Fight to Believe

If you have ever determined to believe a promise from God, you know it’s a fight.

Hebrews 4:11 Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter that rest [of God, to know and experience it for ourselves], that no one may fall or perish by the same kind of unbelief and disobedience [into which those in the wilderness fell].  AMPC

From our text we can see we are to be zealous, that means we are called to be excited and to exert, to put force on, to exercise, to strive to —enter into the rest of God as to obtain His promises. 

I want to bring attention to what God calls unbelief—disobedience.  God said not being zealous to strive to believe is disobedience and disobedience as we all know, is not being right with God.

Therefore we have to ask ourselves, are we excited to press to believe?  Are we excited to take the Kingdom of God by force?  Is it our passion?  Are we as passionate about proving God is good as Jesus was? I don’t think so, in fact I think we get pretty weary and are ready to quit even before the real fight begins.   

I want to encourage you today by sharing with you a vision I had a while ago.  Before the vision I was feeling down and pretty discouraged, so I was asking God if I should still believe.  Seems silly saying it out loud here and now, but it was how I felt—I was discouraged.  Suddenly I had a vision, I could see Jesus, I had a glimpse of His excitement as He said He was excited, He said He was happy that I would believe something impossible.  Then He encouraged me to continue to believe— He said He had a plan for what I was asking of Him.  He said He had a plan to bring my promise into existence.   I can’t describe to you His excitement other than to say He was ecstatic and His excitement made me ecstatic!  I could see His smile and the excitement He had in His face.  It was so encouraging to not only know I was on the right track, but that I caused Him that much joy!

But, but then does that mean six months later when I still haven’t seen what He said He has a plan to do, I quit fighting to believe?  No, the Kingdom of God is taken by force (Matthew11:12) so I fight the doubt.   Am I telling you I don’t get discouraged once in a while?  No, but, I know what to do when discouragement comes.   I get refreshed— renewed in my faith by sitting in His presence.  I remember the vision and what He said and I continue to fight to believe.  I fight by relying on Him, by depending upon Him to encourage me, or even to re-encourage me, to remind me of His promises.  I seek Him until I can rest—until I can get to that place of knowing He will do what He said He would do.  

Here is the King James Version of our text.

Hebrew 4:11 Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. KJV

I wanted to look at this version with you to show you we have to work to enter into His rest.  It takes time to know God, to look at the Word of God, and to study to obtain the Word.  It takes time to sit in His presence, to exert, to strive and then to follow His directions—and that is our call.  

It is also our call to prove His will is good and perfect (Romans 12:2), and that takes changing how we think and that too —takes time. Purposefully changing what we think in order that we can have faith is necessary for us to be able to believe.  We have to have God’s wisdom abiding in our heart to have faith in Him. 

All the work we have to do takes time.  It takes time to establish our relationship with God, time to renew our mind, and time to have experiences with Him. And that time, helps us to learn to trust Him.  

Waiting six months for a prayer to be answered it not me waiting on God, but God waiting on me to work to rest in the fact that I can trust Him.  I am not waiting on God, but God is waiting for me to put aside my indecisiveness and to just work to believe.  

Working to believe might be to follow a directive He gave me, or loving someone that is hard to love, or renewing my mind to be as His. Working to believe is individual and entails many different things and can take time.  However, if we don’t quit we will reap (Galatians 6:9), and God will get us to that place of rest— all we have to do is seek Him, follow Him, trust Him, and obey Him.