1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

What an amazing 40 day journey!  The past 40 days have been a learning experience for me.  Hopefully, this journey has encouraged, inspired, and challenge you too.  What have we discovered together?

• Faith requires immediate obedience and a concentrated focus on God’s plan for our lives.

• Faith strengthens us. By leaning on Christ, through faith, it strengthens us to weather the storms in our lives.

• Faith reaches out.  Others can see the love and forgiveness shown by Christ through real people—us!

• Faith is a source of power.  I am not strong enough to carry out a faith-filled task without Jesus Christ’s power.

• Faith is active, while belief is passive.

• Faith serves and leads others to serve.  Our perfect example of a servant is Jesus Christ.

• Faith is having courage, courage to give God complete control of your life.

• Faith is following direction.  We need to allow God to lead and direct us in making all the decisions on this path of faith that we pursue.

I’m so glad I pursued this path of faith with you.  Thank you for all your input and encouragement!  Now let me ask you:

WHAT IS THE GREATEST LESSON YOU’VE LEARNED OVER THE LAST 40 DAYS? 

I’d love to hear your comments.  Before you share your comments, thank God for how He’s worked in your life throughout this 40 day journey.  And remember–The journey does not end today.  The faith journey continues as we “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). 

As we near the end of the 40 days of faith campaign, I’d like to share a few points that I have taken from this study.  This study has meant so much to me, and I have learned great things from each and every post.

There have been days throughout this study that I have had minor setbacks—work, issues at daycare, etc.  If it had not been for these devotionals and studies on faith, I would have struggled.  I have learned to stay calm and have a peace about things when something doesn’t work the way I want it to.  I have learned to be patient and wait to see what God will do with a situation.  The greatest thing I have learned is that I have no control over what happens in my life, but I have great comfort in knowing that GOD IS IN CONTROL.

A couple of days ago, we recognized the anniversary of a devastating day in our country—September 11.  The words to the song below really helped me at that time, and it still comforts me through everyday situations:

This is no time for fear
This is a time for faith and determination
Don’t lose the vision here
Carried away by emotion
Hold on to all that you hide in your heart
There is one thing that has always been true
It holds the world together

God is in control
We believe that His children will not be forsaken
God is in control
We will choose to remember and never be shaken
There is no power above or beside Him, we know
God is in control, oh God is in control

History marches on
There is a bottom line drawn across the ages
Culture can make its plan
Oh, but the line never changes
No matter how the deception may fly
There is one thing that has always been true
It will be true forever

He has never let you down
Why start to worry now?
He is still the Lord of all we see
And He is still the loving Father
Watching over you and me

PRAYER: Lord, please help us to remember that you are always in control.  This helps us to have a peace about things when we have doubt.  Help us to keep a strong faith in you, and by doing so, handing over control of our lives to you.  Thank you so much for showing us your word through this study.  We pray that we will continue to focus on strengthening our faith when this study ends.  In your most holy name we pray, Amen.

POINT TO PONDER: Have faith in God because He is and always will be in total control.

Throughout this “40 Days of Faith,” we’ve focused on living a life a faith that pleases God.  But what does it look like to die in faith?  Have you ever known people who kept the faith until the very end of their life here on earth? 

Yesterday, Glenn Weekley, pastor of First Baptist Church of Hendersonville, TN, passed away at the age of 59.  He often said that his personal mission in life was “to go to heaven and take as many people with him as he could.”  I would say that Glenn Weekley “died in faith.”  Through all his health problems and pain, he kept the faith.  He made the most of his life here on earth.  A couple of quotes from the papers this morning:

“He was a great man of faith. . . . He’s had a number of physical problems over the years, and it seems that whenever he was in the hospital, he was ministering.  People were amazed at his spirit and his faith. He never complained about his circumstances. He was such an inspiration to us because of that.” – Richard Gaia, Minister of Education @ FBC Hendersonville

“He stands out as a man of integrity who was consistent and modeled faithfulness to his family and his congregation.” – Rev. David Landrith, senior pastor of Long Hollow Baptist Church

“He was the real deal.” – Duane Allen, lead singer of The Oak Ridge Boys

Glenn Weekley was “the real deal,” and he serves as a model of faith for us.  He made his 59 years count for the glory of God.  Glenn Weekley’s God is the God of the Bible.  Glenn Weekley’s God is trustworthy and faithful, and we can follow this God to the finish line.  And maybe, just maybe, people will say that we “died in faith.”

