Seize the Moment – Day 856
Act in Faith!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, July 21.
God invites His children to take steps of faith. When we act in faith, God does more than we can ever imagine or dare to ask.
In 2 Kings 13:14, Elisha the prophet was on his death bed when Joash, the king of Israel, travelled to him and wept over him saying, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” This was a reference to the famous story of Elijah’s ascension, found in 2 Kings 2:12, when Elisha received a double portion of Elijah’s spirit. On his death bed, as recorded in 2 Kings 13:15-19, Elisha invited the king to act in faith with a prophetic sign-act:
Elisha said to him, “Take a bow and arrows.” So he took a bow and arrows. Then he said to the king of Israel, “Put your hand on the bow.” And he put his hand on it, then Elisha laid his hands on the king’s hands. He said, “Open the window toward the east,” and he opened it. Then Elisha said, “Shoot!” And he shot. And he said, “The Lord’s arrow of victory, even the arrow of victory over Aram; for you will defeat the Arameans at Aphek until you have destroyed them.” Then he said, “Take the arrows,” and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, “Strike the ground,” and he struck it three times and stopped. So the man of God was angry with him and said, “You should have struck five or six times, then you would have struck Aram until you would have destroyed it. But now you shall strike Aram only three times.”
Elisha’s final act was to invite the king into greater faith – to believe God for the victory! Amazingly, God responded in like-kind to the king’s measure of faith. With even greater faith, God would have done more than the king could have imagined. The same principle is at work today in our lives.
Seize the moment and act according to your faith in Jesus, “who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us” (Ephesians 3:20).