done to lower it? What has he done to limit big government? What happened to his line-by-line audit of the U.S. budget? He military people are resigning/retiring, presumably because they don’t agree with the way he is running this ‘war on terror.’ There appears not to be a cohesive strategy. I’m still looking for the green jobs that were promised. Apparently, he hasn’t even started on this issue because he has not blamed the Republicans for blocking their creation.

Republicans are not without excuse. When Bush was in office, things were not much better. We were fighting two wars (one of which no one wanted). Our military was poorly equipped. No exit strategy was planned. According to Obama, there was no way to win the peace. Under both Bush and Obama, our commerce is suffering. Due poor leadership and the recession, businesses are closing, people are losing their jobs and their homes, and we are importing more than we are exporting.

The problem with our political system is that the democrats are trying to get some of the wealth the Republicans have and the Republicans are trying to hold on to it. I do not subscribe to this ‘redistribution of wealth’ that Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity talk about but I do believe that those with wealth should pay their fair share of taxes. Let’s be honest, we all know that people hide money in tax shelters so they don’t have to pay taxes on them. If for no other reason, why are they called ‘tax shelters’?

I also do not subscribe to entitlement programs. I believe them to be another form of enslavement. As I heard Matt Hagee say Sunday, the more help the government gives, the more control their take. Those who can work should work. Those who can’t, perhaps should get some sort of assistance. Instead, our government is giving millions of dollars to able-bodied people who choose not to work, who choose not to be productive, then they wonder why they’re broke. They reward sinful living by paying money to women who bear multiple children out of wedlock. The fact that they do so is bad enough, but that they charge the government for doing it is unthinkable. I think the government should require a license for any unwed person to have a child. They should be able to tell the government how they are going to support this child. In lieu of the license, they agree not to request welfare for the child. If they have a child without a license and request welfare, they should be put in jail and the child put up for adoption. 

I know this sounds harsh, but until people are forced to become responsible for themselves, they never will do it. The only other option, end all welfare programs, except in certain circumstances. Either low-income children will start looking like the children of Ethiopia or the parents will be forced to find another way to support them (or face jail). Otherwise, the parent should lose custody. I recognize that exceptions need to be made but this should be the rule overall. Those who do should not be required to take care of those who don’t (not can’t).

            With a nation with so many flaws, can we really call ourselves a world leader? Just because we have a large military with big weapons, should we be called a world power? Those in a leadership position should lead by example.  The only example we seem to be leading by is what not to do.

            America can be a great nation once again. We need leaders who will stand up and do the right thing.. We need someone with vision and the ability to get things done, regardless of party affiliation. We need people who will not accept the status quo but give voice to the things they are concerned about. This is what I do. I let the president, the mayor, everyone knows when things should be improved or when I think they could do a better job. A nation is only as strong as its people. Right now, I don’t know if the government is leading the people or the other way around.

Is Jesus the Only Way to Heaven?

Why can’t people, especially “good” people go to Heaven without accepting Jesus? The best answer to this question is found in the bible.  We need to first debunk the myth that there is such a thing as a “good” person.  Jesus said, “No one is good but One, that is, God (Matthew 19:17).”

The second question that arises is whether or not one can enter into heaven without accepting Jesus.  Jesus, Himself, proclaimed in John 14 that He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life and that no one can come to the Father but by Him. Why is He the only Way? What about Confucius? What about Buddha? What about Muhammad? What about myself? Can’t I be my own way?

     God cannot allow sin to be in His presence. Therefore, in order for us to be able to enter into Heaven, the presence and the penalty of sin must be dealt with. The presence of sin in our lives is dealt with by the Holy Spirit when He enters into us and begins the work of transformation. He convicts us of sin and deters us from sinning. The penalty for sinning is handled by Jesus.