PRAYER:  “God, thank you for giving us models of faith like Glenn Weekley.  We want to live by faith, and eventually, we want to die in faith.  From this day forward, I’m keeping my eyes on Jesus and refuse to be distracted by sin, or sickness, or sadness, or the things of this world.  I want to make my years count!  In Jesus’ Name, Amen!”

POINT TO PONDER:  Glenn Weekley’s God is trustworthy and faithful, and we can follow this God to the finish line.

I recently started working through the Bible study “Experiencing God” by Henry Blackaby for the second time.  After a short time, God has already begun to challenge my faith through this study.  A major focus of the study over the past few days has been on Moses and how he was used by God.  One of the key ingredients that was necessary for Moses to be used by God was Moses’ faith.

When God asked Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, Moses doubted that God could accomplish this extraordinary task through him.  God assured Moses that he would not be on this journey alone and that He would be with him.  After much debate and a few signs of God’s power (Exodus 3:13-Exodus 4), Moses finally agreed to follow God’s leading.  God did amazing things on this journey with Moses in leadership, including leading the Israelites to cross the Red Sea (while God parted it, of course!), and He was able to ultimately fulfill His purpose of delivering the Israelites. 

Sometimes, like Moses, I doubt that God can accomplish large tasks and important things through “little ole’ me.”  By thinking this, it shows a lack of faith.  We have to trust God by faith, as Moses did, that He can do extraordinary things through ordinary people who are willing to be used by Him.  It is scary to “let go” and just trust God to lead, but God is fully capable of doing great things through His people who are willing to walk by faith. 

Our motto at Peace Community Church is “ordinary people making a difference together.”  As we move into our second year at PCC, we have to trust God by faith that He can use “the ordinary people” of PCC to do extraordinary things in Sumner County, Nashville, Tennessee, the United States, and the whole world!

PRAYER: Father, you are an amazing God who desires to use ordinary people to accomplish your great purposes.  Help us overcome our unbelief and begin to trust that you can do extraordinary things through people whose hearts are open to you and your leading.  In Your Holy Name I pray, Amen.

POINT TO PONDER: God expects us to have faith that He can do extraordinary things through ordinary people like us.

“It’s all right, I’m here! Don’t be afraid.”  Why can’t we as Christians remember those words when we are called to act on faith?  Too often we question, “Why?”  Too often we have too many excuses as to why it wouldn’t be best for us to take that next step.  Unfortunately, the answer or the real reason for our shyness is a lack of faith.  The example is there in the Gospel for us.  All we have to do is faithfully believe, and God will lead us.  He knows what’s ahead of us, He knows the next step.  All we have to do is place our faith in Him.

PRAYER:  Dear God, thank you for your Word.  Thank you for the examples you’ve given to us and thank you most of all for your unconditional love.  Please forgive us when we fail to be faithful followers.  Thank you most of all for your Son Jesus and the love you showed us through His death on the cross.  It’s in His name I pray, Amen.

POINT TO PONDER:  Do I have the faith to take the next step?

In June, Grady and I found out we were pregnant. We were about to leave for vacation, when I began to show signs of having a miscarriage. We went ahead and flew to Florida for a much anticipated trip to visit my best friend and her family. After being there a few days we had to go to the emergency room, and we were told that we had miscarried. We were disappointed, but felt God’s embrace and that He was going to use this for His glory.
 
When we returned home from our trip, I went to the doctor to make sure everything was back to normal only to find out I was still pregnant. After much testing, the doctors told us that the embryo was growing in the wrong place and that they would need to dissolve the pregnancy. I was so sad and had a deep awareness that this was not just tissue in my body, but a precious child that God knew and had begun to weave together in my body. After 2 and a half months, my body is still recovering from this pregnancy. At times I have been tempted to cry out at God for allowing it to be such a long process. It usually takes 3 weeks for a woman’s body to absorb the pregnancy. It has taken over 8 weeks for mine and we are still waiting and praying for a full recovery.   

