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Reverend Dr. William H. Curtis

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An Unoffendable Faith

“Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.” She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Mark 7:28-30 (NIV)

In the region of Tyre and Sidon, a woman made a request of Jesus that He heal her daughter of demon possession. This woman was not a Jew, but was in fact a Greek—a Syrophoenician by birth. His response to her request seems harsh. “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” In other words, “Jews first, Gentiles later.”

What seemed to be an insulting shut-down by Jesus was actually a test of her faith—and it was a test that she passed. She answered, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

Jesus was impressed by her unoffendable faith, and He granted her request by immediately setting her daughter free from the demon.

This text is really an invitation to us all to expect from Jesus times when our faith will be tested. There will be times when Jesus will pull on and stretch our faith so that it grows and deepens and becomes stronger.

Life will offend you. Life will dismiss you. Life will disregard you. And if your faith is present but is too temperamental and easily offended to roll with the punches, then it won’t produce healing in the possessed areas of your life. It will not stimulate growth that goes deeper rather than wider.

When your faith is feeble and offendable, you will shout when you succeed, but then be unable to utter the name of Jesus when failure grips your life. You will praise the Lord for great days but then barely talk to Him on bad days. That’s not the kind of faith Jesus wants to see in you.  

So the Lord will use life to test you. He is not just looking for the evidence of faith, but He wants to test its capacity and its enduring capabilities. God will test your faith even to the degree that, like the Syrophoenician woman, you can live confused about God’s action without ever doubting God’s character.

This woman was rewarded for staying centered while being stretched. And you will be too if you can pass the test by holding onto your faith in those times when it doesn’t make sense.

An unoffendable faith is what the Lord is trying to develop in us.

Knowing vs. Obeying

Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”

John 14:23 (NKJV)

Do you know what brings weight and substance to your faith?

Obedience. We see in the life of David that what brought him victory was not just the fact that he prayed, but the fact that he obeyed.

I'll confess that I have, in my life, done a whole lot of praying and then finished my prayers and gone and done exactly what I wanted to do. David, on the other hand, not only prayed; he obeyed.

We’ve got to trust the value of being obedient. In whatever way God decides He wants to work, and no matter how I pray, what makes the difference is not only our trust, but our courage to obey.

  • Don't give God passionate praise and then feeble obedience.
  • Don't live your life being a heavy worshiper, but then acting in disobedience. 
  • Don't give God aggressive service and then be sloppy in following His instruction.
  • Don’t offer God desperate prayers followed by casual obedience.

If you ask God to make a way, then do what He says. I agree with Eugene Peterson when he says “Obedience is the thing—living in active response to the living God. The most important question we ask of [a Bible] text is not, ‘What does this mean?’ but ‘What can I obey?’”

More than 90 people conducted an all-night search for an eight-year-old boy named Dominic, who, while on a skiing trip with his father, had skied off the run without realizing it. They hoped to find Dominic somewhere on the snowy mountain slope before it was too late, but as each hour passed, the search party and the boy's family became more and more concerned.

At dawn, they sent out helicopters to search from above. The helicopters spotted some faint ski tracks which changed to small footprints, which led to a tree where they found little Dominic. To everyone’s astonishment, the boy was in such good shape, he didn't even need to be admitted to the hospital to be checked out.

How did Dominic fare so well despite spending an entire night in the freezing elements? His father had had enough forethought to warn the boy what to do if he ever found himself lost: find a tree, snuggle up to it, and cover yourself with branches.

As a young child, Dominic never would have thought of doing this on his own. But his father told him what to do. Even though he had this lesson as part of his intellectual acumen, Dominic wasn't saved by his knowing; he was saved by his obeying.

The same is true for you and me.

Discernment

And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.

Ephesians 5:10 (ESV)

There are two sides of faith.

The first side says that you should get up every day and do the best you can. Use your creative imagination. Trust that your steps have been ordered. Test God's promises. Exercise your gifts. Trust that you are authorized, that wherever your feet tread is going to become holy ground. Don't you ever wake up and doubt your anointing. Make it happen. Make it work. Knock on the doors. Take the mountain. Give it your best shot because God is pushing you. God has promised to bless it. He'll arrange and position things when you offer Him your best.

But at other times, God wants you to wait. Wait for the sound of His presence. Yes, you are skilled, gifted, and anointed—but you’ve got to sit still before the Lord.

When God flanks you, you go ahead and make the attempts. Push your way through, make a decision and follow your ordered steps. Walk by faith and resist walking by sight. That's one side of trust in God.

