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A Turning Point
When God invites you to join Him in His work, He has a God-sized assignment for you. You will quickly realize you cannot do what He is asking on your own. This is the crisis of belief when you must decide whether to believe God for what He wants to do through you.
The word crisis comes from a Greek word that means decision or judgment. A crisis of belief is not a disaster or a bad thing. It is a turning point or a fork in the road that calls for a decision. You must decide what you really believe about God.
These are the characteristics of every crisis of belief:
- An encounter with God requires faith.
- Encounters with God are God-sized.
- What you do in response to God’s invitation reveals what you believe about God.
- True faith requires action.
Would you tell an army to follow you in walking around a city expecting the walls to fall down when you blow some trumpets? In Joshua 6:1-5, that was a crisis of belief for Joshua and for all Israel.
In Judges 6:33, 7:1-8, Gideon struggled with his crisis of belief. Vast forces of the Midianites, Amalekites, and other eastern peoples were prepared to attack his people. Gideon started with 32,000 men, but God had Gideon send 31,700 of them home. He was going to give victory with only 300 soldiers. Do you see what a difference it made from God’s perspective? When the battle was won, everyone knew God did it!
David, a faithful servant of the Lord, refused to rely on human wisdom for guidance. See the words of 1 Chronicles 14:8-16:
When the Philistines heard that David had been anointed king over all Israel, they went up in full force to search for him, but David heard about it and went out to meet them. Now the Philistines had come and raided the Valley of Rephaim; so David inquired of God: “Shall I go and attack the Philistines? Will you deliver them into my hands?”
The Lord answered him, “Go, I will deliver them into your hands.”
So David and his men went up to Baal Perazim, and there he defeated them. He said, “As waters break out, God has broken out against my enemies by my hand.” So that place was called Baal Perazim. The Philistines had abandoned their gods there, and David gave orders to burn them in the fire.
Once more the Philistines raided the valley; so David inquired of God again, and God answered him, “Do not go directly after them, but circle around them and attack them in front of the poplar trees. As soon as you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the poplar trees, move out to battle, because that will mean God has gone out in front of you to strike the Philistine army.” So David did as God commanded him, and they struck down the Philistine army, all the way from Gibeon to Gezer.
At each step, David asked for God’s direction. In David’s walk with the Lord, he didn’t rely on yesterday’s guidance for today, and he didn’t use human wisdom to decide whether to attack a second time. This is a good example of how God wants you to depend on Him—through an ongoing relationship with Him, not relying on a tried and true method, or on previous success.
Consider this interaction between Jesus and Peter from Matthew 17:24-27:
After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”
“Yes, he does,” he replied.
When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own children or from others?”
“From others,” Peter answered.
“Then the children are exempt,” Jesus said to him. “But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”
Peter was a fisherman. Never before had he found coins in a fish’s mouth. Great faith was required to go and catch one fish to find the exact amount of money needed to pay their taxes. When he acted on faith, God provided.
Encounters with God Require Faith
Christians—as well as everyone else—have a natural tendency to try building a life in which faith is unnecessary. We establish a comfort zone where everything is in our control, but this is not pleasing to God.
Faith is confidence that what God promised or said will come to pass. Sight is the opposite of faith. If you can clearly see how something can be accomplished, more than likely, faith is not required.
Faith must be in a Person—God Himself. Faith is not drawing up a grandiose idea and then asking God to make it come to pass.
Moses could not deliver the children of Israel from Pharoah’s army, cross the Red Sea on dry land, produce water from a rock, or provide food for a multitude. Moses had to have faith that the God who called him would do what He said.
With their own resources, the disciples could not feed the multitudes, heal the sick, calm a storm, or raise the dead. Only God could do those things. But God invited His disciples to let Him do those things through them.
Jesus questioned those around Him, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things I say?” (Luke 6:46). Jesus frequently rebuked His disciples for their lack of faith. Their unbelief revealed that they really had not come to know who He was. Thus, they did not know what He could do.
When God speaks, what He asks of us will require faith. Our major problem, however, is self-centeredness. We assume we have to accomplish the assignment in our own strength and with current resources. We think, “I can’t do that. That is impossible.”
We forget that when God speaks, He always reveals what He is going to do—not what He wants us to do for Him.
