Making Him A Believer
1 Chronicles 28:9 Amplified Bible (AMP)
9And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father [have personal knowledge of Him, be acquainted with, and understand Him; appreciate, heed, and cherish Him] and serve Him with a blameless heart and a willing mind. For the Lord searches all hearts and minds and understands all the wanderings of the thoughts. If you seek Him [inquiring for and of Him and requiring Him as your first and vital necessity] you will find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever!
Last Wednesday I was in church and before service started I was having a conversation with a sister in the Lord and someone so precious to me. She was sharing with me the amazing journey that she had been through to receive the blessing of the house that she was getting ready to close on. I remember her and I having a few conversations over a year’s period of time and I remember so clearly the road that she traveled, and it was filled with ups and downs, disappointments and negative people and reports but the one thing that never wavered was her love for God and her confession. She may have cried, she may have felt some kind of way, but she kept moving towards God and kept saying and believing God is able. As I stood there Wednesday night in utter amazement of her story, it wasn’t because God had done the thing that she had asked and then gone and done exceedingly abundantly above all that she could think or ask, it was the fact that she could smile brightly with a twinkle in her eyes and a praise on her lips knowing that all that she had went through was God proving her. Out her own lips she said “I knew God was saying will you still love me and praise me if this doesn’t go your way?” All I could do and can do is to be ecstatic and praise God for her and with her and learn the lesson that her journey taught.
That whole encounter made me think of Luther Vandross’ song “Make Me a Believer,” The last verse says, “Yeah, I know the way to persuade me over to your side…And I am sure you can…
So if you get me to believe…It all will work out fine…'Cause you'll blow my mind…So let's pick a place and a day and a time ( A place and a day and a time)…And then we'll be lovers…Loving and loving, oh love is the way…To make me stay, make me stay.” Although Luther is speaking of natural love, this journey made me think of the spiritual love that we are supposed to have for God, not just because He can, will, does and wants to do things for us, but because we just love Him for who He is. In Malachi 3:10 there is a part that God says to us “to prove Him, now” if He is calling us out to try Him, why do we think we have nothing to prove to God. God wants to know that we love Him, not because of what He does for us, but because of who He is to us. He wants us to prove to Him, that we are His ride or die, His thick and thin. Many of us just want God to be there when we need Him, but praise and worship, prayer and thanksgiving only seem to be on our lips when things are going our way, or a word we want to hear comes across the pulpit. But what about when we wake up and feel, horrible, or when the husband, kids and the dog are acting up? What about when we have a stack of bills and things are getting turned off is our love for Him and our praise still intact in those moments? What about when everyone around us is getting what we desire or even need before us, will we lie in the floor and throw a tantrum, or throw in the towel or shut down and tell God we are mad and we aren’t going to do this anymore? Or do we still reach up to heaven saying Lord I don’t get it but I still love you and I know you are a faithful Father, that loves me and you are working it out for my good.
So if you get me to believe…It all will work out fine…'Cause you'll blow my mind…So let's pick a place and a day and a time ( A place and a day and a time)…And then we'll be lovers…Loving and loving, oh love is the way…To make me stay, make me stay.” Although Luther is speaking of natural love, this journey made me think of the spiritual love that we are supposed to have for God, not just because He can, will, does and wants to do things for us, but because we just love Him for who He is. In Malachi 3:10 there is a part that God says to us “to prove Him, now” if He is calling us out to try Him, why do we think we have nothing to prove to God. God wants to know that we love Him, not because of what He does for us, but because of who He is to us. He wants us to prove to Him, that we are His ride or die, His thick and thin. Many of us just want God to be there when we need Him, but praise and worship, prayer and thanksgiving only seem to be on our lips when things are going our way, or a word we want to hear comes across the pulpit. But what about when we wake up and feel, horrible, or when the husband, kids and the dog are acting up? What about when we have a stack of bills and things are getting turned off is our love for Him and our praise still intact in those moments? What about when everyone around us is getting what we desire or even need before us, will we lie in the floor and throw a tantrum, or throw in the towel or shut down and tell God we are mad and we aren’t going to do this anymore? Or do we still reach up to heaven saying Lord I don’t get it but I still love you and I know you are a faithful Father, that loves me and you are working it out for my good.
God also wants to know that He can trust us with what He wants to do in our lives. If we don’t love Him in all sincerity how can He trust us with His promises? How can we be trusted to steward well the things that He blesses us with if we are not stewarding well our relationship with Him? If we are not proving daily that we do love Him and we do serve Him and we are on His side, whole heartedly, how will He know? If we haven’t bothered to prove that we are in relationship with Him because we understand that we are created to serve, then we will take the things and the blessings of God and be about our business instead of being about God’s business. We will use our positions, talents and resources for what we deem important, not what God deems important. That is why in Romans 12:1 says, “I APPEAL to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship.” When we understand that ALL that we are is God’s and all that we were created for was to the glory of God we will be seeking after God in a different and new way. We will be seeking out to prove to Him, that we love Him with everything that we are and we are in this thing to bring Him Glory and honor and to bless those He instructs and ordains for us to.
Today look at your relationship with Jehovah, is it because He is Jehovah Jireh, the one who provides, is it because He is Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals, or are we willing to let Him know that we love Him just because He is El Shaddai, the I am. I know for me, if I have never been more determined to make God a believer before like I am today and every day for here on, because my heart is unwavering that I will love and worship Him, because of who He is, so He believes in who I am and who He can entrust and make me to be!
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