Quiet! Be Still!….Do you still have no faith?

MARK 4:39-41
“Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and
it was completely calm. He said to his disciples,
‘Why are you so afraid?  Do you still have no faith?

QUIET!  BE STILL!  LISTEN TO JESUS

When the liar is whispering – listen to Jesus,
The sovereign Truth for all who WILL to believe;
Believe the Word of the eternally Annointed One,
One God whose Spirit is life for those who receive.

When persecution is rising – listen to Jesus,
The Lord Jesus is Comfort to all who will hear;
God is Master to those who by faith keep The Son,
The Son victorious over sin has vanquished our fear.

When Satan is accusing – listen to Jesus,
Jesus the Lord is Defender of all who seek refuge;
God is Redeemer of those who by faith hold The Son
The Son raised through power makes all things new.

When is condemnation threatening – listen to Jesus,
Jesus Christ is Peace to all who humble themselves;
God is Wisdom to those who by faith choose The Son,
The Son who in love chose to save our souls from Hell.

When the enemy is roaring – listen to Jesus,
The Lord Jesus is Friend to all who know God;
God is Father to those who by faith trust The Son,
The Son who suffered, and died, for us on a Cross.
 
When the culture is begging – listen to Jesus,
The only Way for fallen man to ever rise again;
God is Love for all who by faith follow The Son,
The Son who rose and will return to lead us to Heaven.

Jeffrey E Pollock
September 2008

This Month’s Devotional Thought
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Knowledge + Faith = Understanding

Christ makes a very interesting statement in the final verses
of John 5. The leaders of Israel searched the scriptures, He says,
in order to attain eternal life. No one knew scripture better than
the leaders of Israel. Each one of us who studies the Word of God
in English must rely on a translation from the original text. The
leaders of Israel, however, had the original scrolls and parch-
ments that were penned by the givers of God’s Word so it should
follow that salvation would be easily within their grasp. Yet Christ
tells us in this passage that salvation is far from them. Why?
Simply put, they have the knowledge of scripture but they lack
faith in what God’s Word proclaims so the understanding of
eternal life is beyond their comprehension.

God’s Word was in their hands but it did not reside in their hearts
Christ tells them in verse 38. The evidence of this was seen in
the fact that they rejected Christ as the Messiah. They felt that
they could attain salvation through obedience to the outward laws
of Moses but failed to grasp the truth that the law could not save.
Its sole purpose was to be a tutor who would help them recognize
the source of salvation when He was presented to them
(Galatians 3:23-24).

Each person who is reading this newsletter has gone through a
period of learning in their lives. We say someone has taught us
something, yet the ability to learn was not in their hands it was
in ours. We needed to believe that what they said was true and
the proof of our belief was seen in our acceptance and applica-
tion of what was taught.  A teacher’s job is to give direction yet
we will never learn the way until our minds are able to compre-
hend it as the truth to finding the way. This is the problem the
religious leaders of Israel had. They read the words that God gave
to Moses yet they could not comprehend what was being told so
the truth of God’s Word escaped them.

Moses and the prophets wrote in the Hebrew language so they
could understand what was being said, but they were looking
for fulfillment on the physical level when the promised fulfill-
ment was to be seen on the spiritual level and they missed it
completely. They desired a king who would free them from
Roman rule and make Israel the dominate kingdom on earth.
Christ came to set up a kingdom that would dominate and fill
the earth but God’s objective was not to physically overthrow
Rome, His purpose was to spiritually overthrow sin.

Eternal life could not be attained by doing the works of the
law it could only be attained through the person and work
of Jesus Christ. The spiritual blindness of the children of
Israel caused them to miss this truth and they rejected
Christ as the Messiah because the love of the Father was
not in them. Their flesh caused them to seek the honor of
those around them. They outwardly seemed pious but their
sinful heart made true righteousness unattainable and they
rejected Christ who was their only hope for eternal life.

