The Fight of Faith

By Mike Jones

Jesus said we could do big things if we only had faith the size of a mustard seed. A pile of dirt can be moved with one pass of a dozer. The same pile can be moved with a shovel . . . it just takes longer.

Jesus faith was like a dozer ours more like a shovel. Too often we give up on the things we pray for because they dont happen quickly. You can have miraculous faith, just as Jesus said . . . if youre willing to take it one shovel at a time.

There is also personal faith. God has told us that he loves us for example. Satan tells us that he doesnt that its conditional. It can be believable at times. God is pleased when we can hold to what he told us. It is a process. I call it, The Fight of Faith.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524556327

Mike Jones

Mike Jones is an award-winning writer and creative producer who works across a variety mediums including books, screen, digital & interactive media.

Book preview

PART 1

Miraculous Faith

I’m sure as you read these next few chapters, at some point you will surely think, Well this is the same thing over and over. In a way it is. I admit I am slow to learn. These little stories show the simple steps, with the repetition, which the Lord used to help me learn a very valuable lesson that has changed the way I pray and approach Him.

One thing I have noticed, as a way of helping me to be sure, is how the Lord confirms, in layers, the things He is trying to show me. It may be a few totally different things or a few similar, but the layers of confirmation assure me that it is Him.

I have to admit, the lesson He has taught me in regard to faith for the miraculous—as simple as it may be—has helped me more than anything in my praying and believing. We believe we should be able to see God size things happen as a result of our praying. We believe we should be able to pray and, BAM! There it is. Jesus could do it. Why can’t we?

I have wrestled with that for many years. I believe finally, in the simple little analogies laid out in these next few stories, He has shown me an answer that makes sense. It helps me. I can live with it. I can now move mountains with it . . . well at least little hills. It is at least a start.

(1)

Why Can’t I

Seek ye first had been on my top 10 list for over 30 years. How is it that we can do that? It wasn’t first; it was just in the mix. And yet somehow I had worked it out in my mind that it was.

A few years ago, after finally reaching a point where I just flat out admitted to myself that my version of Christianity didn’t match up to the Bible’s, there was a stirring in me to take a fresh look at things. After much review, a knee high stack of hand written journals and three books later, it is quite clear that my version was a little off.

The process has conditioned me to wrestle things out afresh—to not apply the same compromising logic that is so easy and tempting to do. In the end, you have to come to the point where you realize that the Bible says what it says and that it means what it says.

Just this morning I read where a man approached Jesus on behalf of his son who suffered from seizures. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him. Jesus directs His attention to His disciples and says, O unbelieving and perverse generation. Later, after Jesus healed the boy, the disciples asked, Why couldn’t we drive it out?

Before, I would have just blown by this. I would have rationalized that it was something for their day but not mine. But I can’t do that any more. Instead, I am asking myself the same question; Why can’t I? I’ve asked it before; but somehow this time it is like so many other issues I have wrestled through during the past few years. I sense Him leading me to ask—drawing me to wrestle this out.

I don’t have all the answers yet, which is obvious because I am still asking the question; but I have learned some things about faith that makes the question approachable. Faith knows something. Jesus was frustrated with the disciples for not knowing it. Jesus knew it. He didn’t huff and puff to heal, drive out and raise; He knew something. I believe He wants us to know it as well.

A Much Needed Stand

Maybe the disciples had hoped that Jesus wouldn’t know that they had not been able to heal the boy of his seizures. Maybe they were a little like us, not understanding why, and deciding to just let it go.

Oh He knew. He didn’t say anything at first, but He knew. When the father of the boy spilled the beans, I can see the disciples’ head dropping a little—maybe positioning themselves behind someone hoping to not be seen. Jesus is not happy. And after a little scolding, they finally ask Him what they had often wondered and kept to themselves; Why couldn’t we drive it out?

It is clear that Jesus expected them to be able to. He had told them to. I wonder when He stirs us to do the same—to believe for the same—if He doesn’t expect us to be able to. Somewhere along the line we have given in to the belief that He doesn’t. Surely Jesus wouldn’t say to us, O unbelieving and perverse generation . . . Would He? . . . Surely not! . . . Would He?

We console ourselves by thinking He wouldn’t—by thinking it must not have been His will. I believe there is more to it than that. With the disciples, if it had not been His will, what reason would He have had to be frustrated with them? The reason He was frustrated is that they had the ability . . . and didn’t know it.

And so He makes the point, "Hey, I know you don’t know all that I know—that you are not as sure of things as I am—but even if you just understand it a little, you can do the same things that I do. Because of all that He knows and understands, He walks up like a wrecking ball and says, Satan, hit the road and he hits it. We tell him to hit the road and he just stands there with his arms crossed. Make me" he says.

And that’s the deal. It’s not as much praying and asking God, as it is telling Satan. When he stands with arms crossed, it’s standing right back at him. That’s what Jesus meant. Even if your faith is not the size of a wrecking ball; if it is just the size of a sledgehammer, you can stand there delivering blow after repeated blow until he moves on.

Faith is not hoping he will leave. It is not hoping God will make him leave. When God has initiated the faith, it is knowing and understanding that he has to leave. We have given in to him not leaving for so long and his heals are dug in so deep that it will take quite a stand—a much needed stand—to drive him out. He really has no option . . . unless we give him one.

(2)

So, What Did Jesus Know

Jesus’ faith was like a wrecking ball. I had thought mine was at least like a sledgehammer, but I’ve recently decided it might only be as big as my wife’s picture hanging hammer. A slab of concrete will crumble with just one blow of a wrecking ball. It might take several blows with the sledgehammer. But with a picture hanging hammer??? Oh my! That’s going to take some time.

How was it that Jesus could walk up to a demon possessed person and in one command make Satan come out? Or in the case of the centurion asking for his son who was suffering from seizures; how could He say, I will go and heal him, and not, "I will go and try to heal him"? It’s a little different than how most of us today approach it. We try. We ask to see if the Lord will do it for us, and if not, we move on. That’s like giving the concrete a whack or two and then giving up.

Jesus knew the concrete would break. Luke tells us in chapter 10 of his gospel that Jesus saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven. Satan was no match for Him there; but what about here? When Jesus came here, He was on Satan’s turf. Inevitably there would have to be a showdown and this showdown took place in a little 40 day skirmish. On the front end of Jesus’ ministry He went toe to toe with him in the desert. Again, Jesus came out on top. Jesus made it clear, Even here you will do what I tell you to do.

I think each us must have a similar showdown. We must go toe to toe and not back down. Even if we just take into that showdown faith as small as a picture hanging hammer, we’re not to back down. That is what Jesus meant when He told the disciples, If you only have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can do the things I do. If you know that Satan has to leave and you don’t back down, you will win your battle.

And so with my little hammer in hand, I stand for a young girl who has seizures. I command Satan to leave her alone—to quit troubling her. I’m not asking God to do it; He wants me to learn that I can do it. He wants me to know what He knows, which is that Satan has to leave.

In the story that all this stems from—where the disciples had been unable to heal the centurion’s son of his seizures—Jesus’ comment about faith was when the centurion told Him that he had men under him that did what they were told. That is the point Jesus was making when He said He had not seen such great faith in all of Israel. I have not seen anyone that understands this—that they can command Satan and know that he has to obey.

That is what Jesus knew. It is what He wants us to learn.

Bits of Evidence

You expect to see results quickly when you bring a dozer in to move a pile of dirt. But what if you bring a shovel and wheelbarrow? The results will still come;