February 25

Romans 4:20-21 (NIV)
20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

Why did Abraham need faith to believe the promise of an offspring – a son – would be born to Sarah? Because they were well beyond child bearing years. It is not that they couldn’t have marital relations anymore, it was the fact that their reproductive systems were old. Basically Sarah was infertile and incapable of dropping an egg, after all she was in her 60’s when the first promise came, but she was 90 when she actually got pregnant. We don’t often think of these things when we come to passages like this, but we have to insert ourselves into the historical context. These people were old! I am sure that Abraham thought that he couldn’t produce “seed” although he could. When you add all of this up you see that they could NOT make this happen. It was an impossibility for them to make it happen – work for it – grit their teeth, pull up their boot straps and bring the promise about by their own effort. They were forced to either believe or not believe!

As I was reading I was struck by the fact that God inserts us into situations that we can’t solve so we must choose faith in order for the promise to be fulfilled. When we can’t do it is when we are forced to make a decision of trusting God. I will go one step further, I will put myself in situations to constrain myself to believe by asking God for big things! One of the ways we keep our faith (trust) small (limited) is to never believe for great things. We believe for what we can make happen.

Go to God today and ask Him to show you the great things He wants you to do. If you can accomplish it without him, it takes no faith and therefore is small and can turn into a fleshly thing because you can do it. God has greatness in each of us. He has great exploits for us! Ask Him what they are, fix your eyes on Him and believe that He will do this great thing. (That you couldn’t bring about if you tried).