Encounters with God are God-Sized
Some people say, “God would never ask me to do something that’s impossible. On the contrary, if the assignment I sense God is giving me is something I know I can handle on my own, I assume it probably is not from God. The assignments God gave in the Bible were God-sized. They were always beyond what people could do in their strength because He wanted to demonstrate His nature, His strength, His provision, and His love to His people—and to a watching world.
God told Moses to lead the Israelites to camp beside the Red Sea. God knew He was going to deliver them by dividing the sea and letting them cross on dry ground.
What was the result? “When Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and believed in him and in his servant Moses” (Exodus 14:31).
God commanded Joshua to lead the Israelites across the Jordan River at flood stage. Why? “So that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord’s hand is strong, and so that you [Israel] may always fear the Lord your God” (Joshua 4:24).
A vast army came to attack Israel. King Jehoshaphat proclaimed a fast and led the people to seek God’s counsel. He prayed, “Our God … we are powerless before this vast number that comes to fight against us. We do not know what to do, but we look to you” (2 Chronicles 20:12).
God responded, “Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast number, for the battle is not yours, but God’s… You do not have to fight this battle. Position yourselves, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord” (2 Chronicles 20:15, 17).
God destroyed the invading army before Jehoshaphat and Israel got to the battlefield. Then “the terror of God was on all he kingdoms of the lands when they heard that the Lord had fought against the enemies of Israel” (2 Chronicles 20:29).
When Christians in the early church followed the directions of the Holy Spirit, God impacted their world. The disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in foreign languages they had not learned. Then Peter preached. “Those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand people were added to them” (Acts 2:41).
What our world often witnesses today is a committed Christian or church serving God to the best of their ability. But they are not seeing God. They comment, “Well, there’s a dedicated, faithful group of people.” They don’t see anything happening that can be explained only in terms of God’s activity. Why? Because we are not attempting anything only God can do.
God is far more concerned with you walking with Him than He is interested in getting a job done for Him.
God will come to you and give you a God-sized assignment. When you start to do what He tells you to do, He brings to pass what He purposed. Let the world see God at work, and He will attract them. Let Christ be lifted up—not in words, but in life.
The world comes to know God when they see God’s nature expressed through His activity. When God starts to work, He accomplishes something only He can do, and both God’s people and the world come to experience Him in ways they have never known Him before. That is why God gives God-sized assignments to His people.
As God works, you and the people with you will rejoice that you have experienced Him. You and the people around you will know more of Him than you have ever known before.
What You Do Reveals What You Believe
When the people of Israel were taunted by Goliath, David said he would fight this giant. He stated his belief: “The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine” (1 Samuel 16:37). David refused to take the normal weapons of war. Instead, he chose a sling and five smooth stones. He said the Goliath, “You come against me with a sword, spear, and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of Armies, the God of the ranks of Israel—you have defied Him. Today, the Lord will hand you over to me … all the world will know that Israel has a God, and this whole assembly will know that it is not by sword or by spear that the Lord saves, for the battle is the Lord’s. He will hand you over to us” (1 Samuel 16:45-47). David killed Goliath, and Israel went on to victory.
One thing is certain: actions indicate what we believe and do not believe about God.
Whenever God invites you to join Him and you face a crisis of belief, whatever you do next reveals what you believe about God. What you do—not what you say you believe—reveals what you really believe about God.
True Faith Requires Action
James 2:26 says, “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.” When you face a crisis of belief, what you do next demonstrates what you believe.
Hebrews 11 is sometimes referred to as “the roll call of faith.” According to Hebrews 11:32-38, the “good” outcomes of a faithful life include:
- Victory over enemies
- Justice administered
- Promises fulfilled
- Saved from the lions’ mouths and the flames of fire
- Resurrected
“Bad” outcomes include: jeers, flogging, persecuted & mistreated, torture, chains & imprisonment, sawed in half, killed by the sword, and stoned to death.
Outward appearances of success do not always indicate faith, and appearances of failure do not always reflect a lack of faith. A faithful servant is one who does what His Master tells him, whatever the outcome may be.
God has planned something far better for people of faith. Pray about your faithfulness. Ask God to increase your faith.