wavering belief in God

It is easy to struggle with obedience to God. What's even harder is committing yourself to be obedient unto the Lord. But before one even reaches the point of wanting to be obedient..to serve..often there is the struggle just believing the word of God. Sometimes a faint glimmer of doubt whispers in the back of our minds, wondering..just wondering perhaps the extent of the truth of the existence of the Lord Almighty.

the word of GodMatthew16:16

Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ,
the son of the living God."
Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah.
For this was not revealed to you by man,
but by my Father in heaven. And
I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my
church,
and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.
I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven
whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth
will be loosed in heaven"

okay, so the topic that i'll cover today is Belief in God
The material(text/script) are gathered from various random sources, but most of it are from (Anderson&Park, Stomping out the Darkness)
Alright, here we go..

We dont serve God to gain His
Acceptnace;
We are accepted so we serve God.
We dont follow Him in order to be loved;
we are loved, so we follow Him.
That is why we are called to live by
FAITH

which brings me back to a memory of my days in primary school, when i was much younger. There was a good friend of mine who confused me, and challenged me with the words she said that day, "Not having Faith in God is a sin."
AND indeed, confused me she had. For today, i am still unsure if it is classified as a sin. But one thing i do know today is that, as adapted from the Word of God itself,

"WITHOUT FAITH IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE HIM,
FOR HE WHO COMES TO GOD MUST BELIEVE THAT HE IS,
AND THAT HE IS A REWARDER OF THOSE WHO SEEK HIM"
Hebrews 11:6

Dear friends, whether you like it or not, faith is central to everything we do as christians. How did we reveive Christ? By faith. How then are we to walk in Him? By faith. (colossians 2:6)

'It's the dark, difficult times of testing in our lives that bring us to the place where we learn to totally rely on God' (Anderson&Park, pg121)
When we struggle, we learn to depend on God alone to meet our needs.

Faith is God's way to live.
Trying to think and reason without God is man's way to live.

The more time and energy you spend
thinking about your own plans on how
to live your life,
the less
time and energy you have to seek God's plan.

Don't rely on feelings.!
and that on i can surely tell you from experience.
I stood at altar call in camp back when i was 13, waiting to feel something from the Lord as i had some previous months behind then. You'll just be waiting forever!
feelings...sigh..wont it be good to always FEEL like the Lord's hand is upon your life. that He is leading you through. But the truth is, the Lord's hand IS upon your life, He IS in fact leading you through. Feel like it or not. even in the darkest moments of your life. or even when your relationship with God sucks, is rough and down, even when you feel mad at God. Even when things arent going good or right or as you like. Even when you dont know much about God, or even feel you dont love or want to know Him much at all. Listen. We are forever in God's hands. And IN GOD'S TIME, He will draw us near to Him, IN HIS TIME, my friends, IN GOD'S TIME. ...
In His Time, you'll come to thirst for the true and living God
In His Time, you'll walk the closer walk
In His Time, you'll understand more and more of His word
In His Time, He'll teach you and instruct you more and more, each day
In His Time, He'll heal your broken hearts and guide you to straight paths
In HIs Time.... so many things can happen.

and intersecting this is CHOICE, the choices of life that will determine where we end up on life's road map. God's BEST, or God's second...or third...or fourth......or...best

Alright now, back to the feeling syndrome i was talking about... well, adapted from the Neil Anderson &Park authors/writers,
'Our feelings always react to what we think is true and choose to believe,
whether it's the truth or not.
The order of the scripture is to know the truth,
BELIEVE IT,
WALK ACCORDING TO IT(which i am, and am sure so many others are currently struggling with..:p)
AND..let our emotions be a result of our obedience.
When you believe what you feel instead of the truth, your walk will be as inconsistent as your feelings. But when you believe and act on the truth, your feelings will reflect reality!
I wish i could have that particular passage scripture which precisely demonstrates this statement. unfortunately, you'll just have to deal with the later-which is, from John 13:17: "If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them."

Think about it, alright? see you guys soon.