Lost and Found

Last week I happened to find the keys to my bedrooms which we thought we had lost. In fact, we could not even remember if we had taken over these keys from the previous owner when we bought this place. It was just that we could not find these keys for the past year that we stayed here. We had intended get a locksmith to replicate another set of keys for us but never got down to it. Well, actually the keys (kept in a pouch) were always in the drawer of the TV console and I was the one who put them there!

When we found that one of the bedrooms was accidentally locked from the inside in Jan, we panicked because we thought we did not have the keys. It was on the first day of Chinese New Year and to get a locksmith to open the door would be so expensive. Thank God that the bedroom could be reached from the balcony via the toilet! Heng had to climb out of the toilet to access the bedroom window, open it and climb into the room to open the door. Now coming to think of it...it was really quite hilarious and totally unnecessary because we had the keys!

I believe God was trying to bring across an important learning point here and I asked Him to shed light in this situation since I have not received the full revelation. It's like a riddle. Something that you already have it all along. You received it but you forgot about it and never used it. Then you act as if you never received it in the first place and lived your life without it.  You thought you lost it but it was with you all along. When God opened your eyes to see that it was with you all along, you are so happy and you rejoice and praise God!

What could this be? Suddenly, in a flash, the Holy Spirit revealed what that was to me. It was the spirit of faith.  I completely forgot that I received the God-kind of faith many years ago. No wonder God had to remind me about Mark 11:22 'Have faith in God" or have the God-kind of faith. Every believer has a measure of faith upon salvation because it takes faith to receive Christ. Faith can grow like the smallest mustard seed to the largest of all garden plants (Mark 4:30-32).

I always have faith in God but I was stumbled by my past experiences. After waiting so long for some of the promises to come to pass in my life and thinking that I have exercised my faith in vain, I lapsed back into believing that maybe I did not even have faith in the first place. I have been trying to live my life with my own efforts forgetting that I have this wonderful resource within me. The truth is the spirit of faith is in me. Learning about the gospel of grace does not negate the importance of faith. Faith is equally important. It is by grace, through faith that we have been saved (Eph. 2:8). Both grace and faith is the gift of God; it is not from ourselves, that we should boast about.  

Our experiences though real would not negate our faith in God. There is a fight of faith but it is a good fight because in the end, God says we win. Hence what we can do is to rest and enjoy the process. When you truly believe God's Word, you enter into His rest (Heb. 4:3). You cease from your efforts and toilsome labor and finally, when you enter into rest, God brings it to pass. 1 Peter 1:8-9 says 'Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith..." The end of our faith is when the thing we believe for manifests and we don't have to believe for it anymore.

To get from believing to receiving, when we have a spirit of faith, we rejoice with "joy unspeakable and full of glory". This is like how I rejoice when I realised that I always have this spirit of faith; I never lost it. It's good news that our faith has an end; the situation we are in has an end! I can rejoice even more now because I have seen the outcome of my faith in many promises in my life. The fulfillment of these promises just spurs me on to seeing the rest of the promises come to pass. Joshua 21:45 says 'Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord has spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass.' Let that sink into your spirit - ALL CAME TO PASS. Hallelujah! Praise Jesus!