I once had a woman tell me that the promises God was giving me only pertained to what I will experience in Heaven. And that they don’t pertain to life here on earth. Promises such as Joel 2: 25-26 which says that He will restore me for the years I have lost. And that I will be blessed beyond measure and I will praise him.
In her mind certain blessings only happen to us in heaven not while we are living on earth. And I understand why she said it. She has been sick for a long time and hasn’t seen deliverence from it. So I am sure she questions if God really does give blessings.
Her comment still hurt and I wanted to believe that God was promising me those verses for the here and now. Without knowing it I must have let it take root and cause an area of unbelief to grow in my life. Because God later showed me that I was harboring unbelief because of that comment. Those words held me back from believing God was capable of giving me his blessings.
God tells us in Exodus 23: 25 that if we serve only him he will bless us and protect us.
God told me that he wanted me to start believing for that promise again.
God is good and he does give out blessings while we are living on this earth. Right here, right now. We need to believe that he is a loving God who wants to see us prosper.
Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (NIV)
CAUSES OF UNBELIEF
Sometimes we can experience unbelief in our lives by being disappointed. Maybe God didn’t answer our prayers in the way we wanted him to answer or we don’t like the way God does something. When we carry disappointment we can begin to neglect things. We may quit praying, reading the bible, or even going to church. This can be dangerous. When we see that we are mad or grieved at God then we need to go to him, tell him we are sorry and ask him for some encouragement with our situation.
He doesn’t want us to have a miserable life. Yes, bad things do happen. We live in a fallen world. Jesus tells us that there will be trials but to take heart he has overcome the world. (John 16:33) I can’t explain why he allows the bad things to come into our lives. But it doesn’t change who he is. Job says it well when he is speaking to his wife about the condition he is in. His wife tells him to curse God and die. And Job responds, “You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” (Job 2:10) Job knew what is was like to suffer. He lost everything. But he continued to believe that God was good. And in the end God restored everything that Job had lost two-fold.
We can also experience unbelief if we have been sick awhile and God hasn’t healed our sickness or someone else’s sickness. Maybe we are wondering where God is or why he hasn’t helped us? We start to doubt and we give up all hope of ever getting better.
Hebrews 10:23 says, “Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.” (NLT)
Don’t give up – he is faithful. It may take awhile for deliverence in certain situations and there maybe somethings we don’t understand. But we need to trust God and ask him to help us with our unbelief.
Something I have noticed in my life when it comes to unbelief is that prayer and praise will change your perspective on your circumstance. The more you pray and praise God, the more your faith increases.
Remember when Paul and Silas were in prison and they started to praise God? Immediately all the doors opened and everyone’s chains fell off! (Acts 16: 25-26) Praise activates God’s power. And tells him that we believe that he can do what he has promised us. That he is a God of the impossible. And that he is a good God.
CONSEQUENCES OF UNBELIEF
If we take a look at the Israelites when they were in the wilderness, we see them getting ready to scout out the land the Lord had promised them. (Numbers 13-14) Moses sends 12 people, one from each tribe, to look and see what the land was like and what kind of people lived there. They returned with a bad report saying the people there were powerful and strong. And that there was no way they could conquer the land. So the Israelites feared for their life. Questioning why the Lord brought them there.
So Moses prayed to the Lord. And his prayers stopped the Lord from destroying the Israelites for their unbelief.
After all the signs and wonderous things the Lord did in front of the Israelites, like parting the red sea and giving them food and water everyday while they were in the wilderness, they still didn’t believe that the Lord could help them overtake and conquer the people in the promised land. They didn’t believe God would keep them safe from harm.
I think about my own life and how many times I have asked the Lord to show me signs so that I can believe him only to turn around and not believe. I find myself asking for more signs because of my unbelief.
Have you ever done that?
Because of the Israelites unbelief God did not allow them to enter into the promised land. They died in the wilderness.
When we fail to believe in a God who will take care of us the results are disobedience. Unbelief can make us rely on ourselves. Faith in God develops a total dependency upon him. It eliminates the disobedience and in return it allows us to experience his blessings. And isn’t that what we want?
CONCLUSION
Unbelief can be dangerous if not kept in check. We need to be aware of our thoughts. And when negative thoughts enter our minds we need to give them to God and ask him to give us a verse to replace those thoughts. We then need to focus on that verse. Repeating it daily. We need to pray and worship God. Remember the more our attention is on God and his words, the more faith we will have. And the less likely hood that unbelief will creep it’s way in.
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