This study came out several years ago when I was in youth. I started through it then, then went through the adult version a few years later, and have helped guide others through a study a few years back. As a family ,we wanted to draw closer to God ,closer to one another and truly understand all that God had planned four our lives, both together and individually. Being a younger Christ follower, Brandon could also benefit from understanding that God calls us and also prepares us for his work if we are willing to surrender to Him.
This past week, our study was on the Crisis of Belief. This relates to the decision we must make when God presents to us a task that is too big for our own accomplishment and may be way out of our comfort zone and strengths. The true crisis is whether or not we will trust that God is all powerful and perfectly capable to work through us if we will just surrender to His call or if we will decide that it doesn't seem very logical and isn't an area that we are gifted in, so there must have been a misunderstanding. Or God meant to call someone else. Or we just don't want to give up what we are comfortable with to attempt what others may ridicule us for, or even worse, what we could even fail at.
In the study, Blackaby wrote this:
Our world is not attracted to the Church we serve because they cannot see Him at work. They see us doing good things for God and say, "that is wonderful, but that is not my thing." The world is passing us by because they do not want to get involved in what they see. They are not having an opportunity to see God. Let the world see God at work, and He will attract people to Himself. Let Christ be lifted up - not in words but in life. Let them see the difference that a living Christ makes in a life, a family or a church; that will make a difference in how they respond. When the world sees things happening through God's people that cannot be explained except that God himself has done them, then the world will be drawn to the God they see.
He later states that "the reason much of the world is not being attracted to Christ and his church is that God's people lack the faith to attempt those things that only God can do."
This is the problem in our churches and in our lives as well. We no longer set God-sized tasks to be accomplished. We set reasonable goals that can be attained with a little sacrificial giving and a lot of hard work. We follow the trends established by those who have done countless studies to see what the next move will be, all of which is good, but we leave no room for God to show His power and glory in our lives. As a result, we never really understand the depth of God's greatness. In fact, "If you can see clearly how something can be accomplished, more than likely faith is not required." Unfortunately, we aren't the only ones that suffer from it...
The rest of the world suffers from a God-sized hole. This whole is immense...so big, that while we pour more and more in to try and fill it, it is never full. Only one thing can fill that hole. The God we serve is big enough to fill it to over-flowing. While the road is indeed narrow and those who travel down it are few, we often cause a bottle-neck in the road by not allowing our God to show Himself through us. We limit His out-pouring through us. In fact, we often each have a God-sized hole of our own, simply because we haven't given Him full capacity of our lives. Our major problem is our self-centeredness....
Imagine the difference this world would see if only we would attempt God-sized tasks for a godless world seeking to fill a God-sized hole. In a world of do-it-yourself, quick fix gadgets, we need a little, or a lot, more faith in the power of a great God!
"Without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him." Hebrews 11:6
