WALKING OUT YOUR FAITH FOR YOUR DEFINING MOMENTS
Opening Comments: There are times in all of our normal and every day lives that are defining moments. In the Christian walk there are also defining moments. How will we walk? What will we do? What will we say? Our life is full of decisions, and you will find through your life time, both as you look back and as you will look forward in the days to come, that there were certain times and will be certain times when certain things and how we react to them…what we do and say…will become a defining moment in our lives. Such is also the case for the walk of faith. For faith to be refined, it must be tested and how we go through each of these tests becomes a defining moment in our lives. It determines whether we have to keep going through the same test until we pass it. It determines whether we pass the test and move on to the next one and the next level. It determines quite often what our path and destiny will actually be. We must have these tests of faith in our life time because they becoming defining moments in our walk with the Lord and bring us to ultimate growth and maturity as Christians.
Text: Luke 17: 11-19
I. Here we see the story of 10 Lepers
a. They asked Jesus for healing but were not immediately cleansed.
b. Vs 14 tells us that “as they were going” they were then cleansed.
c. Sometimes our faith produces immediate results but other times God will ask that we do something in return and that is to walk in His Word by faith and not by sight.
d. When the lepers left Jesus, everything looked the same. The leprosy was still there and all signs said they were not healed, still ill and infected.
e. Yet while they were on their way…putting their faith in motion, it was then that their healing and deliverance became manifest. It became as defining moment for each one of them when they had to walk away from Jesus at that moment with faith that He was willing and able to heal them. They had to walk out their faith.
f. What are you looking for in your life? What sicknesses or habits ail you? We must trust in the God who heals and delivers and then simply walk out our faith. When symptoms seem to persist, we must say, “I am trusting in the Word of God.” “I am trusting in my Lord who says by His stripes I was already healed.” I must trust in my God who says that in Christ “He gives me all things that pertain to life and godliness”. We must learn the hard lesson of faith that “We walk by faith and not by sight.”
g. No matter what the circumstances may be. No matter how impossible things may look, we serve a God who is willing and able. He is a miracle God who we can believe and trust.
h. I Kings 17: 8-16 Here we see the story of the widow at Zarephath. Are you almost out of hope? You may say like the widow at Zarephath, “I have no food.” God asks, “What do you have?” “I have only a jar of oil and a small handful of flour to survive on.” It seems impossible to live on that but we serve a God of miracles and it was enough. God can take even the little you have and make it go a long way. Her defining moment was that she acted in faith and trusted the Word of God from the prophet of Elijah when he commanded her to go and take the very last that she had for herself and son and to share it with him. Her obedience and decision to trust God became a defining moment in her life and it became her deliverance. She and her son ate for a year on what they had because a miracle working God made it multiply. Had she been disobemdient she may have starved. Her defininf moment could have been wither starvation or salvation and it was slvation becaise she walked out her faith in God at a critical time or moment in her life.
i. When we go back to the story of the 10 Lepers in Luke 17, we see something also very important and this is in verses 15 – 19. It is the importance of giving thanks to the Lord. Of the 10 Lepers only 1 came back and said, “Thank you”. The other 9 did not. Afterwards, we see in verse 19 that the Lord tells this man who was already healed of leprosy that he could go…his faith had made him well. I wonder what happened to the other 9 lepers? Maybe they kept their healing despite their thanklessness…..but I wonder for how long? We must remember where the source of our blessings come from. They come from Christ. We must never take them for granted but must always be thankful.
Concluding remarks: I believe every person named in the Bible had one thing in common, whether they made it to heaven or not. I believe they all had defining moments in their lives. We see some who failed in the defining moments and at other times were victorious. King David had a defining moment when he walked out his faith in God and challenged Goliath on the battlefield. The outcome propelled David into many future blessings from God. Yet another defining moment was where he failed miserably, letting his guard down and allowing Satan to tempt him into an adulterous affair with Bathsheba and then conspiring to have her huband murdered. The results of this defining moment was catastrophic in King David's life and while although he himself was forgiven, there was much war, death, sadness and calamity afterwards and for the remainder of his life with regards to his own children.
We see great defining moments when Daniel put his faith in God while in the lion's den; when his 3 friends refused to bow to the king of Babylon and were thrown into a fiery furnace only to have God walk in the fire among them and deliver them competely unscathed as a testimony to the Lord.
Look at every man or woman of God in scripture and you will see defining moments in their lives, but the end result was always victory when they walked out those moments with faith in a Living God.
May the Lord bless this word to your hearts.
By Evangelist Mischa Safdie’
Mischa Safdie’ Ministries
136 N. Grand Ave., Ste. 278
W. Covina, CA 91791
(951) 796-3936
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