One day God took Abraham outside his tent & told him,“Look towards the heavens and see if you can count the stars there.That’s how many descendants you're going to have” (Genesis 15:5). At that time Abraham didn’t even have one child. There r millions of stars in the sky. And it says that Abraham believed the Lord (Genesis 15:6). The word ‘believe’ there in the original Hebrew is ‘AMAN’ from which we get the English word ‘AMEN’ which means ‘I believe that it will be so.’ So when God told Abraham that his seed would be like the stars of heaven, Abraham just said,“Amen=I believe it will be so” That’s it. And it was fulfilled. Today, the children of Abraham (physically & spiritually)number in millions.
Faith means saying “Amen” when God has said something to you. Faith is always based on the word of God. “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God” (Rom.10:17). You can’t have faith, if you don’t listen to God. Abraham heard God first. Then he said “Amen”. Nowadays, I find many believers saying that they have faith for things about which God has said nothing. They say: “I have faith that God will give me a Mercedez-Benz car. And I believe it’s going to be black in colour. ”That’s not faith. That is presumption. It is tempting God. Faith can be born only after hearing God speaking to us first. Only then can we say, “Amen=It shall be so.” If you remember this, you will be saved from presumption and from counterfeit faith.
Faith begins with God’s promise & not with our desires. Once God has spoken, we must keep on saying,“Amen” to it, all through our life, no matter how long God takes to fulfill His Word. But in Genesis 16; we read that Sarah was impatient. She suggested to Abraham to have children through Hagar, her maid (Gen.16:2). What did Abraham do then? unfortunately he said, “Amen”, to Sarah too. That caused a problem for Abraham’s descendants that have now lasted for 4000 years.
Never say "Amen" to man's word
No comments:
Post a Comment