“Faith – Belief – Words”

Matthew 14:25-31 Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.” And Peter answered Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.” So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!” And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

• Let’s face it, Peter had enough faith to actually walk on the water for a short space until he took his eyes off the reality of what he was doing with Yeshua and looked at the reality of this worlds system that says that this is not possible. Is that not where most of our disbelief comes from? The “little” faith came because of “time” not quality. Peter believed for a few moments until he realized what he was actually doing. How many times have we walked on the water?

Matthew 17:14-20 And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.” Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.

**How much faith does a mustard seed need to produce a mustard flower or plant?
**I submit then that we must first know who we are in the Messiah Jesus/Yeshua.

Matthew 21:21 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done.

Mark 11:23 For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.

Hebrews 11:1-3 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.

• Sound is not visible; the vibration of your voice is not a visible thing but can and does affect your surroundings and the atmosphere we live in. In the first chapter of the Bible, everything came into existence by the spoken Word of God. Over and over in Genesis, we see the term, “Then God said” and it came into being.

Genesis 1:26a Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion …..”

• This gives me the opinion that we can have what we say if we believe and do not doubt in our heart, as it says in the previous verses, that we will have what we say.

Isaiah 55:11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

• How long shall we continue to doubt and keep looking at what the world has to say? With all this evidence in the Creators word, can we continue to be moved by what we see instead of what the Creator says? Yeshua/Jesus came to this earth to set us straight about a lot of things about this world and this is just one of them. We must know who we are as born from above believers. One of His parting statements was:

John 16:33 These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

1 John 5:4-5 4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Question
Are the things of this world that we inhabit the reality?

I am beginning to believe that we are born into a real flesh and blood world of tangible real objects. However, we can set our minds and hearts on overcoming that reality by faith in the Creators words. And, how much faith is necessary to see this new reality? Faith the size of a mustard seed. The heart must believe, not just the mind, thus the power is not so much in mind over matter but heart over mind and matter. In other words, what we see with our eyes must be discounted as the reality but what we desire (see) with our heart must become the reality. We must see the reality of what our heart desires (sees), not what our eyes see. Is this not what Yeshua was saying when He said, I have overcome the world? Was He not seeing a Creators Kingdom reality rather than or beyond this worldly reality?

Let us now take this one step further so as not to be misunderstood. There are two spiritual kingdoms which one can tap into, Satan’s or the Creator Gods I Am kingdom. If we are delving into Satan’s kingdom, we are lusting after power, greedy gain, and self-fulfillment in this worlds system. If we are looking to Gods Kingdom, we find peace, love, kindness, mercy and giving of one’s self. In Gods Kingdom, everyone benefits. It is very easy to be led into the wrong kingdom and pride will be the telling of which kingdom one is operating in. A very good example is found in this scripture reference;

John 13 3-6 & 12-17 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God, 4 rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. 5 After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. 12 So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you? 13 You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. 16 Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

1 John 5:5 5 Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Our faith comes through this fact that Jesus/Yeshua is the son of the most high God. Without that, you are operating or believing in a different kingdom, even a self-made kingdom.

©Sherwood A. Burton – All Rights Reserved

 

“TRUTH”

John 11:25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.

C.S. Lewis was a genius in the way of saying truth in a way that one would almost not be offended. His children’s stories were a prime example of telling truth to adults without offending but causing them to actually understand their own objections to biblical truth.

I get snippets every day from C.S.Lewis archives and today was particularly appropriate for what I am saying. Jesus, on the other hand spoke to us in parables and occasionally straight out revelation truth. My readings from the bible and “The Magicians Nephew” today are prime examples:

When the Lion had first begun singing, long ago when it was still quite dark, [Uncle Andrew] had realized that the noise was a song. And he had disliked the song very much. It made him think and feel things he did not want to think and feel. Then, when the sun rose and he saw that the singer was a lion (“only a lion,” as he said to himself) he tried his hardest to make believe that it wasn’t singing and never had been singing—only roaring as any lion might in a zoo in our own world. “Of course it can’t really have been singing,” he thought, “I must have imagined it. I’ve been letting my nerves get out of order. Who ever heard of a lion singing?” And the longer and more beautifully the Lion sang, the harder Uncle Andrew tried to make himself believe that he could hear nothing but roaring. Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed. Uncle Andrew did. He soon did hear nothing but roaring in Aslan’s song. Soon he couldn’t have heard anything else even if he had wanted to. And when at last the Lion spoke and said, “Narnia, awake,” he didn’t hear any words: he heard only a snarl. And when the Beasts spoke in answer, he heard only barkings, growlings, baying, and howlings.

Sometimes we have a tendency to hear only what we want to hear. Are we really listening? Does our understanding fit with what we know as truth but we deny it?

©2019 Sherwood A. Burton … all rights reserved

“Prophetic Shadows”

This word, shadow, came to me this morning and has not left but gave me many thoughts about Gods word and the many examples of things to come that relate to Yeshua.

 Dictionary.com:   a hint or faint, indistinct image or idea; intimation: shadows of things to come.Also under the same word we have the synonyms:  resemblance, similarity, simulation, replica, representation, likeness, copy, comparison, parable, semblance, counterpart, analogy, allegory, simile

 I just want to give a couple of examples of the multitude written in God’s Word.

It all starts for me in Genesis, especially chapter 22 where God directs Abraham “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”  Isaac was a son promised to Abraham through his wife Sarah, Ishmael was a son through the Egyptian servant Hagar since Sarah was barren and too old (according to the natural order of things) to bear a child. It was Abraham and Sarah’s way of figuring how “they” could bring to pass what God had promised. I think a lot of us do exactly the same today when things don’t seem possible.

Then in chapters 31 thru 50 we have the story of Israel’s son Joseph. He was hated by his brothers, he ends up in prison for things he did not do, and he is tortured there but ends up being second in command of the whole country of Egypt and saving his whole family from starvation. We can actually see this very thing being played out before us now as Yeshua is hated by His family, the Jewish religious authority and being tortured and killed and being raised from the dead, going back to His Father in Heaven to return shortly and rule the whole world saving all who will bow the knee to Him, His family.

Then we have the time in the wilderness as they had left Egypt with the help of Moses and find themselves being attacked by deadly serpents. This is in Number 21:5-9 where Moses is told to create a bronze fiery serpent and put it on a pole. If anyone had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent on the pole they were healed. That is a perfect picture of Yeshua on the cross who had taken upon Himself all the sins of the world and all one needs do is look at Him and accept the redemption He offers and live. The bronze serpent on the pole was a perfect example of Yeshua’s work on the earth.

Then we have Jonah 1:15 thru 2:10 where Jonah is swallowed by the great fish and spends three days and nights in the belly before being vomited out upon the earth again. This yet another picture of Yeshua being crucified, dead, buried and resurrected the third day and spend another forty days on the earth before ascending into Heaven. Yeshua even states in John 8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”  This is referring back to Genesis chapter 22.

©2019 Sherwood A. Burton … all rights reserved