I have grown emotionally weary over the past week with the physical pain of this process. The Lord has used 1 John 5:4 to strengthen me. He has also used precious friends and their prayers, but my study through 1 John has renewed my faith. This week there have been moments when I felt as though my faith had failed. I wanted to throw in the towel and stop trusting God that this process will come to an end, but he gently reminded me that I have victory because of my faith in Christ Jesus. Jesus has overcome the fear, doubt, worry, and struggles of the unknown. I can lay myself upon Him because He knows every bit of anxiety I face each day about my body and future pregnancies. With faith in Christ, my joy can be complete knowing He knows what is best. While going through this untimely loss of a child, I have been reminded that one day I will have sweet reunion with our child in heaven that we did not have the opportunity to meet while here on this earth.

POINT TO PONDER:  Read what the Psalmist writes in Psalm 139:13-16. Take joy my friend in how intimately God knows us even when He feels like he is a million miles away.
“Oh, yes you shaped me first, then inside and out;
You formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you High God- you are breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration- what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
You know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
How I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
All the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
Before I even lived one day.”

PRAYER:  Heavenly Father, thank you for letting me know that your plan for me is so intimate and wonderful. I am not a mistake and nothing in my life that happens is a mistake. Thank you that you knew all stages of my life before anything ever happened to me on this earth. Please continue to give me great mercy and grace to handle the circumstances and difficulties, joys and victories that I face each and every day! I praise you for your greatness that I will one day know and experience you face to face.  In Your precious Son’s Name I pray. Amen

Jesus replied, “Because you have so little faith.  I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move.  NOTHING will be impossible for you.”

Nothing will be impossible.  Nothing.  Nothing.  Not one thing.  That’s a very powerful statement.  That doesn’t mean most things are possible, or nearly everything.  That means anything is possible.  The verse above is talking about a crippled child who Jesus’ disciples couldn’t heal.  They were trying to heal the child with their own ability rather than having faith in God’s ability.  There isn’t anything that you will have to go through in this life that faith in Jesus Christ will not get you through. 

I had my first experience with the Lord helping me in 1998.  I had nowhere else to turn.  I had a bad allergic reaction to a cortisone shot that I got in Florida after a pretty bad break out of poison ivy.  After 9 months of a deep depression, many doctor visits, countless medications (of which none worked), losing 30 pounds, not being able to eat or sleep, blurred vision, drinking Maalox from the bottle I kept behind my truck seat, my sister gave me a Bible.  I found myself reading that Bible at all hours of the night.  I finally started sleeping better. I started pulling out of it.  I remember believing in the words that I was reading.  I remember having faith that the Lord would lead me through it.  He did.  My faith couldn’t have been much bigger than a mustard seed at first.  But that’s all it took.  If you open the cover to that very Bible that is sitting right here beside me it says:  “Presented to: Matt Arnett, By: Katie Arnett, On the Occasion: She loves me, Date: 3/18/98”

PRAYER:  Dear Lord, help lead us all to be as much of a blessing to others in need as my sister was to me.  Lord, thank you for helping us even when our faith is so little.  Thank you for letting us know all things are possible when we have faith. - Amen

POINT TO PONDER: What’s “the mountain” in your life?  How will you handle it?

“For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

As you all know, we have been studying all aspects of faith over the last month. I hope that this study has been as big of a blessing to everyone as it has been to me. God has used all of the different devotionals to speak to my heart and send me searching for the kind of faith that God desires for me to have.

That search has led me to the book of Acts. In this book, we see example after example of how God uses His servants’ faith to accomplish His will. In Acts chapter 4, we pick up with Peter and John appearing before the Sanhedrin. They had been preaching the gospel and performing miracles in Christ’s name. To say the least, this did not make the Sanhedrin happy, for they were still adhering to the Law of Moses and did not accept the authority of Jesus Christ. They called Peter and John before them and demanded they stop preaching and performing miracles in Jesus’ name. This is something Peter and John could not do. They had a faith that could be hindered by no man, the courage their faith gave them would not allow them to stop speaking about their great Savior.

