Stevemidkiff's Blog

We often have little faith in prayer as a power in real life.

We do not embrace cordially, in feeling as well as in theory,

The concept of prayer that it is literally,

That prayer is actually, positively & effectually,

our only means of power is often difficult to accept

“If we think of our network of beliefs as a vast Excel spreadsheet

Where each individual cell holding a single statement that we either agree with or not,

then this means that there are no degrees of faith.

You cannot have 10%, 50%, 90%, or even 99% faith.

Each individual belief on the spreadsheet of faith is either “On” or “Off.”

The terms “Great faith” & “Little faith” simply mean this:

Some truths are easy to believe while others are difficult.

If we believe something that is difficult to believe, then we have great faith.

If we do not believe something that is relatively easy to believe, then we have little faith.

Since faith is the conviction or persuasion that something is true,

If we have little faith we have not been persuaded or convinced of even the basic truths,

If we have great faith we been persuaded or convinced of some of the hard & difficult truths
which few people come to believe.

We do not have faith containers in our souls which overflow when our faith is great,

but are nearly empty when our faith is little. Faith does not work like that.

Great faith & little faith have nothing to do with the size, amount, or degree of faith.

Rather, the terms “great faith” and “little faith” describe the difficulty of the truths that are believed.

When we fail to believe even some of the simple or easy truths,

this means that some of the basic, fundamental cells in our network of beliefs are turned “Off.”

Since we do not believe these simple truths, vast segments of their spreadsheet are also turned “Off.”

There are truths in Scripture, life, & theology that are hard to believe,

If we have great faith we believe them.

Such ideas often take great thought, insight, understanding, research, investigation,

or deep spiritual experiences in order to believe them.

When we come to believe these things, we believe something that few others believe,

and can therefore be described as having great faith.

Vast segments of our spreadsheet of beliefs are lit up with the light of the truth of God.”

Jeremy Myers

“Oh, that You would rend the heavens,

that You would come down,

that the mountains might flow down at Your presence,

as when the melting fire burns,

the fire causes the waters to boil,

to make Your name known to Your adversaries,

that the nations may tremble at Your presence!”

Isa. 64:1,2

To forgive others is to release them from any obligation

to make up to us what they have taken from us.

The dynamic of forgiveness involves
the response of repentance & confession.

We humble ourselves before God & admit the reality of our sinfulness,

We have His gift of forgiveness & new life in Christ.

We’ve put our trust in Christ alone for our salvation,

We stay in fellowship with him by asking the Spirit

to search our hearts & reveal any areas of unconfessed sin,

We acknowledge these to the Lord,

We thank him for His forgiveness

Ps 139:23–24; 1 John 1:9

God’s forgiveness erases our sin from existence.

He removes it “as far as the east is from the west”

Ps 103:12

He casts our sins behind His back

Isaiah 38:17

He wipes out our transgressions for his own sake

Isa 43:25

He remembers our sin no more

Jeremiah 31:34

He casts all our sins into the depths of the sea

Micah 7:19

When we were dead in our transgressions

He made us alive together with Him,

having forgiven us ALL our transgressions,

having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us,

which was hostile to us;

He has taken it out of the way,

having nailed it to the cross

Col 2:13–14

We struggle to accept God’s amazing forgiveness.

There’s a natural disposition to think

we must work off a debt to earn God’s forgiveness.

Guilt feelings can cause us to revisit the sin

instead of embracing God’s forgiveness.

We may forgive our offenders instantaneously

That has nothing to do with trusting them again

We may determine their offenses & sins against us are irrelevant now

That has nothing to do with stepping out on the bridge they’ve burnt

It’s impossible & impractical to step out

on an old pile of ashes which was once a bridge

Let us go over to the other side. Mark 4:35

A comfortable plane ride was about to get bumpy.

The voice of the captain interrupted in-flight beverage service

and asked passengers to make sure their seatbelts were fastened.

Soon the plane began to roll & pitch like a ship on a wind-whipped ocean.

While the rest of the passengers were doing their best to deal with the turbulence,

a little girl sat through it all reading her book.

After the plane landed, she was asked why she had been able to be so calm.

She responded, “My daddy is the pilot and he’s taking me home.”

Though Jesus’ disciples were seasoned fishermen,

they were terrified the day a storm threatened to swamp their boat.

They were following Jesus’ instructions. Why was this happening?

Mark 4:35-38

He was with them but He was asleep at the stern of the craft.

They learned that day that it is not true

that when we do as our Lord says there will be no storms in our lives.

