According To Our Faith

“Let thy mercy, O LORD, be upon us, according as we hope in thee.” (Ps 33:22 AV)

Those last six words can be concerning.  They can also be encouraging.  If we have little faith, the LORD intervenes in measured ways.  If we have great faith in the mercy of God, He will do marvelous things.  The ministry of our LORD Jesus Christ bears this out.  He could do nothing among His earthly kin.  They simply could not see Him as the Messiah.  They would not recognize His divinity.  On the other hand, it was the Gentiles who showed the greatest faith.  Repeatedly, He would say the words, “thy faith hath made thee whole”.  It was the faith of the one seeking mercy that measured what God was willing to do for them.  We could look at this both ways.  We could look at this as a challenge to grow our faith.  We could see it as a rebuke and the lack of God’s hand as the evidence.  Or, as I wish to do this morning, encourage one another that your faith in God is not wasted.  God sees your faith and is moved by compassion because of it.  The more dependent on God you become, the more He is pleased to bless that dependence.

We undercut who or what we are all too often.  We do not see what God has done for us and instead, only see where we have failed.  We do not give God credit for the work He has done and seem to think we are little to no different than many years ago when Jesus saved us.  Whether we realize it or not, we have grown.  And, we continue to do so. We also assume we grew by leaps and bounds and the older we get in the LORD, the less we tend to spiritually mature. This, again, is a fallacy.  I can say with certainty the LORD is changing me at a consistent pace from the day Jesus became my beloved until now.  Which, by the way, is over forty years of walking with God.  We simply cannot see it.  Think about it.  Look at what the LORD requires of you today and ask yourself if you would even think about attempting that twenty years ago.  Probably not.  We get to the age when we realize that what the LORD requires is not as big of a deal as we thought it would be.  God is able to do above what we ask or think.  Sometimes, it is not a matter of faith, but rather, a matter of zeal.

This is David’s thoughts here.  I don’t think he is looking at these words in the critical vein.  I think he is asking as one who has great faith.  He has run from his father-in-law, faced down giants, went into battle vastly outnumbered, and faced down a lion and a bear.  David does not strike me as one who struggled too much with faith.  So, when he makes the request above, he is doing so as one who fully trusts the LORD.  He did have his times of weakness, though.  He compromised with a pagan king because he was worn out and thought Saul was near to killing him.  David did allow his flesh to get the better of him.  He did fear what Absalom could do.  David had his moments.  But his overall character of living was founded on the faith he had in God.  So, when we read the promise above, let us look at it from the perspective of faith we do have, rather than the faith which we do not have.  We love and serve a great God.  He can do all things.  We trust Him and that trust grows with each and every time He shows Himself strong on our behalf!  Mercy is on the way because you trust Him!