Hi saints. After following Jesus for almost 25 years and having contact with Christians from every kind of background, I realize that all genuine saints have one thing in common, we all want something. Now some are much more blatant in their desires and it seems so crass to so many of us, people like the word of faith or the prosperity movement. We can see their sin, it is obvious for all as they scrape and grasp at all things material while trying to wrap it up in spirituality. I am not too interested in that. Only an encounter with the actual living God could move folks in that world away from their delusion.

No, I am more interested in saint who is bound and determined to follow God in all of his/her ways. There is, it seems to me, a stripping away process. Now this is not a two-week thing, or a test that lasts a month, it is an indeterminate time where God is seems has forgotten us in some way. Situations and circumstances are such that we are taken to the point of despair and often times just left there. Where is God in all of that one may ask? I remember the story of the disciples in the boat. Jesus is sleeping and they find themselves in the midst of an enormous storm. Now, the God that told us to cast all of our cares upon Him is asleep and the disciples, desperate by this point, wake Him up and cry out to Him. Now saints, can you remember Jesus’s reaction? Did He say ” there , there, everything will be okay?” No, He rebuked them. Puzzling is it not? What was He teaching them when He says ” Oh ye of little faith?”

This was not the only time this phrase was used by Jesus. In Matt 6.30 Jesus again says to those who worry about the clothes on their backs and the food on their tables and to those who try to serve God and money ” Oh ye of little faith.” Now, it gets worse. Peter, in Matt 14:31 has stepped out of a boat in the middle of the sea in the midst of a great storm. What marvelous faith. Who amongst us would have gotten out of the boat at any time never mind in the middle of a great storm? And yet, when Peter takes His eyes of Jesus and begins to sink and cries out, again Jesus says “O thou of little faith.” What does Jesus want from us?

Jesus is looking for a group of people who, no matter the circumstances will follow Him and honor Him. Job is probably the best example of the kind of faith that Jesus is looking for. No matter the circumstances, Job refused to curse God. Now, Job certainly was anguished and broken and torn in his heart over all of his losses. We are not told the overall time frame of all of his losses but I am sure it went on and on and on and it must have seemed to Job that it would never stop. Perhaps you find yourself in circumstances that just seem to go on an on, not over a day or a month but seemingly endless seasons. Where is God in the midst of all of that you may ask? “What does God want from me,”may be your cry? Can I tell you saints what God is looking for? He is looking for a Body of people who, no matter if they cannot feel God or His blessings, will follow hard after Him and keep trusting Him. Job says ” Even if He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”

In Matt 8 when Jesus rebukes not only the sea but also the disciples for their lack of faith, as soon as they land they are immediately confronted by a man who is filled with a legion of demons. Nothing could control him and not even the authorities could deal with him. Jesus confronts and casts out the great wickedness in this man and sets him free. The Body of Christ must be ready for the great wickedness that is soon to be upon us. There are demonic hordes readying themselves to flood the earth. God must have a Body of saints who can follow Him and trust Him no matter what storm rages around them, no matter what loss they have just suffered. If we are to be a witness to the world then we must be a Body who can say with Job, and mean it with every fiber of our being ” Even if He slays us, yet will we trust Him.” This is the faith that pleases God, the faith that requires nothing of God but worships and follows God because He is God and deserves to be followed and trusted. We must learn to be unyielding in our walk with Him and honor Him in all that we do, even if we loss everything in this world. This is great faith and it pleases God.