Hosanna Restoration Church

In the best of times and in the worst of times, Jesus gives us the opportunity to live with the great expectation of the revelation of the glory of God. Through faith, we can look right past anything and everything with the expectation of the arrival of God’s grace and favor. The key is to take the opportunity by faith and see what the Lord will do.

Everyone who has any measure of faith will acknowledge that the Lord can do anything He wants to; real faith expects Him to do what He says and thus lives with great expectation of the wonderful inheritance promised to us by the Holy Spirit.

Various circumstances that arise in our lives give a pretty clear faith report. It is up to us to honestly assess the results. When we discover that we have fallen short, then we are encouraged to work hard to improve in that area. If we refuse to do that and instead look for ways to excuse that weak spot in our wall, we will more than likely see that spot bludgeoned by the enemy until we finally take a stand in faith and gain the victory.

Peter knew what it was like to have his wall of faith breached. He spoke from experience when he said in verses 6 and 7 that trials were an opportunity to show that our faith is genuine. Up until he denied Christ everyone would have seen him as a person of rock-solid faith, but by the third time he denied Christ he was looking pretty weak! At this point he no doubt questioned just how genuine his own faith was. When Jesus questioned him later all he could do was tell Jesus that he loved him. Realize this friends, falling down in our faith does not necessarily mean we quit loving Jesus; it just means we have found a trust issue. In this instance it looks to me like Peter lost His trust in all that Jesus had taught Him. He could not see that Jesus was just as powerful as ever and that being arrested did not change a thing. So in his doubt, he tried to protect himself.

This is what we do when we hit a faith bump. We try to protect ourselves. Rather than living with great expectation, we prepare ourselves for the worst. Rather than live with great expectation we try to blend in with the crowd so we do not end up looking foolish. And sometimes we try to fool ourselves as we say one thing and believe and expect another.

We do all of this while we stand right outside the land of promise. We do all of this while the rest that the Lord promised and warned us not to miss is a simple step of faith away. We have all of these promises and examples to help us grow along with God’s command to work hard to prove that you really are one that God has called and chosen.

We are all given the same measure of faith and the power of the Holy Spirit to help us grow it. Knowing this, we can and should live with great expectation of our promised inheritance. Let us take advantage of every opportunity to prove that our faith is genuine.