Faith Pleases God - September 10, 2013

Job 1:20-21
20 Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped.
21 And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Job 7:11
11 “Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

God's omnipresence and the manifestation of his presence are two different things. One is a fact; the other is often a feeling. God is always present, even when you are unaware of him, and his presence is too profound to be measured by mere emotion.

Yes, he wants you to sense his presence, but he's more concerned that you trust him than that you feel him. Faith, not feelings, pleases God.

The situations that will stretch your faith most will be those times when life falls apart and God is nowhere to be found. This happened to Job. On a single day he lost everything - his family, his business, his health, and everything he owned. Most discouraging, God said nothing!

How do you praise God when you don't understand what's happening in your life and God is silent? How do you stay connected in a crisis without communication? How do you keep your eyes on Jesus when they're full of tears?

You do what Job did: Tell God exactly how you feel. Pour out your heart to God. Unload every emotion that you're feeling. Job did this when he said, "I can't be quiet! I'm angry and bitter. I have to speak!" (Job 7:11 TEV)

Job sets an excellent example for each and everyone of us, as his eyes were fixed upon God. God utilizes these circumstances to bring us closer to Him and to know that we're not here with Him for the wrong reasons. He really wants us to prioritize our relationship with Him, rather materialistic things that may satisfy us. All in all, DON'T be that person that only praises God when blessed. Sooner or later God'll take that away to help us come to the conclusion that we'll never be content without a close relationship with Him.

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." Hebrews 13:5

It doesn't necessarily have to be money, just the things that we may idolize and worship instead of God. It all comes down to what we put first in our lives. Johann always reminds us that we'll come across all these distractions, especially in university. He tells us that we're all worshippers of something, just comes down to what we worship. Something to ask ourselves is, "Can we give up everything right now that we love, right now?" Easier said than done, for sure. But it's a question that should be answered with a firm yes, with no hesitation.

Wow, James beat me to everything I wanted to say... MOOCH

Job set a great example indeed. He has believed in God, but when he could no longer understand why God's presence was absent from his life and every possible thing had gone wrong, he showed his great faith; he still called out to God believing that he would also hear his cry.

This reminds me of the post-retreat worship; they're full of fire and feelings of feeling God near.
However, soon after, most of us has lose that feeling, and resume our daily lives.
Honestly, I'm tired of everyone feeling that "high" during and after retreats, and shortly after, resume their everyday lives. Hopefully, it's different for some people, but I question this often: when we feel that Jesus is near, we're doing great spiritually. But why is it that when we're starting to stagnate, we no longer feel that and our faith becomes weaker in God? It must be because of our lack of faith in him in hard times, while we're worshipping him in great fruitful times. Now what's wrong with that?

I'm starting to go off-topic.. Whoops  

I think trusting and having faith in God, and trying our best to understand why God may have caused such a thing in our lives, is the best we can do. Worshipping him constantly (no matter when or what is happening in our lives, and having faith that he's always there, watching us, loving us.

Matthew 17:20
20 He replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

Having faith as little as a mustard seed moves mountains! So keep faith

I SMELL A DOUBLE MOOCH BY JAMES AND JULIE. loool
Anyways, I as well as the rest of the praise team probably feel that Job is an ideal example of how we should be in our daily lives. Even at his worst times when Job lost everything and everyone important in his life and God seemed almost non-existent to him at the moment, he had no doubts the whole time. Instead Job told God exactly how he felt and poured out all of his emotions to him in hopes that God would hear him.

God always has his reasoning for everything he does, so we should also be like Job whenever times are rough and it seems like God is not with us. Because He will always be with us in heart, no matter what circumstances we are in. He does these things to test our faith, and its times like this where we should have even more faith in Him, and start to grow a stronger relationship with Him.

One other thing I noticed in this devo is that it talks about the difference between faith and feelings. Having a feeling for God or his presence and having faith in God is two completely different things, and we have to be cautious to know which is which and how to avoid having a feeling for God as opposed to having faith in Him. Faith is key in being Christian, and will help you to further your walk in Christ.

