INFLUENCE BEYOND CIRCUMSTANCE

Faith is a rather weird sort.  We must determinedly lean in upon it.  The flesh naturally opposes matters of the unseen by mocking the invisible as either imaginary or unrealistic.  Yet, God calls each to walk by faith and not by sight.  This must be regarded with more than a religious shrug.

The flesh doesn't take faith lying down.  It imposes, then, just how faith will be defined; a very reduced explanation if you will.  Yes, the flesh combats the giganticity of faith by at least reframing it to work only within time limits.  Plant seed of the kingdom today and if no fruit within, let's say 90 or 730 days, then it must not have been a legitimate faith.

At such a point our faith can begin to limp.  Yet, the flesh is lying.  It wishes to get the church to march by its standards while permitting us to call rather exciting things of the flesh-effort...faith.

Faith, however, is not restricted to our measured standards of accomplishment. Faith marches off into zones of effectiveness that the flesh has neither concept nor input.....nor even grasp.  The flesh doesn't get what the spirit knows.  Eternal spirits will live in heaven.  Decaying flesh doesn't go.

Jewish doctor Boris Kornfeld betrayed the faith of his fathers by believing in Jesus as the Son of God.  This highly skilled doctor found himself alone in a Siberian prison. Yet, it is Alexander Solzehnitsyn who shared that is was this man who inspired him to influence much of the world.  What God needed from Kornfeld was to use his brief life only to touch another.

Cotton Mather prayed several hours each day for over twenty years for revival; yet, never saw it with his own eyes exactly what God would do.  The year Mather died was the beginning of what is now known as the Great Awakening.  Measurable effectiveness according to the flesh?  Not to be seen by the producer.  Impacting the spirits of others?  Abundant; although Mather was clueless other than his conviction by faith.

Exhausted by a fifty year campaign against slavery, William Wilberforce lay on his death bed as the British Empire finally abolished slavery.  A very small number in the Orient were converted to Jesus during Hudson Taylor's extravagant as well as sacrificially intense efforts to share the hope in God's only Son.  Today, millions of believers reside in China.  Of course Taylor's faith-eyes could see the potential; although his flesh-eyes could have questioned effectiveness.

So it is with you and me.  By faith in Jesus we possess weighty impact, now, beyond circumstance.  We must be true to the Ephesians 1:18 eyes of the heart; not of the flesh.  Faith inspires.  Flesh dismisses.  Faith encourages.  Flesh denies.  Faith spreads. Flesh corrals.  Faith expands.  Flesh cautions.  Faith applauds.  Flesh gripes.

May we be charged--highly energized--by the truth that what we do by God's power reaches far beyond what one can report by any glimpse of circumstance.  I believe that while many of us do get to enjoy some fruit of our spiritual labor we will find that our best work will be noted beyond the grave.