Yet because He was with them,

they also learned that storms don’t stop us

from getting to where our Lord wants us to go

Whether the storm we encounter today is the result of a tragic accident,

a loss of employment, or some other trial,

we can be confident that all is not lost.

Our Pilot can handle the storm. He will get us home.

Daily Bread

“Our revels now are ended.

These our actors,

As I foretold you,

were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air;

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind.

We are such stuff As dreams are made on,

and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.”

Shakespeare

“The days of the years of our lives are few & swifter than a weaver’s shuttle.

Life is a short & fevered rehearsal for a concert we cannot stay to give.

Just when we appear to have attained some proficiency

we are forced to lay our instruments down.

There is simply not time enough to think, to become,

to perform what the constitution of our natures indicates we are capable of.”

“How completely satisfying to turn from our limitations

to a God who has none.

Eternal years lie in His heart.

For Him time does not pass, it remains;

and those who are in Christ share with Him

all the riches of limitless time & endless years.”

The responsibilities & pressures of this world clamor for our attention

They tend to squeeze our inner lives & starve our souls.

When this happens, we lose sight of the things that matter

We focus on the things that are passing away.

Our value systems become confused

when we invest more of our thought & concern in things

that are doomed to disappear than in that which will endure forever.

A W Tozer

I wish I could explain the relationship

between perspective, priorities & practice

It’s like holding onto three galloping horses

on three separate leads & you can’t let go

We discover God’s in purposed persevering prayer—

We don’t pray to override it or get Him to change His mind and do things our way.

Through steadfastness in prayer, we learn to focus on the Lord’s faithfulness

instead of our circumstances,

Praying tenaciously builds our trust & teaches us to depend on God

instead of rushing ahead to get what we want.

I endure everything for the sake of the elect,

that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.

2 Timothy 2:10

Oh, if only Job had known, as he sat in the ashes,

troubling his heart over the thought of God’s providence,

that millions down through history would look back on his trials.

He might have taken courage in the fact that his experience

would be a help to others throughout the world.

No one lives to himself, and Job’s story is like yours & mine, only his was written for all to see.

The afflictions Job faced & the trials he wrestled with

are the very things for which he is remembered,

and without them we would probably never have read of him in God’s Word.

We never know the trials that await us in the days ahead.

We may not be able to see the light through our struggles,

but we can believe that those days, as in the life of Job,

will be the most significant we are called upon to live.

Robert Collyer

Who has not learned that our most sorrowful days are frequently our best?

The days when our face is full of smiles & we skip easily through the soft meadow

God has adorned with spring flowers, the capacity of our heart is often wasted.

The soul that is always lighthearted & cheerful misses the deepest things of life.

Certainly that life has its reward & is fully satisfied,

but the depth of its satisfaction is very shallow.

Its heart is dwarfed & its nature,

which has the potential of experiencing

the highest heights & the deepest depths, remains undeveloped.

And the wick of its life burns quickly to the bottom,

without ever knowing the richness of profound joy.

Remember, Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn”

Matt 5:4

Stars shine the brightest during the long dark night of winter.

And the gentian wildflowers display their fairest blooms

among the nearly inaccessible heights of mountain snow & ice.

God seems to use the pressure of pain to trample out

the fulfillment of His promises & thereby release the sweetest juice of His winepress.

Only those who have known sorrow can fully appreciate

the great tenderness of the “man of sorrows”

Isa 53:3

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We may be experiencing little sunshine,

but the long periods of gloomy darkness have been wisely designed for us,

for perhaps a lengthy stretch of summer weather

would have made us like parched land or a barren wilderness.

Our Lord knows best & the clouds & the sun wait for His command.

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When told, “It’s a gray day,”

an old Scottish cobbler once replied,

Yes, but didn’t ya see the patch of blue?”

Every morning is an open door;

every moment can become another door swung open.

Some of us see the doors & seize them,

and so life becomes a divine adventure.

Some of us shrink back or fail to see.

To live in A room with no door is a prison.

To fail to embrace the open door is to miss the work God has made for us to do.

If we want to experience more of the Spirit of God in our lives,

we need to train ourselves to look for & respond to moments of divine opportunity.

Adapted from Ortberg

If our lips could sing as many songs as there are waves in the sea;

if our tongue could sing as many hymns as there are ocean billows;

if our mouth filled the whole firmament with praise;

if our face shone like the sun and moon together;

if our hands were to hover in the sky like powerful eagles

and our feet ran across mountains as swiftly as the deer,

all that would not be enough to pay our fitting tribute,

O Lord our God