Christ came just as Moses and the prophets had declared.
He came in the name of His Father. He came to do the will
of His Father. He came to establish the Kingdom of His
Father. Had He come with His own agenda, He doubtless
would have been given a better reception for Christ tells
them in verse 43 that they will receive those who come
in their own name. But salvation is not about pride, it is
not about fleshly honor, it is about love and not the love
that we have for God but the love that He has for us.

Moses declared these facts in the scripture and Christ told
His listeners it would be Moses who stood against them in
judgment. They claimed an alliance with Moses and called
him the father of their faith yet they proved they did not
trust him when they rejected his words of truth.

The scripture holds many truths for us today, truths that
demolish our pride and stand hard against our sin. These
truths declare God’s love for us in sending Christ as the
sole author and finisher of our salvation. Will we embrace
them and the eternal life that they proclaim or will we reject
them because they do not cater to our physical desires?
Just as in the days of Christ, the Word of God will stand in
testament, either for us or against us, in our day of judgment.

Jerry
www.ChristianPoetry.org

September 4
Morning Verse
“I will; be thou clean.” Mark 1:41
 
Primeval darkness heard the Almighty fiat, “light be,” and straight-
way light was, and the word of the Lord Jesus is equal in majesty
to that ancient word of power. Redemption like Creation has its
word of might. Jesus speaks and it is done. Leprosy yielded to
no human remedies, but it fled at once at the Lord’s “I will.” The
disease exhibited no hopeful signs or tokens of recovery, nature
contributed nothing to its own healing, but the unaided word
effected the entire work on the spot and for ever. The sinner is
in a plight more miserable than the leper; let him imitate his
example and go to Jesus, “beseeching Him and kneeling down
to Him.” Let him exercise what little faith he has, even though
it should go no further than “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make
me clean”; and there need be no doubt as to the result of the
application. Jesus heals all who come, and casts out none. In
reading the narrative in which our morning’s text occurs, it is
worthy of devout notice that Jesus touched the leper. This un-
clean person had broken through the regulations of the
ceremonial law and pressed into the house, but Jesus so far
from chiding him broke through the law Himself in order to
meet him. He made an interchange with the leper, for while
He cleansed him, He contracted by that touch a Levitical
defilement. Even so Jesus Christ was made sin for us, al-
though in Himself He knew no sin, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. O that poor sinners would
go to Jesus, believing in the power of His blessed substitu-
tionary work, and they would soon learn the power of His
gracious touch. That hand which multiplied the loaves, which
saved sinking Peter, which upholds afflicted saints, which
crowns believers, that same hand will touch every seeking
sinner, and in a moment make him clean. The love of Jesus is
the source of salvation. He loves, He looks, He touches us,
WE LIVE.
—Morning and Evening

Jesus Cures a Man With a Skin Disease
40  Then a man with a serious skin disease came to him. The man
fell to his knees and begged Jesus, “If you’re willing, you can make
me clean.”
41 Jesus felt sorry for him, reached out, touched him, and said, “I’m
willing. So be clean!”
42 Immediately, his skin disease went away, and he was clean.
43 Jesus sent him away at once and warned him, 44 “Don’t tell
anyone about this! Instead, show yourself to the priest. Then
offer the sacrifices which Moses commanded as proof to people
that you are clean.”
45 When the man left, he began to talk freely. He spread his story
so widely that Jesus could no longer enter any city openly. Instead,
he stayed in places where he could be alone. But people still kept
coming to him from everywhere.

Mark 1:40-45 (GW)

September 6, 2008

HIS PURPOSE
by Charles R. Swindoll

Read Job 23:1–17

Job struggles, finally admitting his frustration: he cannot find God.
Ever been there? Of course. All of us have! There are days we search
in vain for some visible evidence of the living God. I’m thinking,
Wouldn’t it be great to wake up in the middle of a full-moon sky
tonight, peek out my bedroom window, and see some skywriting,
“Dear Chuck, I hear you. I’m right here. I’m in charge. Love, God.”
I would love for that to happen! I’d love to get into my pickup after
a tough day at the church, turn the radio on, and have God interrupt,
saying, “Before you listen to this station, Chuck, I want to talk to
you for a few minutes.” Let face it, all of us would love to hear an
audible voice or read a visible message from God. But that’s not
the way it works. Our walk with Him is a walk of faith, not sight.