If unrepentant people were allowed into Heaven, it would cease to be Heaven; it would be a revamp of earth—polluted both with sinful people and by people. Jeremiah said that the heart is desperately wicked…who can know it? In other words, the heart knows no bounds when it comes to dreaming up evil things. Unrepentant people would bring these evil machinations into heaven—stealing, robbing, being disrespectful, and being disobedient to God. There would be none of the peace and tranquility and righteousness that God promised. There would be no respecting and worshiping of the Father that He expects. (After all, if people don’t want to go to church now, image how they’d feel in heaven.)

To be comfortable in heaven, one needs to be transformed. They need have a heart change—a change of nature. With a transformed nature, we would not do the things that God finds offensive.  Now, I pose the question: Is Jesus the only Way to heaven and if so, why?

God told man that the soul that sinned would surely die. He allowed men to substitute animals and to temporarily offer up their blood as a sacrifice for sin. But the blood of animals really didn’t do anything. It was merely a picture of the sacrifice that was to be offered—God’s Son, Jesus.

            Jesus came to earth by the process of natural birth through the Virgin Mary. He lived a life without sin. He was crucified on a Roman cross for crimes he did not commit to atone for sins He did not commit. He became our sin bearer and our substitute. He died the death we could not die. He paid the price we could not pay. As the old saying goes, “We owed a debt [to God] we could not pay and He [Jesus] paid a debt He did not owe.” Paul said it like this: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

            Jesus said that He was the only way because He provided the only sacrifice that was acceptable to God. God made His Son to be our sin bearer so that we, in turn, may bear His righteousness. God proved that He accepted the death of Christ by tearing the veil of the temple from the top to the bottom and by raising Jesus from the dead three days later.

            Why is Jesus the only Way? He is the only way because God said He was the only Way. If God is the offended or aggrieved party, He is the only One who can say what it takes to atone for the offense. The problem with people nowadays is that they tell God what He has to accept in order to affect reconciliation. This is, in effect, what we are saying when we say to Him that Jesus is not the only way, just one way; but there are other ways—good works, baptism, sacraments, self-sacrifice, etc.

            So the answers to the questions are simple. Is Jesus the only Way? Yes. Why? It is because God said so.

Is Healthcare A Right Or A Privilege?

I’m sure this question has been asked and answered before but I wanted to add my view. I had to analyze this issue myself a few years ago when I was helping someone with a graduate paper on the subject. Some will argue that healthcare is a right, but I think it is a privilege, and I’ll tell you why.

            The government is not responsible for people; they are responsible for themselves. Government’s role is that of an overseer. Ever since the days of welfare, Social Security, and other entitlement programs, we have come to believe that the government owes us something. The purpose of government is to oversee the welfare and the safety of its citizens. Its responsibility of ensuring the welfare goes as far as making housing, food, and healthcare available but not as far as actually providing it. When the government becomes responsible for that, it has ceased being an overseer and has become a caretaker. Just as its role in ensuring the safety of its people means providing a military and police force but it doesn’t go as far as providing personal security for each and every citizen. The people bear some responsibility for providing for their own safety. In reality, if the government were to provide adequately all the services necessary for the welfare and security of its citizens, it would have to collect nearly half the citizenry’s income in tax revenue to offset the cost.

            I believe that to ensure the public well-being, the government should provide free health screenings and immunizations to all citizens, but anything beyond this should be the patient’s responsibility borne by the patient (the only exceptions being the young and the elderly). Such screenings and/or immunizations should be for measles, chicken pox, mumps, influenza, and the like because, if undiscovered or untreated, these could lead to epidemics much like the black plague of the 18^th century.

            Government should also be responsible for making sure that healthcare is affordable for the general population. One reason why people are clamoring for government intervention in healthcare is because they cannot afford to pay for it themselves. Whereas, once upon a time operations cost less than $1,000, now they can be as much as $80, 000, depending upon the procedure. There was a time in my grandmother’s life that it cost $25 to deliver a child, now it is well over $9,000 (WebMD.com).

            If healthcare is unaffordable, no one is going to go see a doctor. They will stay at home and try home remedies. Some will die from diseases that likely would have been preventable, if caught in time. Diseases would spread through segregated, and likely undocumented, citizens. Unimmunized children will take diseases to school and spread them to the population. This may be the reason for the recent outbreak of TB in Atlanta in 2010.