How do we obtain this type of faith? By trusting God daily and giving him total control of our lives, allowing Him to give us His strength and courage to stand up for Christ as we go about our day.
We don’t generate this kind of courage on our own. We don’t wake up and decide to be bold.  God gives us the courage and faith to stand up to any situation or anyone, and this is genuine faith that pleases God and gives us peace. Daily walking with Christ sets us on the road to courage.

PRAYER:  ”Holy God, please give me the strength and courage to allow you to take my life over totally. Do great things in my personal walk with you that I may be so overfilled with what you’ve done in my own life that I cannot help but tell others what You can do for them.”

POINT TO PONDER: You cannot speak to others about things you haven’t experienced personally. If Christ has done a work in your life, tell someone about it!

“The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. 2. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. 3. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. 4. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. 5. Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; Thou hast anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. 6. Surely goodness and loving-kindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”

I grew up in a loving church family in Pennsylvania.  In elementary school, we would walk over to the church once a week to review Bible verses and have a brief discussion on the meaning of those verses.  The verses above were ones that I had memorized and have always remembered.  I did not know that it would have so much meaning to me in my life.  

Early in my life, God gave me a test in faith when he took my father from me when I was 13 years old.  In a loss of that magnitude and at that age there were a lot of feelings of doubt, anger, and frustration.   I found myself straying from God and my faith in him.  I had so many questions and at that time really no one to go to for answers.  As time passed and I grew farther and farther away from my faith, these verses would surface and catch my attention.  Finally, my young family moved to Nashville, and we found Peace Community Church.  Here I was able to get those feelings and questions maybe not answered, but was able to get some direction on how God is always there to support me in my darkest of times. 

I choose these verses from Psalm 23 to show that there will be times, like Michael says, that our faith will be tested.  But remember that God is always there to comfort you.  I have found comfort in knowing that God’s love will follow me no matter where I go or what happens to me. 

PRAYER:  “God thank you for the feeling of comfort and assurance that you are always with us no matter what is going on in our life.  I pray that others will be able to hold onto these verses as I have and can find the comfort in you that I have been able to find. Amen.”

POINT TO PONDER:  God’s love will follow me now matter where I go or what happens to me.

“For who is the greater, one who reclines or one who serves?…But I am among you as the one who serves.” Luke 22:27

I’m a sucker for leadership books. If I see a new one, I am apt to buy it. If Homer Simpson wrote a leadership book, I’d probably be first in line to drop down $25. Every author has a little different spin on how one can apply their principles to achieve success in whatever avenue we choose. However, I believe you could probably classify everyone’s views into two categories: 1) leadership by doing, and 2) leadership by saying. Now I can come up with many traits that would fit under doing and many traits that would fit under saying, but what if I want to reach great heights in both categories? I think that is the most important type of leadership: servant leadership. Who better to look to as an example of a servant leader than Jesus.

With Jesus, it wasn’t about being self-serving. It was about serving others. He served others with His head, hands, heart, and habits. For us to model that behavior, we have to continually pound this thought into our head: IT’S NOT ABOUT US!! The Bible tells us that the disciples spent too much time worrying about their position at dinner and with Jesus. He wanted them to understand that the first act of leadership is service, and not their position.

It doesn’t matter what our position is, what our title is, or what we have accumulated materially. What matters is following the servant leadership example of Jesus. What God wants is really what matters.

Whether we like it or not, we will all leave a leadership legacy, for we are all leaders. Why? Because we all influence the thinking and behavior of other people in our different circles (jobs, church family, friends, immediate family). Leading like Jesus is not a 40-day commitment or a sometimes choice; it is a lifestyle. Making the development of people equal to performance is a decision we make. Following the example of Jesus as a servant leader and immersing our lives into the lives of other people is challenging. But with our faith in Him, we will achieve the wisdom needed to lead like Jesus.

PRAYER:  “Father, help us to remember that it’s not about us. It’s about leading as You have commanded us. It’s about pouring our lives into the lives of others. It’s about being the example that Jesus was when He was on earth. We know that is a challenge: not only to serve, but to not concern ourselves with getting the glory. But we know that with our faith and trust in You, we can lead. In Your Son’s blessed name we pray, Amen.”

POINT TO PONDER:  What will our leadership legacy be?