The Sin of Unbelief

"Take care, brethren, lest there be any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing (falling away) from the living God" Hebrews 3:12

I remember clearly Randy's first words to me when he first seen my tears and my joy gone and my heart overwhelmed as he was sitting in our living room reading the Word and worshipping God with his hands lifted high....the week he came home after his surgery to remove a very progressive tumor on his brain. It was an unimaginable time for me and my faith was being tested. Doubt was creeping into my heart and my faith was faltering as I sat there trying to understand what God was allowing. The world was crashing down as I tried to comprehend all that had happened over the last few weeks. I began to allow thoughts to enter my mind that were not of God...and I was reminded of Job's wife who although she had lost much and her pain understandable...she was reacting in her flesh and we see how Satan can work through others, through us, to weaken the faith of another instead of being used to strengthen their arms. She told her husband Job...."Do YOU STILL hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die! Job 2:9. Job replied, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?" Job 2:10.

Her words may sound very harsh to us...but her inner attitude that came out through her words is often the same in us...the heart of unbelief...which is the sin of unbelief. I remember years ago hearing of this...and it has always been a plum line for me...to measure my faith. It has always kept the question at the forefront of my mind...Do I believe?...as I am faced with difficult circumstances. Belief brings me to the will of God where I find peace regardless of mu understanding. It solidifies my fellowship and communion with Christ and allows me to give my all to Him.

Faith is living 'without seeing'......'not asking how can I get out of this situation" ….but in this situation, 'what can I get out of it, Lord'. The two things that Job would not give up...was his faith and integrity. This was Randy's words to me...and Randy went on to say, "we are not a people who shrink back, this is not who we are, despite what God has called us to walk through..we walk through all things by Him and for Him." At that moment I knew that all that I had ever learned and in all that I had ever shared with other women, I had a choice to live according to all that I would share with another...as I always had....and in this very hard place where I found ourselves in, the choice remained the same. And I had a choice. To believe or not believe. To not believe would mean turning my eyes away from God, setting my eyes on our dismal condition...and speak the words of Jobs wife and of the words we read of Naomi in the book of Ruth, "It is exceedingly bitter to me for your sake that the hand of the Lord has gone out against me." Ruth 1:13. Believing would mean that God would be glorified...He would give us all we would need to face what He allowed...it would mean that we could trust Him...and that He could trust us for all He desired to do.

As believers we understand sin...and we can see the sins that can so easily ensnare us...many are obvious...and we can point out those sins and we pray for strength to overcome them. We know the dangers of them and how the enemy works hard to deceive us into thinking we can handle even the smallest of them...but sin is sin...and sin in simply disobeying God and His Word. We underestimate the strength of the enemy. Our life of faith means contending with our enemy...and it means warfare. When Jesus calls us in His service, and to a life of following Him, He shows us that we will have adversity and that we must live a life of self denial. Many people today want a religion, a Christian faith, in which there is no cross...no cross to bear for Jesus. But the Word tells us that we must take up out cross and follow Him daily.

The gospel of Christ is by way of Gethsemane, knowing we have come into a relationship with Christ to do the will of the Father, our will in exchange for His and this often is a wrestling of the will. It is by way of the Cross, God's will in our full surrender by our obedience unto Him and for the sake of others, for the redemption of the world. And by way of the ultimate glorious Resurrection, that there will always be a resurrected life, hope and deliverance in all that He calls us to do. The enemy and even death, even the most difficult things we face today, when given to the Lord He will always have the last say...His promises will be true...and He will never fail us.

We read of the sin of unbelief in many stories throughout the Bible...and the consequences faced because of people taking their difficult situations into their own hands. The sin of unbelief does not just have devastating effects upon those who turn their hearts from God but it brings devastating consequences to the lives of others. We can first think of Eve...and how her choice brought sin into the world and all mankind. We can remember Sarah who took matters into her own hands when she gave her maid to her husband Abraham to help aid him in fulfilling Gods promise to them that they would have a child in their old age. We see how hearts are so easily influenced when unbelief enters our hearts and how easily we can fall away...with just one wrong choice...but most returned to God and continued to follow Him as He is longsuffering and patient and makes all things new. In the New Testament we read of a man named Demas who traveled with Paul. He labored well for awhile with Paul but eventually, while Paul was in prison, this man began to fall away...he left because he loved the attractions of the world and abandoned his faith altogether.

Our salvation does not rest in joining a church...that will not save you. Our salvation is one lived out each day and in each choice we make to live for Christ. To follow Him at all costs. And in each trial and great adversity that comes our way we ask ourselves...do we believe? Do we cling to the Lord? Do we trust in His Word and in all His promises? Is it enough to say that "He said it...and I believe it". We may not understand it all or understand all His ways...but do we believe Him?

