The God of Unbelief

“If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.” (2Ti 2:13 AV)

Our belief or faith does not altar the nature of God.  God is who He is and what He is whether we have faith or we do not have faith.  The passages in the gospels that tell us Christ could not do miracles in certain places because they lacked faith was not because he power was diminished by their unbelief.  Simply, the performing of miracles would have had no, or the opposite, effect in which was intended.  Jesus Christ did not cease to be God because people had little or no faith.  In our text, the direct context seems to be salvation.  Paul speaks of the salvation of the elect and then speaks in two verse comparing those who do accept Christ as being dead in Him and suffering for Him as opposed to denying Him and having no belief.  So, I believe this verse is directly stating that just because someone chooses to reject the reality of God and His offer of salvation does not mean He and it ceases to be real.  He cannot deny His own existence or nature.  However, there might be an application for those of us who have trusted in Christ as well.

Our faith can affect that which the LORD can do for us or through us.  We know that is it possible to quench the Spirit because we are warned not to.  We know that we do not have because we do not ask.  We know that even if we ask, if we do not do so in faith, then we have not either.  So, we do know that faith does has a bearing on realizing the grace of God on our lives in a practical way.  However, it is not fatally so.  For instance, just because we may not pray for our daily bread as we ought does not mean that God will automatically starve us.  Just because we may not pray as we should for our health does not mean we will automatically be ill and in the hospital.  Just because we fail to pray for the salvation of souls as we should does not mean the Spirit ceases to work resulting in absolutely no salvation decisions. 

This should be good news to the believer.  In this sense, we know that if we are weak in faith; and specially if we know that we are; He is faithful.  Think of the time when the disciples were in the boat, taking on water.  They feared for their lives while the master slept.  They awoke Him and accused Him of being callous concerning their situation.  He didn’t refuse to calm the storm because they feared.  Instead, the Master takes pity on their unbelief.  There are times when the LORD refuses to act because of our unbelief.  There are other times when He takes pity on our weakness and acts in spite of it.  He cannot deny who and what He is.  He is a God of grace and mercy, specially towards those who love Him!