Our faith brings God pleasure

Without Faith it’s impossible to please him (Hebrews 11:6)

I wonder how you read this verse? Do you read it, as “I don’t have much faith, so its impossible for me to please him “or do you read it as” even though my faith is as small as a mustard seed it brings him pleasure”?

This morning I was reading from 2 Kings: 4 and I was struck by how Elisha lived from a place of faith all the time so that what he said or did came from a certainty that God was good. He looked through the eyes of faith. Elisha must have brought God much pleasure.

When the widow came to him desperate because her husband was dead and the ‘bailiffs’ were about to take her two sons who were all she had, Elisha asked her what she had in the house.

She looked at what she had… and despaired

He looked at what she had, however small… and saw it being multiplied!

When the Shunammite’s son lay dead Elisha believed God and raised him from the dead and when the pot of stew was deadly Elisha took flour and in faith purified it.

Faith must be more than words, it must be realised through our imagination and then acted upon. When the widow told Elisha she just had one jar of oil, he saw many jars of oil. She did as he said and gathered as many jars as she could and started filling them. It’s interesting that the oil stopped flowing when the jars ran out. If there had been more jars, would there have been more provision?

What is our level of expectation?

The question needs to be not how big is your faith but how big is your God?

The oil was enough to pay for the widow’s debts and enough to live on. Whatever we have we can still ask for more so we have enough to give away.

20 years ago, God called us as a family of 5 to go and serve a church in South Africa for 18 months and it required faith. Faith for someone to rent our house to, faith for the airfare, faith to live out there…

When we got there we soon realised that my husband’s work as a decorator was not required as much because people preferred to pay a lower wage to black decorators. This meant he only occasionally had work.

There were days I looked into a nearly empty fridge wondering how to feed 5 of us. Often I went to the supermarket to see what I could get with what I had and somehow we were never hungry. Either because carrier bags arrived on our doorstep or because God multiplied what I had to make it enough.

When it was our daughter’s birthday I wanted it to be special for her. I had made a card, made a cake and invited a few of her friends but couldn’t afford an outing or a present. In faith I rang the video store to hire a video for the party even though I knew I didn’t have the money. Shortly after putting the phone down there was a knock at the door and a friend’s child said “my mum told me to give you this” Into my hand she placed an envelope in which was the exact amount of the hire of the video. She told me later she had been driving past and felt God say to stop, empty out all she had in her purse and to give it to me!

Another time our ‘jar of oil’ was some bottle lids that could be taken to a store in return for a small amount of cash. It was our morning to help serve tea & coffee at church and to provide the milk. We didn’t have money to buy any milk but didn’t want to make it known until the last minute. I was helping to lead worship that morning and someone brought a word of knowledge in the worship time that there were people in the meeting who didn’t have what they needed and challenged the congregation to give an offering as an act of worship. I felt embarrassed knowing that God might be speaking about us. It’s humbling to be in a season of receiving. By the time we had left church that Sunday, a term’s school fees had been paid, the boot of our car had been filled with vegetables, we’d been invited out to lunch and later that afternoon someone brought us a box of food that even contained smoked salmon, something we didn’t need but God blessed us with anyway.

God wants to develop our faith and faith takes us out of our comfort zone. When we step out of the boat we step into the supernatural realm. That may be trusting him to meet your needs or the needs of others or it may be praying for the sick or sharing the gospel in the street. However small your faith it attracts God and brings him pleasure. The more we expect of God who is good all the time, the more our faith will grow… and without faith it is impossible to please him.