We are aware of God's presence, whether we think of it consciously or not, because we're constantly reminded and told that God is continuously present in our lives no matter what. But I think it's faith that provides that connection with God. Through dark times, we have the reassurance that God is there, but it's faith that anchors hope in our soul. Even though we may not feel God's presence in our lives, and He feels absent from our lives, we know by faith that He's still working in our lives, just kind of "behind the scenes".

During those times when God feels absent in our lives, I think that's when our faith becomes thoroughly and genuinely tested: "How do we react when we're left with technically nothing and what do we do if we don't feel God's presence?"
It's trust that we need to develop in God, and faith that gives us the consolation that God is in control and He has everything under control.

I think when these dark times occur in our life we have to remember to rely on our faith in God, even as it is tested, and to remember that God has not abandoned us. "The teacher is always silent during the test."


14 Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me
John 14:1

LOL wth, michelle always has the coolest quotes...

But yea, a thing that's really difficult to grasp is faith. I think when it realllyy comes down to it, what differentiates us from athiests is our ability to have blind faith. If you think about it, the concept of God and the doctrines of christianity are almost completely illogical. What separates Jesus from every other nutjob that claims to be the son of God, or how are we supposed to understand why God sometimes answers immediately and sometimes works in "mysterious ways." Boil it down to its foundation and Christianity doesn't make a whole lot of sense logically. Yet, the belief that Jesus died to cleanse us of our sins and that there is a God in heaven who watches over us is what we put our faith in.

That being said, difficult times can be even more difficult when we are relying on blind faith. Doubts arise, faith is shattered, all the jazz. But like the devo said, we God isn't someone we acknowledge through a feeling, but through trust. Whether things are going well or not is irrelevant; God is always there with a plan to better your life. All in all, faith is ESSENTIAL. It is the basis of our understanding of God and it should be what we rely on no matter the situation.

Job understood that his life belonged to God, and just as God had given Job life, He can also just as easily take it away. But Job had faith in God, and even when everything important to him seemed to pretty much be gone, he fell down and worshiped the Lord, blessing His name.

Praising God because of happiness is a good thing, but the worship that we give becomes twisted when we only praise God out of happiness.
As this devo says, what pleases God more than our feelings is our faith. We can feel sad, angry, frustrated, disappointed, empty, etc, but nevertheless we should still trust God with our lives and worship Him.

Similar to what James said, would we still want to worship God with all our hearts if everything we loved on Earth had been taken away from us? Would we still have faith in Him? It is important to trust in Him completely, no matter what we may be going through.

When life seems to be uneventful and dead, how alive is your faith still?
I think job is one of the most respected people that I can think of. Think about how difficult it must be for him to loose everything he had and loved and still worship God? Even if you are struggling with what's goinging on in your life right now, make sure you give God an update your yourself and talk openly and freely to him. He will always be with you through the good, neutral, and bad times; even if you don't realize it.
Stay loyal to him. Have a close relationship.
You don't always have to be happy and cheerful. God knows when you're not feeling too good. So be honest and say what's on your mind. He is our best friend, father, saviour, and king.

~Audrey~

i guess something this devotional looks upon that i think we all sort of neglect is the imminent ultimatum that will be given to us where we all have to choose whether or not to give everything down on the line just for God. Well, *only for God.

see. well. i'm too tired to capitalize and punctuate properly so excuse the poor writing. but. something we have to be ready for is actually being willing to give it all for god. i'd imagine most of us if not all of us aren't at that level of faith yet, but as much as that "is ok", really, it's not. we have to see that what's happening right now is the same "what ifs" that go through our minds when we think of the extremes.

that being said, we can't take the safety we have for granted and everyday should be a strive to keep everything we do within God's interests.

Job lost EVERYTHING and he still turned to God. Of course he was angry but still, thats some faith hes got there.

There will be times where we question where is our God? We will struggle and it will be hard at times but we should always remember that God does everything for a certain reason. It may be for us to grow spiritually and emotionally or it may be for a totally different reason. Only God can know

I like how this devotional pointed out that when we are at a time of crisis, we should pray to God and just unleash our emotions to him. We never know what can happen and we should always be communicating with God no matter what the circumstances.