Without faith, you cannot serve God.  Thinking about this passage of scripture I get the idea that when you pray and ask something of the Lord; faith allows you to envision whatever it is that you have asked of God, gives you a mental picture of how you could use, benefit, and accept the fact, there is one thing that is not seen that faith does not apply; that is the existence of air and the wind.  While these things cannot be seen, they definitely exist.  Air can be in the form of calmness, a light breeze, or a hurricane force wind.  This is also an excellent argument for anyone that says that they don’t believe in anything that they can’t see.  If anyone ever makes this statement to you, just remind him or her about hurricane Katrina, or any hurricane that created mass destruction.

 We walk by faith

  Stepping out on faith

When we step out on faith, faith becomes something solid to place our feet on.  When the children of Israel walked through the parted Red Sea, they stepped out on God’s faith.  God’s faith kept the Red Sea parted until all of the children of Israel passed through (Ex. 14:21-23).  Hananiah, Zechariah, and Michel (whom Nebuchadnezzar named, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) stepped out on faith after the king made an idol (after being harassed by the Chaldeans that hated the three Hebrew boys).  He then made a decree that when the strange music played that everyone would have to fall down and worship the idol.  Anyone that would not fall down and worship the idol would be placed in an oven and burned to death.  The Chaldeans that hated the three Hebrew Boys knew they would not fall down and worship the idol when the strange music played. When the three Hebrew Boys didn’t fall down and worship; they were arrested and brought before the king.  The Chaldeans forced the king’s hand, knowing that to go back on his word was to show weakness.  After all it was at their prompting that Nebuchadnezzar made the decree. 

It pained the king to be forced to follow through with his decree.  When the king told them what their fate was, their answer was “O king live forever, but our God is able to deliver us out of your hand, and if he doesn’t it isn’t in his will.” What a great statement of faith.  When the time for their execution came, the oven was heated 12 times hotter than it was heated before.  Even the mighty men who were escorting the three Hebrew Boys to the furnace perished because of the great heat that came from the furnace.  Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego stepped boldly into the furnace.  The king looked into the furnace and saw that the flames weren’t affecting the three Hebrew Boys.  He also saw that there were four people in the fiery furnace. He then asked “Didn’t we put three people into the furnace? I see four, and the fourth looks like the Son of God; pull them out.” By stepping out on faith not only did they survive the fiery furnace, but neither their clothes, nor their hair singed.  The king then ordered for the evil Chaldeans to be put in the fiery furnace instead (Daniel 3).

After the Sermon on the Mount; Jesus and the twelve entered a ship, and a tempest (very bad sea storm) arose.  The storm was so bad that the ship was covered with waves, and Jesus was asleep.  His disciples came to him, woke him up and said “Lord we perish” Jesus’ reply to them was “Why are ye fearful O ye of little faith?” (Matt. 8:23-25).  When the apostles were traveling to the other side by boat (Jesus stayed behind) they saw what they thought was an apparition or spirit on the water.  Jesus called “out it is I; fear not.” Peter said, “Lord if it be you then bid me to come to you.”  Jesus told Peter to come to him.  Peter stepped out onto the water, and actually started to walk to Jesus on the water; that is until he saw what he was doing.  As long as he kept his eyes on Jesus his faith was so strong that he was able to walk on the water just like Jesus did. 

In the beginning of his ministry (Jesus; God in the flesh), he walked physically with the disciples and they were able to perform astounding feats. Never the less, Jesus said that we would do the same things that he did, and greater things.  However, we have to have faith in the Lord to do these greater things. You can’t believe in God, neither can you serve him without faith.  We accept God by faith, and this is why he is able to perform miracles in our lives.  God gave each person a measure of faith; the only person that God gave measureless faith is the man Jesus, who by the way is the image of the living God.

After much thought about the limitless faith given to the Lord Jesus Christ I was astounded.  I never really thought about what it meant to have limitless faith.  But I discovered that this was now God could inhabit the body of a human being.  When Jesus found himself in the body of a man, he humbled himself until he died.  He left his Shakana Glory behind so that men could look at him and not perish (you can’t look at God in all of his glory and live), but retained a portion of the godhead by retaining his limitless faith.  The first example of this is evident at the marriage of Cana when Jesus turns water into wine (Jn. 2:1-11).  This was the beginning of the miracles of Christ Jesus.  Note that Jesus did not even have to touch the water that was turned into wine.  All he did was inform the stewards what to do, and to then serve the water that was turned to wine to the governor of the feast.  Jesus hadn’t even started his ministry yet because when the governor gave his concern about the water running out, Mary told Jesus.  Here we find the first account of “I must tell Jesus!” Jesus asked Mary what this had to do with him.” Jesus wasn’t ready to perform any miracles at that point.  This is the account of his limitless faith in action.

The next occurrence of his limitless faith occurs when Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee.  He sees two brothers, Peter and Andrew, who were washing their nets (they were fisherman) and asks them to set out to sea a little.  He then sat down and taught the people from the ship.  When he had finished speaking, he told Simon to launch out into the deep and let out the nets for a draught (load of fish).  Simon answered him “Master we have toiled here all might and haven’t caught anything, but if you say so I will let down the net.”  When they let down the net, there were so many fish caught in the net that the net broke.  They c called their partners to help with the load of fish, and both ships were filled because they had faith in Jesus.  The two ships were so full that they began to sink.  When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees. They were all shocked at the big haul of fish they caught.  When they made it back to dry land they forsook all and followed him (Lu. 5:3-11).  Once again, this is because of the limitless faith that was in the human body of Christ Jesus.  He then goes on to heal the mother-in-law of Simon Peter.  He touched her hand and she was made whole immediately, and she then served them.

Jesus just couldn’t fail because of the faith without limit he possessed.  That faith even went out of him to rest on others.  Jesus was actually able to intensify the faith of his Apostles.  Peter walks on water, Jairus; daughter raised. The feeding of the 3000 and the 5000; A multitude of people follow Jesus to hear him preach and after the sermon the people are hungry.  Jesus said it would not be right to send the people away hungry and tells the apostles to feed them.  Jesus asks how many fish they have and Simon Peter says there is a lad here with two fish and five barley loaves.  Peter goes on to say “What good is that between so many people?” Of course the apostles are astonished and wonder how they are going to feed this many people.  Jesus tells the disciples to make the men sit down. There were about five thousand men (notice the number of women and children weren’t mentioned). Jesus then gave thanks and starts to break apart the fish and the barley loaves and tells them to give out the food.  All of the people were filled, and when Jesus commanded the disciples to gather up the leftover fragments 12 baskets of barley loaves were recovered. 

The woman with the issue of blood is the only miracle that Jesus performed where someone touched him rather than him touching them.  In this miracle Jesus is healing people after his fame was spread throughout the land.  He is being thronged (surrounded) by a mob of people.  There is a woman that has had sickness for twelve years.  She has been treated by many doctors and none of them could heal her. She had run out of options when she chanced upon Jesus.  After believing that she can be healed “If she could just touch the hem of his garment; she presses her way through the crowd and touches the hem of his garment and is immediately healed (Matt. 9:20-22, Mark. 5:25-34). Jesus then says that someone touched him.  Simon Peter says that the people are pressing him all about.  In other words; there are people all around you Jesus; of course someone touched you, duuuhhh.  Jesus knew that Simon didn’t understand what he meant and went on to explain that someone touched him and the healing power went out of him.  He then turns to face the woman and tells her that her faith has made her whole.