Job is a great and godly man. He is a mature saint, no doubt about
it. Nevertheless, he longs to witness God’s presence. “Oh, that I
could know where He is. But I cannot see Him, behold Him, or
perceive Him.”

Though unable to locate the presence of God, Job states his trust
in Him: “Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, you can say whatever you
wish against me. God knows which way I go. He knows the truth.
He is my Justifier. He and I are on speaking terms. I trust Him. I be-
lieve in Him. Furthermore, after the trial is over, and He has
accomplished His purpose within me, ‘I shall come forth as gold.’ “

You can count on that, my friend. When the trial has passed, you
will be deeper and richer for it. Gold will replace alloy. I want you
to allow those words to burn their way into your brain so deeply
that they become like a divine filter for everything that happens
in your life from this day forward. God knows which way you’re
going. And His Word will be a lamp for your path (Psalm 119:105).

http://rzim.org 

New Subject : [Slice 1760] Faith and Evidence (September 4, 2008)
  
Date : Thu, Sep 04, 2008 06:19 AM 
 
09/4/08
Faith and Evidence
Rachel Tulloch

“That’s not faith.”

There is an episode of the TV series Bones, in which the main
character is buried alive with a friend and they are running out
of air. She is not panicking because she is sure her partner Booth
will rescue them.  Her friend says, “You sure have a lot of faith in
him.”  Her reply betrays a common assumption about the nature
of faith:  “Faith is an irrational belief in something that’s logically
impossible,” she says. “Over time, I have seen what Booth can do. 
That’s not faith.”(1) These comments reflect how many people view
faith: it is an irrational leap in the dark.  It is about accepting prop-
ositions without evidence or even against the available evidence. 
However, in the Christian sense, faith is not opposed to reason or
evidence.  It is simply not reducible to either one.   In the book of
1 John, we read:  “That which was from the beginning, which we
have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have
looked at and our hands have touched–this we proclaim concern-
ing the Word of life.  The life appeared; we have seen it and testify
to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the
Father and has appeared to us.
We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also
may have fellowship with us” (1 John 1:1-3). 

John is clearly appealing to evidence and reason to try to persuade
people that the story he tells is true.  If it is true, then it would
make sense for one to have faith in the Jesus of whom he speaks,
just as it made sense for Bones to have faith in her partner since
she had seen the evidence of his abilities.  But only if it is true. 
John is obviously not asking people to believe against the evidence
or even in the absence of evidence, but on the basis of a certain
type of evidence–in this case, the trustworthiness of the witnesses.

Evidence can serve to instill belief or confirm belief, but it has its
limits.  We all interpret evidence in the light of our experience and
the beliefs we already hold.  Just as John offered one type of evi-
dence, others would offer their own evidences that Jesus was not
who the apostles claimed he was.  Thus, it is not strictly the evi-
dence that determines who puts their faith in Jesus and who does
not because faith is about more than believing an idea.  It is about
commitment, a willingness to stake your life on the truth of some-
thing or the reliability of someone.

Furthermore, those who accuse faith of lacking in evidence often
fail to notice that every belief system, whether it includes the
supernatural or not, has foundational elements which are not proven. 
Even a naturalist worldview that relies on science must accept many
things without direct evidence.  All people have faith in their own
worldviews, even naturalist scientists.  They have to believe that
their way of determining what is true is the best way.  They have
to believe others and trust the results of other scientists.  If you
are a complete skeptic, you will never get anywhere in science. 
You would have to do all the experiments yourself and even then,
you cannot prove 100 percent that you are not mistaken.  You have
to trust that your findings will hold true in the future, that the laws
that operate now will not change tomorrow.  You have to trust that
your mind and thoughts in some way correspond to the way the
world actually is.
 
So, faith has evidence.  But all evidence has faith too.

