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The Power of Faith
I commented a few blogs ago (here) about Faith and how it relates to sin, freewill, love, and grace. Today in church, one of our pastors (Doug) taught on Faith, and I really enjoyed it. Doug recently returned from a series of trips to India, Nigeria, Peru, and Cambodia and he spoke regarding a few his experiences and things he observed while traveling.
There were three stories that really blew me away, two of which involve a man named Vimal in India. Vimal is the pastor of a church which meets in his house. In is italicized for a reason - so many people come to this service that there is basically a large crowd gathered in every room of his house watching the service through a closed circuit TV system, some looking down through a hole in the roof - obviously their houses differ from ours and their climate allows for open air rooms, and many people just gathered around the outside of the house listening through a speaker system. I'm sure being there would be enough to amaze many of us. The Faith part comes into the scene when Doug explained that as he spoke during our service in Ames, Iowa it was twelve hours after the service concluded in India at Vimal's house and some people would still be walking home!
I can't imagine traveling for twelve hours to hear a church service. In our culture we get upset when we have to wait for forty seconds for the light to change to green. To put this in perspective it would be like driving to church in Ohio every week from Ames. [Uncle Sam that was a shout out to you -- my Uncle Sam lives in Ohio and better be reading this if he loves me =) ]. Many people who make this voyage every week leave on Saturday and return probably late Sunday or early Monday. Imagine the Faith, conviction, and devotion it takes to have this kind of dedication. In our society it is common to give God one day of the week, Sunday, and keep the rest to ourselves. We have one day a week when we have to be "churchy" and then Monday through Saturday we're someone different. To dedicate twenty-four hours of traveling each week really shows something about Faith.
Doug also told about a man who couldn't walk. I didn't get the exact details of the man's condition or how far he had traveled, but from what I remember he had traveled some distance from his village to where Vimal lives. The man met with Vimal and he prayed for the man. And as we've all heard in the biblical stories of Jesus and his disciples, the man was healed and could walk. He returned to his remote village and when the villagers saw that the man was healed they returned with the man to Vimal's church, and trusted in God. This is identical to many stories of healing out of the bible. Only one difference, this happened only a matter of a few weeks or months ago! How far-out does this seem to us? Many Christians seem to think these kind of things only happened during biblical times - because things were different then. Do we lack the Faith to believe this? Many of the stories in the Gospels that show Jesus healing someone mention that they were healed because of their Faith. Many would just try to touch Jesus because they believed that touching Him would heal any ailment that had. The man from this story showed this same Faith by traveling, praying, and believing that God would heal him.
Doug spoke of another gentleman he met who was in the hospital. Currently in India there are large Hindu Re-conversion rallies among the fundamentalist Hindus, sparking violence in different parts of the country against Christians. The man Doug spoke of was beaten by a group of the aforementioned Hindus and was hospitalized. He said the man washappy to be found worthy to be persecuted, and he was assured that what happened to him would bolster the church and the gospel! Would I be so happy to be beaten and hospitalized? Would you?
During the message Doug quoted a few verses out of Hebrews, one of which is one of my favorite verses:
"Now Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen"
Hebrews 11:1
These stories I believe show exactly that. The people who devote the twelve hours one-way for a church service, the man who trusted in God to be healed, and the man whoknew that the persecution he suffered would glorify God ultimately had assurance in something they could not see. This kind of Faith is Love, creating the relationship with God that he longs to have with each one of us, putting all our Faith in His provision.
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Blando's Blog
Disciple of Christ, Husband, Father, and IT-guy.
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