The other side is when God fronts you. There are times when you can't rely on your skill, know-how, ability, or intellect. Your human connections don’t matter. Nor does it matter that you busted that door down the last time. It doesn't matter that you had the talent to walk in that certain sphere. This time He is calling you to sit still and let Him make a way.

You have to know the difference, and we call that discernment.

You must learn to distinguish between whether God is expecting you to wait while He arranges things, or if you are to arrange things while He's pushing you from behind.

I've been injured in some battles that should have been easy to defeat—emotionally, relationally, and professionally. But my problem was I was charging forward when I should have been listening for the sound of God’s signal. At other times, I have been hesitant to move, slow to make a decision, because I was waiting on God to front the preparation—yet God was waiting on me to make a move.

I don't want to make these mistakes anymore, and I know you don't either. So understand that sometimes God flanks and sometimes God fronts, and it is your prayers that will reveal which way to use your faith in each instance. To know the difference, pray without assumptions and assertions, and listen to what He is telling you.

 

 

Listen for the Sound

Then the Philistines went up once again and deployed themselves in the Valley of Rephaim. Therefore David inquired of the Lord, and He said, “You shall not go up; circle around behind them, and come upon them in front of the mulberry trees. And it shall be, when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, then you shall advance quickly. For then the Lord will go out before you to strike the camp of the Philistines.”

2 Samuel 5:22-24 (NKJV)

David and his men have already defeated the Philistine army in direct combat once. And now, for a second time, the Philistines are coming against him. But David doesn’t just assume that it will all play out the same way as before. Instead, David inquires of the Lord about what he should do. He doesn’t want to move until God grants him permission to do so. David is so spiritually connected that he seeks to be meticulously obedient.

It's apparent to me that David has no problem demonstrating what has been referred to as adaptive leadership. He advanced one way before, but he’s going to trust God to do it differently this time. It’s the same valley of battle. It's the same enemy that they previously defeated. David is flanked by the same strong army of soldiers. But this time he is instructed by the Lord to wait on a different confirmation, move along a different path, and engage the battle with a different strategy.

God tells David, “Don't advance directly toward the Philistines. This time, circle around them; position your army right in front of some mulberry trees. And when you get there, wait for My signal to you. This is the signal: when you hear the sound of marching in the mulberry trees, it'll be your time to advance. The fight is going to be easier for you and the victory will be secured, but you must be led by the sound. Be sensitive to the sound. Listen out for the sound, and then pitch your obedience to it. Hold your energy and restrain your passion until you hear the sound.

What separates victory from defeat for David has nothing to do with strength and everything to do with obedience to the details.

This text is asking the question of all of us today: Can you ignore your reflexes, your momentum, your emotional default responses, your instinctual proclivities, your prior victories, the pain of your past mistakes, the memories of your regretful defeats—can you ignore all of these so that you can make sure you are ready to listen for the sound of God's presence and intent in your life?

God is not necessarily going to give you victory in the same ways that He has done so in the past. Your past experiences do not dictate your present course of action. Don’t take for granted the fact that God works in different ways at different times.

Instead, listen for the Lord’s instruction and follow the sound of His leading.

Thirsty?

“If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.”

John 7:37 (NKJV)

When we are spiritually thirsty, God wants us to ask Him for living water. God wants to show us that He can supply our every need. Here's what God does when we come to Him asking Him to quench our spiritual thirst. He reaches down with His omnipotent hand over the balcony of eternity and He smites the dry place and splits the rock, making a fountain gush forth.

Yes, God can turn a dry place into an ever-flowing spring.

That's why you don't have to be so thirsty in life: because the God you serve can take what seems to be a dry place, a hollow experience, or an arid season in your life, and from it, He can let you drink until you can't stand anymore.

Jesus promised, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” He also said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” The Psalmist sang, “He satisfies the thirsty soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness.”

You can't stop life from dehydrating you, from disappointing you, from draining you, especially if you're trying to walk by faith and not by sight. But what will you do with that thirst? How will you try to quench it?

I agree with Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who said, “The most vital question to ask about all who claim to be Christian is this: Have they a soul thirsty for God? ... Is their life centered on Him? Do they press forward more and more that they might know Him?”

You serve a God who can slake your thirst. Make the content of your prayer today a request for spiritual water. Ask Jesus for access to drink from the spring that is forever flowing and never runs dry. Bring your dehydrated life to His fountain, and He'll give you exactly what you need. And every time your life feels empty, God can take His pitcher and fill it from the ever-flowing water of His Spirit and pour it upon your life.