Lord I believe.....Help thou my unbelief.......
I
frequently come back to the fact that the Church does not really believe all
that it would claim to believe.
Why is it that knowledge of the scriptures does not necessarily fix that
word in our hearts? More
recently I have been wondering if unbelief is something that can actually be a
stronger element since faith and belief are slightly different things.
Faith,
according
to Hebrews 11, is the certainty of things not seen.
God can use a mere mustard seed of faith, but faith is something real and
certain. It is not something that can be drummed up by us, no
matter how many times we quote the scriptures.
Often those who do this in, for example, the matter of healing, are
disappointed and succeed only in making the sick person feel guilty because they
haven’t enough faith. I
look back to when we first discovered Brian’s tumour, and he was very ill with
jaundice. I could hear God
saying, “Trust me, you are not to pray for his healing, other’s will do
that”, but a member of my family was very insistent on the way to pray to get
the healing. The
result was that I got very distressed and confused.
This is not uncommon.
So
how do we get that faith, I think most will accept that it is a gift from God,
but why should He give it to one and not another?
I can only speak from experience but I believe that it is something that
grows as our knowledge of God grows, that instead of claiming the scriptures in
a warfare situation we should meditate on them and praise God for what He has
already done. Perhaps
we could usefully start with:
“But
he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was
the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.”
(Isaiah 53:5 NRSV)
This
was the prophetic word that we saw fulfilled when Jesus went to the cross.
What happened at the cross is the basis of our Christian faith, so how do
we come to believe and do we only believe half of it?
We readily acknowledge this to be the work of the Holy Spirit and are
born again of the Spirit, all Christians must have this certainty.
So now at least we can pray, “Lord I believe, help thou my
unbelief……..”
Do we believe that that prayer will be
answered? At this point
we must consider our relationship with God.
Can we acknowledge His love for us, for we are primarily His children and
we know that it is natural for a parent to love a child and want the very best
for that child. So
it cannot be that God wants us sick yet many remain sick and so whose fault is
it that we are not healed? I
do not feel that we can put the blame on individuals, neither do I see sickness
as a punishment, I see the fault lying in our history and within the Church
itself. Unbelief is about
doubts that creep in because of experience.
Lack of teaching of biblical truth about the Holy Spirit has caused there
to be great gaps in our
knowledge, and experience of failure in moving mountains has caused the Church
to find excuses. Even
some of the words of Jesus seem to some to be irrelevant today.
Without witnessing miracles few are ready to believe many of the
fantastic statements made about His great power and authority.
I
feel that much as Jesus loves His Church He must be disappointed with her
influence in the world. Can
we start to change that? What
does he want from A.R.M (Wales)?
I
hear the words. “A total focus on God is required, this will allow Him the
space He wants within us ”. I am sure that time spent in the presence of God
meditating on His word would make a difference.
If God gives you a scripture start there, else start with any that you
think you know and believe.
This issue of the magazine, of necessity, causes us to consider the future for A.R.M (Wales) but above all that we respond to God’s will for us and for Flames of Fire. At the conference I detected unease about a “split” and unhappiness amongst some of our long term members and I hope that we will dispel such feelings and generate the excitement of which Nick speaks. I hope and pray that you will see how we have come to a positive response as you read this issue and a certainty that it is the will of God. But it is not fait accompli so it is important that we understand all the implications of the change and the reasons why the Executive are recommending it.
With the mailing of this magazine, members will also receive the agenda for the A.G.M. the Annual Reports and two documents entitled “Flames of Fire – Vision, Values and Practices” and “Why will the New Wine family be good for Flames of Fire”. These have been put together by Paul Thompson. The former in fact tells you what we already do and what has been accepted by the Executive and will hopefully put your minds at rest over the future, but the latter spells out the benefits and advantages for the conference. Please read these carefully and come to the A.G.M. ready to vote on the motion to approve the changes. We would like to see the maximum number of electors. The Revd. Bill Lewis will be the speaker at the A.G.M.
However we need more members of A.R.M. (Wales), so please encourage others from your church to join us. It is not the money that we want so much as the sharing of the vision of what God would do if we accepted His power and will in our lives; the future is going to need resources in the form of committed, renewed Christians. We will also need a Chairman with vision and so release Nick Jones to put his time into the future development of Flames of Fire.
A.R.M. (Wales) will continue to encourage Renewal within Wales and will continue to administer the Bursary Fund. Two members of the new Ignite Cymru team which will be working in schools during the next year are recipients of bursaries and Elen Griffith has sent us a preview for inclusion in this magazine, please pray for this team as they interact with young people who do not yet know the Lord.
Mary Newsom