Faith is Greatness....

[stephen]

By Reinhard Bonnke.....50 yerars evangelism in Africa.........over 1 million decisions recorded for Jesus

The righteous are as bold as a lion. (Proverbs 28:1)

There is more drama and boldness in one chapter of church history than in all of Hollywood’s productions. It begins with the heroic escapades in the Bible. The leading characters in those stories did not win their place in that book by quiet piety; God put the spotlight on them because of the active daring of their faith. Indeed, they were commended for their faith (see Hebrews 11:1).

It shaped their personalities making them positive people, not men of rubber bending to the will of all and sundry. They were by no means perfect but neither did they write their names on the walls of history with a trembling hand.

“Big” people are no bigger than grasshoppers to God – especially when their stature is concocted of mere fame, wealth or power, the result of self-elevating schemes. God recognises those made of better stuff – faith! Faith is what gives people dimension; in God’s sight faith-filled people are giants, but gentle giants, big-hearted and open-handed.

Faithlessness has never conferred stature on anyone, only making them “Littlefaiths”, to use the name Jesus coined (see Matthew 6:30).

A “great woman” is mentioned in 2 Kings 4:8. She is the only woman in the Bible for whom that adjective is used. One French Bible translation refers to her as “a woman of distinction”, yet she is nameless. She was not great or distinctive in wealth (despite what the NIV and the Good News Bible say!), social eminence or intellect.

Her greatness was faith. Her story was dramatic and unprecedented, but it was the outcome of her dramatic and unprecedented boldness and faith – you cannot separate them.

 

[Believer77]

thanks very much

 

[stephen]

By the Evangelist


My next Bible hero is Moses.

I thought about what he did and almost broke out in cold sweat. His boldness was beyond all reason, leading thousands of families on a “task impossible” to escape from the hand of Egypt into scrub land wilderness and leave the lush Egyptian fields behind.

What greatness, what boldness!

Egypt couldn’t believe it! He scooped up and made off with the country’s slave force! It was beyond anything considered possible, almost mad, and suicidal. The strategists of mighty Egypt never matched it.

Moses left himself no way out either, but went for this thing one hundred per cent. “Not a hoof shall be left behind” he said. But then, let a man be led of God and he can be like that.

 

[stephen]

By the Evangelist Rev Reinhard

The very word boldness suggests David.

David’s spectacular, unforgettable combat with Goliath is almost hilarious. It looked like boy versus giant, but Goliath may as well have tried to fight a herd of elephants as this teenage upstart. In reality the giant had provoked the powers of all heaven, and they roared down the skies and gave David’s stone the velocity of a howitzer. Faith releases awesome forces.


David was always six steps ahead, impulsive, brash, commanding, taking Israel in hand and re-shaping the nation. His memory is sadly sullied by a great sin, yet he used his fall to bring new understanding of God, as in the deep contrition and yet faith-insight of his wonderful Psalm 51. He understood God as nobody else at that time, not as the Majesty of flaming Sinai but flowing with reaching streams of love and mercy.

David was not a half-measure man. He lifted Israel’s spiritual level with worship innovations of foundational success. He believed God and loved God beyond everything else. His greatest ambition was to build a temple. Wealth flowed into his treasuries but he expended them on preparations for the most splendid shrine ever seen.

For David, a king must give in royal fashion, no tight-fingered reckoning of tithes. God must have one hundred per cent, the best, the best temple, the best music, the best worship, and the best gifts. David was bold in war, wasteful and un-calculating in giving. He worshipped in a bold way, shocking his wife with his excessive exuberance in the public streets.

 

[stephen]

y the Evangelist

Finally – (and I nearly started with this) my thoughts on boldness began with the account of the weak king Jehoash going to see the dying prophet Elisha (2. Kings 13).

Elisha by the spirit of prophecy spoke of Israel’s future, and told Jehoash to take his arrows and strike the ground with them. The king did so two or three times, half-heartedly. Elisha was angry and told the king he should have struck the ground five or six times and then he would completely overthrow the power of Aram, Israel’s enemy.

But that was King Jehoash and Elisha knew him. The very way he struck the ground showed what he was. He would never strike his enemies effectively. He lacked greatness of action, boldness.

The Bible finds little space for little people who don’t have enough about them even to believe God, or take a step of faith. They are the walking dead.

“The just shall LIVE by faith.”

There’s a land of victory in front of us all, where we can develop personal greatness, and become a notable with God. But “Without faith it is impossible to please God”. Unbelief turns the famous somebody into a famous nobody, while faith turns the unknown nobody into God’s famous somebody. Be bold; be strong, for the Lord thy God is with thee.

 

[complete]

Hi Stephen,

Yes it is faith that is so valued by God. Yet in Ephesians 2:8,9 in regard to salvation it says, 'For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.'

Even the faith that saves us is not our own, it is part of the 'grace by faith salvation' that is the gift of God. We believe God and it is counted unto us for righteousness - Praise God.

These people were not great in themselves, in fact their response to the Lord shows very vulnerable men and women who simply believed God and responded to Him, the greatness required was imputed to them, they were suitably equipped by God in fact for the tasks that they were called upon to do. So that the glory all belongs to God Himself.

Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness, and he showed by his works that he believed God by the acts of faith that he was enabled to perform, but he was a mere man. The glory again was all atributable to God Himself, it is God alone who is 'Great'.

Don't you agree?
In Christ
'Complete'

 

[abraham]

Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. (Psalms 36:5)

O LORD God Almighty, who is like you? You are mighty, O LORD, and your faithfulness surrounds you.
Psalms 89:8