The picture above was taken the last week of Randy's life when the church came and gathered around his bed and our home. The many faithful saints continued in prayer and they continued to believe as Randy and I continued to believe...that our God was possible of anything...of healing him here or in Heaven. And all our faith would continue to believe...despite what our hearts were feeling and the sorrow we felt. Randys faith under severe adversity strengthened many of our hearts...and he lived so encouraged just seeing the faith of the believers continuing to grow as he witnessed their love for him and the faith they displayed through their many acts of kindness and through their many prayers.

Our society today is being deceived more and more into thinking that pain is bad and we should avoid all pain at all costs. Many want to be numbed to all the pain and all hurt that they are feeling...He came because of our pain and our society now has an epidemic on its hands....pills prescribed to deal with pain...the physical often then numbs the emotional and which can then numb us spiritually. God will never waste our pain, in our pain He does His greatest work....only He can heal the heart of man as we come into a relationship with Him

Many say they cannot understand why a loving God would allow so much pain in the world. But because of pain God created the world and everything in it but after He created the world, a paradise, and Adam and Eve who also were perfect knowing no sin...He then said to them be fruitful and multiply and have domain over all the earth. Sin then entered into the world because of their disobedience...something God did not desire. With sin came a world that God did not intend...it came now with sickness, murder, death, destruction...and in essence, Adam and Eve gave the earth over to the enemy...all the problems we see in the world today come from man's choices that have pushed God out and the enemy has dominion in the world. Because God's love for mankind is so great He chose to give His only Son to die upon a cross and take all our sins upon Himself...that we might believe...and be saved. Christ came to deliver and restore mankind...to make us new as we enter into a personal relationship with Him...He rescued us and save us from death and destruction and gives us eternal life. This is a living and loving God....merciful and full of grace....who takes out of a miry pit and places our feet upon a rock...a new path and puts a new song in our mouth!

The pain and suffering we face God does not waste. He uses it all to bring us to Him. With every trial and affliction...in every bit of pain and sorrow....I learn more and more that as I stand firm for the Lord and belief in a Sovereign God that loves Randy so much that He died for him and has made a Home for him to dwell with Christ forever....this God I love even more today. A God who loves you and me...that gave His life for us all. I have learned that with every ounce of pain that I have felt wanting to crush me and wanting me to shrink back in my faith...as I stand firm and believe that the pain He has allowed...the pain has a continued purifying work in my heart...I must allow Him to have His perfect work in me....and I experience the fellowship of His suffering...a fellowship with Christ that I could not experience any other way.

It breaks my heart hearing of those recently who have fallen away from their faith...those we are reading about in the news. Those who have allowed themselves to question God and who have desired a need to want more, to want more knowledge and understanding, a righteousness according to their own eyes. Those who greatly plant seeds of doubt and confusion in the hearts of others. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 11:3 "But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpents cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ"

Every temptation we overcome...every trial...every affliction....God uses to makes us stronger to overcome more...and everytime we allow ourselves to be defeated, we become weaker. May God put strength in every one of us to fight the battle of life....to not be weak....but to be relentless in our commitment to fully follow Him.

My prayer, is that as believers we pray for one another...and especially in these last days in which we are living. To pray continually and earnestly as Epaphras prayed for the Colossian Christians...that we all would grow in Christ in maturity...fulfilling God's will for our lives. Colossians 4:12. For the gospel to transform the heart of others as we take a firm stand on it...displaying the transforming power of God...that the heart of our Christian living is the Gospel, in its entirety. How this is missing much today...instead there is much of the gathering together of people who believe that the gospel exists so we can get something, feel good, promote ourselves and our own agendas, get positive messages and be successful.

I recently read something written by a theologian years ago. It is so powerful and true as it speaks of the Gospel....of living the Gospel...a life of belief and faith....

"There is nothing in us or done by us at any stage of our earthly development because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ's sake or we cannot be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe it is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our first believing nor does that ever alter our relationship to Him through the Father. No matter what our attainments through Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be it is always on His blood and righteousness alone that we can rest."

May our belief and unshakable faith bring pleasure and delight to the heart of our Heavenly Father. May we continue to take up our cross and follow Christ. It is only for a little while...for the crowning day is coming. May we thank God for the privilege we have been given to confess Christ and live for Him alone. A good name lives on brighter and brighter...and it will continue to shine in the hearts of many...and it is honored for his faithfulness to his God.

"For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But, when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, and these things I want to affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God should be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable to all men" Titus 3:3-8

Michelle A. Guerra