            So, to answer the question, is healthcare a right or a privilege? I believe that healthcare is a privilege. Though the government should provide basic healthcare, the reason for this is public welfare not individual welfare. Those who think that healthcare is a right should look at the nations that have national healthcare programs. From what I can tell, nationalized or socialized healthcare provides only marginalized health benefits and drives up the nation’s debt. Also with nationalized healthcare, will the patient choose the provider or the government? Who chooses what procedures are to be covered? Who decides how long or how much hospital time or physical therapy time will be approved? Who decides what is medically-necessary? Will there be death panels? What about patient’s bill of rights or will there be any? Everything free is not necessarily good.

            What is the solution? That goes beyond the purpose of this paper but if I were to hazard a guess, I favor the idea of providing basic healthcare screenings and immunization and leave the rest to the individuals. I don’t think subsidized insurance plans will work. Privatizing the system won’t work unless there is regulatory oversight to leash the greed of the insurance companies. Of course, such actions will lead to another headache—bureaucracy and bribes. Let’s not even discuss government-ran healthcare programs.

            We simply need to get back to a system where people are responsible for themselves and don’t depend on the government to provide for their every need. Government does need to help ensure their people can afford healthcare benefits by 1) making them affordable, 2) providing decent paying jobs so there is income to pay for these benefits, and 3) keep the costs of other things down, like gasoline, that causes the prices of nearly everything else to go up and eat up any available income.

            Here is a site I found while researching this. I thought it was quite interesting.

Why Must We Be "Born Again"?

“My mother is Buddhist, I’m not a Christian, so does that mean I’m going to hell?”  This question was asked of a preacher during a television interview that I saw recently.  The preacher quickly answered, “Yes, if you are not saved.”  The preacher, unfortunately, did not get into the specifics of salvation.  As I thought about this, God helped me to understand why a person must be saved to enter Heaven and what it means to be saved. Saved from what?

            Many probably have asked at least one of these questions: What is salvation? What does it mean to be born again and why must we be? The answers to these questions are simple, yet complex. In short, if we are not saved or born again, then heaven would become polluted with a bunch of unrepentant people, in effect, turning it into the same sin-filled world earth is. The reason why answers the question what must I do to be saved.

            The first step in salvation is recognizing that we are sinners and that we are living in contradiction to the commands and the will of God. Once we recognize that, we need to ask God to give us a clean heart and renew a right spirit within us. In other words, we need to be changed. He will send His Holy Spirit to convict us and urge us to repent. Unless we repent, we will not change, no matter how hard we try. Repentance involves having a change of heart, an inward desire to stop living contrary to God’s desire. It means having a desire to live as God would have us to live. Repentance leads to the acceptance of God’s grace, which in turn, leads to transformation. This process is called salvation. This is what it means to be born again, or born from above (original Greek).

            What are we transformed into? We are being transformed into the image of God’s Son. What is that image? It is one of submission, obedience and righteousness. This is what God wants for us. Let’s look at a prime example of this—Saul of Tarsus.

Saul of Tarsus was a man who hated Christ and hated the church. He saw them as heretical. Of himself, Saul said,

“[I] was circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless (Phil 3:5-6). “I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our fathers’ law, and was zealous toward God as you all are today. ⁴ I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, ⁵ as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished” (Acts 22:3-5).

Yet, on the road to Damascus, Jesus got a hold of Saul. That encounter led to Saul’s born again experience. The Bible illustrates his transformation by referring to him as Saul when he was persecuting the church and as Paul after his transformation.  He was no longer Saul the Persecutor but Paul the Apostle. What did Saul’s transformation mean? It meant that he no longer wanted to do the things that he thought were right but the things that God said were right.

          Being born again also means being regenerated. This happens when we are transformed by His Spirit. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If any man be in Christ, he [or she] is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” Not only is our eternal destination new, but so is the way we thing about ourselves, the way we carry ourselves, the way we behave, the way we treat others, and the way we worship God.  We start our journey of change by studying God’s Word. It tells us what He expects of us. As we grow in His Word, His Spirit begins to change us from the inside out. This transformation is called sanctification. Paul said it like this, “Stop conforming to the world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may be able to prove that good, perfect, and acceptable will of God (Romans 12:2, emphasis added).”