Whether our faith is rational or irrational depends on a number of
factors: how much and what types of evidence supports it, whether
it has stood up to honest scrutiny and criticism, and how much
explanatory power it has to make sense of our experience.  Christian
faith passes each of these tests, but it will always go beyond any of
these factors.  Like the faith of Bones in her partner, it is also about
trusting a person. Our faith determines the direction of our lives; it
is where our loyalties lie; it believes that the one who made us also
loves us and has spoken to us.   Over time, we have seen what God
can do.  And that is faith.

Rachel Tulloch is associate apologist at Ravi Zacharias International
Ministries in Toronto, Canada.

(1) Bones, series 2, episode 9, “Aliens in a Spaceship.”

————————————————–

Any copying, re-transmission, distribution, printing, or other use
of “A Slice of Infinity” must set forth the following credit line, in
full, at the conclusion of the portion of A Slice of Infinity [used]:
Copyright(c) 2008 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM).
Reprinted with permission. A Slice of Infinity is a ministry of Ravi
Zacharias International Ministries http://www.rzim.org.
___________________________________________________________ 

“A people near unto him.” Psalm 148:14 
 
The dispensation of the old covenant was that of distance. When
God appeared even to His servant Moses, He said, “Draw not nigh
hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet”; and when He manifested
Himself upon Mount Sinai, to His own chosen and separated people,
one of the first commands was, “Thou shalt set bounds about the
mount.” Both in the sacred worship of the tabernacle and the temple,
the thought of distance was always prominent. The mass of the
people did not even enter the outer court. Into the inner court none
but the priests might dare to intrude; while into the innermost place,
or the holy of holies, the high priest entered but once in the year. It
was as if the Lord in those early ages would teach man that sin was
so utterly loathsome to Him, that He must treat men as lepers put
without the camp; and when He came nearest to them, He yet made
them feel the width of the separation between a holy God and an im-
pure sinner. When the gospel came, we were placed on quite another
footing. The word “Go” was exchanged for “Come”; distance was made
to give place to nearness, and we who aforetime were afar off, were
made nigh by the blood of Jesus Christ. Incarnate Deity has no wall
of fire about it. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest,” is the joyful proclamation of God as He
appears in human flesh. Not now does He teach the leper his leprosy
by setting him at a distance, but by Himself suffering the penalty of
His defilement. What a state of safety and privilege is this nearness
to God through Jesus! Do you know it by experience? If you know it,
are you living in the power of it? Marvellous is this nearness, yet it is
to be followed by a dispensation of greater nearness still, when it
shall be said, “The tabernacle of God is with men, and He doth dwell
among them.” Hasten it, O Lord.    —Morning and Evening

MARK 4:39-41
“Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and
it was completely calm. He said to his disciples,
‘Why are you so afraid?  Do you still have no faith?

QUIET!  BE STILL!  LISTEN TO JESUS

When the liar is whispering – Listen to Jesus,
The sovereign Truth for all who WILL to believe;
Believe the Word of the eternally Annointed One,
One God whose Spirit is life for those who receive.

When persecution is rising – Listen to Jesus,
The Lord Jesus is Comfort to all who will hear;
God is Master to those who by faith keep The Son,
The Son victorious over sin has vanquished our fear.

When Satan is accusing – Listen to Jesus,
Jesus the Lord is Defender of all who seek refuge;
God is Redeemer of those who by faith hold The Son
The Son raised through power makes all things new.

When is condemnation threatening – Listen to Jesus,
Jesus Christ is Peace to all who humble themselves;
God is Wisdom to those who by faith choose The Son,
The Son who in love chose to save our souls from Hell.

When the enemy is roaring – Listen to Jesus,
The Lord Jesus is Friend to all who know God;
God is Father to those who by faith trust The Son,
The Son who suffered, and died, for us on a Cross.
 
When the culture is begging – Listen to Jesus,
The ONLY Way for fallen men and women to EVER rise again;
God is Love for those who by faith follow The Son,
The Son who rose and will return to lead His own to Heaven.

Jeffrey Pollock
September 2008

In conclusion: 

BE STILL!  AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD. —PSALM 46:10