TEXT: Gen.15: 1-6 And he believed Jehovah … And his faith was counted for righteousness.
PRAYER: Lord … When I am in difficulties, problems and pain, it is when I need my faith to grow, increase my faith, so that I can see your powerful hand extended to me today.
INTRODUCTION: Through this theme, we will see obstacles or barriers to faith, and how to overcome them. A believer can be consecrated to God and yet not have faith to appropriate the promises of God.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: Abram comes from some events or events, which he had to go through because of his nephew Lot.
He is involved in the war of the 4 against the 5 kings who disputed lands and tributes, after this victory against Chedorlaomer, appears Melqui-sedec Priest of God, who remembers that it was God who won the battle against Cédorlaomer and not he. Strengthening Abram against the diabolical offering of the king of Sodom to which he replied: I will take nothing of your own, neither a thread nor a leash, lest you say I have enriched Abram.
1- AFTER THESE THINGS …
It is fear … Doubt … Mistrust assaults poor Abram. Fear a counter attack by Chedorlaomer, in the face of this fear, God shows himself and con-tests: Do not fear Abram, I am your shield. The second fear was another inscription from the devil: Was I not foolish in rejecting the king of Sodom’s offer? To that doubt God answers: I am your shield and your reward !!!
The third and greatest fear of Abram was that in the end God would not fulfill the promise to give him the son that he had promised for all his spirituality, Abram had not arrived at the place that God wanted to come, still has fears, not Is perfect in faith.
So there are many believers today; Consecrated, faithful, spiritual, who, however, have no faith to believe that God will keep His promises.
Fear is sin, Rev.2: 8. Fear bears in itself punishment, 1 John 4:18. Fear brings evils and consequences, Pr.10: 24. Fear binds and puts us at the mercy of the enemy, Pr.29: 25. Fear foretells what will happen, Pr.1: 26-27. Fear explains the suffering of Job, Job 3: 25-26.
The confessed fear is a telegram to Satan, confessing to him that we have believed him and that he can begin when he pleases. Satan brings the fears, he’s an evil, but we fools believe him. To fears we must reject them in the Name of Jesus, and not accept them for the world!
2- DO NOT FEAR …
Again and again the Lord said to his disciples, Do not fear small herd, because your Father has been pleased to give you the Kingdom. Out of fear, Peter began to sink into the waters and by the same fear denied the Master.
Let us not be deceived, let us resist fears by believing in the promises of the Lord. Fear is one of the greatest barriers to faith. Perhaps you, like Abram, have left Ur (the world) also left Terah dead (the me, the flesh), perhaps you left your Lot, consecrated you to God and even despised the temptations of the king of Sodom, Yes, but God wants you to take another step in your spiritual life. He wants you to be a believer of faith, of living and full faith in God. Poor Abram, he was so afraid, how hard it was to have faith! Fear is a very great obstacle to faith.
This barrier, yes or yes, must be overcome!
3- DO NOT FALL IN THE FEAR …
This is the second barrier and certainly great. Abram is going through one of his spiritual crises. In this type of crisis, one turns back or takes a big leap in faith! Staying in the crisis would be devastating, even for the strongest believer.
Abram is desperate in his problem and sees it so great that he loses all his faith. He is about to faint, to deny everything and to go back, we notice it by the very incorrect way that Abram is addressed to God, after God is offered as a shield and reward. We see in him a crisis, where he no longer knows what he says. God is offering everything to him and he says: What will you give me? And you see that you have not given me? God seeing him in such a crisis encourages him to take the next step in his spiritual life: that of faith. The crises are not to throw us down, but is the period of transition between one step and another of our spiritual life. Never be discouraged in crises, look upward, into new experience in Christ.
God challenges Abram to believe that despite his old age and his barren wife, they will have a son. This is a lot, because many years of waiting and the son did not arrive. It was difficult for Abram to believe, he had already resigned himself to the fact that his inheritance would pass to his butler, he had resigned himself to no longer expecting the promise. Can a spiritual believer come to such an extent? Here is the Father of the feen his struggles !!! When God saw that Abram was so hard to believe, he brought him out of his tent and said to him, “Look at the stars. Why did he take him out of his tent? The man-made store is kind of the limited human possibilities. To be under the tent means to look to where it comes, the possibility of man. The tent does not show the limitlessness of the power and greatness of God … The stars! The store was very small and only there was Abram, he saw God smaller than his problem. When you take it outside, God is telling you: Stop looking at your possibilities and look at mine! Go outside look at my works and stop looking at yours. Count the stars if you can: If I can make the stars … Can not I give you a child? And Abram believed God.
Brother, are you in the tent? Do you look at your limitations and impotence? Go out to see the stars. That is your God! Do not be afraid to ask big and impossible things, because He specializes in that, whatever your difficulty: Look:
The Power of God and then you can believe!
4 – WHAT IS HAVING FAITH?
It is waiting on God with firmness and supernatural security. Give something for granted. It is full trust in God, to receive the impossible to the human eye and mind. The verse that best explains faith is He. 11: 1, Assurance of what is expected, conviction of what is not seen, or conviction of what is not seen. Are you sure that will happen? Are you convinced that what you do not see, you will see? This is faith, and this kind of faith pleases God and this faith moves God’s hand.
CONCLUSION: We have considered, two great barriers to the Faith. First the fear and second put our gaze more on the problem, than on God.
Do you have fears? God says to you: I am Your Shield, do you think I have lost something? God says to you: I am Your Reward Do you have doubts that God will fulfill? Did you consult with doctors, pastors or evangelists and did not find a solution? Go out of your tent, and look to God today, do not resign yourself, trust in Him, look up … towards God !!!
TUESDAY OF PRAYER
NOVEMBER 28 OF 2,000
PASTOR: ROBERTO ROSALES
