Unshakeable Faith
How you relate to God reveals the difference between knowing Him as your Father or only as the Supreme Deity. A Supreme Deity perspective can lead to reluctance to go to Him with anything other than that which is way too big for you. A perspective of Father leads you to realize you can go to Him with anything you need to know His wisdom for. Once you come to Jesus, God becomes your Father, and He cares for you and is not reluctant to offer you His wisdom on things. God will make known His will for you.
I have found He is willing to offer me wisdom on things like car repairs, financial decisions, who I should spend my life with, whether or not I should take a trip, to wait on a purchase, and to know how to answer a question or avoid it. He will be as involved in my life as I allow Him to be as my Father.
James reveals that you can seek God for wisdom without expecting to get a rebuke for it. God is not poised to rebuke you due to a mistake you made before needing His wisdom or for why you need His wisdom. Your Father is gracious and willing to give you insight into His will for your life. Your Father is all about relationships. His only requirement is that you go to Him in true faith about it.
God is not asking you to go through life assuming things about Him and making your best guess at what His will might be. He is very willing to share His heart for you with you, and He is also willing to let you know what your next step is because He can see what is ahead that you cannot see.
Double-mindedness means there’s a hint of faith present but also unbelief at work. It is an inner tug of war. It is being stuck between two opinions. You can agree that God is good and yet question His motives. Or you can think you know Him well but with a skewed perspective, and as a result, you struggle to trust Him and are reluctant to go to Him because you think you know what His answer might be.
It’s like the parable of the talents that Jesus told in Matthew 25. The Master gave His three servants each a set amount of money to steward while he went away. He gave one five talents (bags of silver), the second servant got two, and the last servant got one. The one with five bags and the one with two bags both invested what they had and doubled it. The servant with just one bag dug a hole and hid it.
When the Master returned, He praised the servants with ten and two bags and declared let’s celebrate together. They enjoyed rich fellowship! They were also promised more responsibilities due to their faithfulness. But what the Master said to the servant with one bag surprises most people.
Matthew 25:24 “Then the servant with the one bag of silver came and said, ‘Master, I knew you were a harsh man, harvesting crops you didn’t plant and gathering crops you didn’t cultivate. 25 I was afraid I would lose your money, so I hid it in the earth. Look, here is your money back.’ 26 “But the master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy servant! If you knew I harvested crops I didn’t plant and gathered crops I didn’t cultivate, 27 why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it.’ 28 “Then he ordered, ‘Take the money from this servant, and give it to the one with the ten bags of silver. 29 To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. 30 Now throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
The servant with one bag had a skewed perspective due to pretending to have a relationship with the Master, and his real issue was not fear but laziness. He wasn’t as invested in knowing and pleasing as he claimed.
Proverbs 22:13 The lazy man says there’s a lion outside. I will be slain in the street if I go out.
He claims to be afraid when the truth is that he is lazy. It’s an excuse for his unbelief. The Master is not all about the money; He is about the trust that enables stepping out in relationship-based faith. The one-bag guy lacked trust and faith due to having no real relationship. Thus the sentence of outer darkness. A growing relationship convinced of God’s will produces unshakeable faith. Unshakeable faith presses on despite the odds in the confidence only a close relationship can produce.
