[x_custom_headline type=”left” level=”h4″ looks_like=”h4″]Suppose you are currently unemployed, yet you are diligently seeking employment. One day you hear about a job opening at a company and decide to apply. After you turn in your application, the secretary calls you back a few hours later to set up an appointment for an interview. And let’s say that the interview is set for a Friday morning.[/x_custom_headline]
You arrive for your interview a bit early, wanting to make a good impression. The owner of the company comes out to the lobby to greet you, and then invites you into his office. The interview goes well, and you realize that the position for which they are hiring is a job that you are well qualified to accept. The pay they offer is much more than you were expecting, and the benefits are better than at any job you have ever had.
Of course you leave the interview buzzing with excitement because you really want the job. A few hours later, the owner of the company calls you and says that the job is yours. He then confirms the salary and benefits that were discussed in his office with you once again. The conversation is concluded with instructions from the owner for you to be at his office at seven o’clock Monday morning.
Without even knowing you, I can almost predict what you will do. If you are like most everyone else, I know your joy and exuberance about getting this new job cannot be contained. So you tell your family, and laugh and rejoice with them. You will make some calls to some of your friends from church, and even inform your mother-in-law! A celebration is in order, and a bar-b-que dinner is planned for Saturday night at your house. Your family, your friends, and yes even your mother-in-law, is invited to attend. During the entire evening you can’t get that silly grin off of your face, and you keep repeating to everyone who will listen what the owner said in the interview, as well as what he promised to pay you, and about all of the benefits you’ll be receiving.
When you arrive to church on Sunday morning, you continue to inform all who haven’t yet heard about your new job. And who can blame you? This is very exciting news!
It’s now Sunday night and you can hardly wait until the next morning. You have checked and double checked to be sure that your clothes are ready, and that your alarm clock is set. You are so eager to start working for your new company that sleep comes slowly. Of course, those mental images of cashing those big paychecks you have been promised makes getting off to sleep a bit difficult as well.
[highlight]My question to you is this: How is it that you have so much confidence and trust in a total stranger?[/highlight]
You are willing to tell everyone you know about a job that has been promised to you, even though you haven’t worked a day for that company yet. And you are willing to celebrate, and to prepare, and to even day dream about the new job.
The needle on your enthusiasm meter is pegged on full. Yet when you think about it, you don’t even know if the person who interviewed you and hired you for the position can do any of the things he promised you. And on top of that, you didn’t even ask him to show you a profit and loss statement, or the company’s bank statement to verify that the company has in available funds what they are promising to pay you.
No, you didn’t do any of those things. Instead you just simply believed what the man said to you. And you believed it to the point that you were willing to speak boldly to others about what the man said to you. And you were willing to celebrate and rejoice in what the man said to you. And you even made preparation for what he told you without the slightest hesitation.
And why were you willing to do all these things? Because you did not see any reason for requiring of the man any further proof than his word. In other words, the man said it, and you believed it and acted on it.
It is highly unlikely that it ever entered your mind that the owner of the company might just be kidding with you. Why is it that people can do this with the word of a total stranger, but when you show a Christian what God promised in His Word they often say, “Well I know the Bible says that, but…?” And then they go on to tell you what it is that they really believe.
Maybe they think that God is just kidding. You know how God is; He is just the big kidder in the sky. He just wanted to have His own book, so He filled it full of promises that He never intends to keep. Or as some faithless wonders preach and believe, “These things are just not for us today.”
Nonsense! He’s not kidding. Whatever God has promised us in His Word He is both willing and able to perform. God has never made one promise that has ever failed, or that He failed to keep (see I Kings 8:56).
[x_blockquote cite=”Romans 4:20-21 KJV” type=”left”]“20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; 21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.”[/x_blockquote]
You don’t have to try to talk God into doing anything that He has already promised to do. While we have busied ourselves trying to figure out how to get God to do what He already said He would, or wondering how He could possibly bring it to pass in the first place, we have completely eliminated a key component in the equation – us.
Our part is to believe what He said and trust Him, and His part is to bring it to pass. Because our focus has been on getting the Lord to do His part, it has made us total failures in getting our part accomplished. There is a God-ward side and a man-ward side to everything. Just do your part. Because our God is faithful and well-able to do His.