This is why Jesus said to Nicodemus on that fateful night that in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, or to even see it, he must be born again. Jesus was telling him that he must be changed, transformed, renewed in his mind and spirit. Try reading John 3:3 like this: Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is [transformed, changed], he [or she] cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:6-7 would read like this: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh[ly, carnal], and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit[ual, holy]. ⁷ Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be [changed, transformed].’”

This is why one must be born again or saved to enter into Heaven. Without this transformation, God would have to deal with the same type of insurrection, rebellion, and insubordination that He dealt with eons past with Lucifer. Why? Because, even in Heaven, unchanged people would still be envying, backstabbing, cursing, stealing, and doing the same evil things they do now. But Heaven will be a place where there is no sin and a place where righteousness dwells because it will be filled with people who have been transformed by the grace of God.

            In this posting I discussed the ‘why’. In my next posting, I will discuss the ‘how’. How are we redeemed? Is Jesus the only Way to heaven and why?

Stepping Out on Nothing

This is a repost of a previous blog that has been updated.

Genuine Biblical Faith

Click edit above to add content to this empty capsule.

Perhaps you have asked, “What is faith?” I’m sure you’ve heard sermons on it and attended Bible studies regarding it. But what exactly is it? How do we exercise it? How do we walk in it? We are all familiar with Hebrews 11:1—“Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things unseen .” But what does that mean? I believe the Holy Spirit has given us the answer.

Faith is believing in that which is not likely or is impossible to happen. Real faith does not just believe in what is improbable , but what is impossible . Real faith doesn’t simply believe in that which is not likely to happen but in that which cannot happen, given human reasoning. Real faith is not believing in the face of the odds but believing in spite of the odds. Real faith is believing for that for which there is no earthly way possible it could happen.

Let’s allow a few heroes of the faith bear witness:

· Noah exercised faith by building an ark to be saved from a flood, even though up to that time no rain had fallen on the earth. Noah had to believe in something he had never seen nor experienced.

· Abraham exercised faith by believing God for a son when he and his wife were elderly and she was unable to bear children!

· David walked in faith when he entered into a battlefield to face down Goliath, an experienced and armored giant warrior. He exercised his faith by believing that God would give him the victory even though every natural and military law would have marked him for dead.

· Peter literally walked in faith when he stepped out of the boat and stood on the surface of the water even though every natural and physical law dictated that he should have sunk to the bottom like a rock (no pun intended ).
I remember exercising genuine biblical faith on the day I was to graduate from high school. The weatherman had forecasted that it was to rain. If it rained, the graduation was going to be held in the gym. We only had 5 tickets and I had many relatives that came in from out of town to go to my graduation. The sky looked ominous. Surely, rain was on the way. However, I didn't put my trust in the weatherman, who could only predict the weather, but in the One who could control the weather. I took my concerns to Him. Long story short, we had our graduation on the football field and all my relatives were able to attend.
This happened again later in my ministry. We had planned a cookout for the neighborhood kids. It would include BBQ and games. Everyone was looking forward to it. Members from the church were coming out to help. Yet, again, the skies threatened rain. I remembered how God came through for me once before. So, I talked to Him. Although it did sprinkle during the event, it was not enough to call anything off. We had the event and cleaned everything up before the skies opened up. God is good.

The best definition of faith I can think of is line from one of Shirley Caesar’s songs, Faith Moves God . “Faith is stepping out on nothing/landing on something .” Essentially, that is faith. It is believing God for what you want or need even though everything is against it happening. Neither circumstances, laws, nor situations bind God. God is God. He can do exceedingly abundantly above all that we may ask or even think.

Genuine faith does not just believe in something or for something that could possibly happen. Genuine faith believes in something or for something that cannot. In short, faith says, ‘yes,’ when everything else says, ‘no.’