Encounter – Hunger For Faith
Luke 24
We have set aside 24hrs, Friday, October 13 – Saturday, October 14, 2017 for a time together which we are calling, “Fresh Faith Encounter.”
It is one thing to have encountered Christ for salvation, but it could well be another thing to have a ‘fresh faith encounter’ with Him. What if you are only ONE FRESH ENCOUNTER AWAY from doing something extraordinary for our Lord & His Kingdom?
A ‘fresh faith encounter’ with the Lord might be exactly what you need to raise your faith, raise your service, and yes, raise your life to the next level.
We all need a faith encounter with the risen Lord before faith can truly take shape in our lives. Faith begins with God. Without God’s amazing gift of faith we would be unable to believe. Faith is not a matter of effort. We cannot say, “If I just try a little harder, or study a little more, then I will be able to believe.”
Faith is a divine gift, freely given to us even though we do not deserve it.The kind of faith I am describing is not simply an expanded version of something we already have. This is not a “faith upgrade.” It is not like we are born with faith version 1.0 preinstalled in our hearts and all God has to do is insert faith version 7.0 to make us more complete. An encounter with God is like getting a whole new hard drive! Nor is it like we are somehow born with a “seed of faith” and God simply puts fertilizer to it, thereby making it grow. It is not like that at all. The very “seed of faith” itself is, in fact, planted by God. The growth of that seed is what happens as we mature into the faith God has planted. Neither is faith like some dormant thing that God simply has to wake up. Nor is it like being born with poor “faith vision”, and God simply puts on corrective faith lenses which enable us to see more clearly. It would be more accurate to say that we are born with no vision at all and God’s work is to give us eyes to see.
The faith that we experience when we have an encounter with the risen Lord is a brand new thing – a new sensation. It is a glorious work of God. So, we have to be careful so that we understand the very origin of our faith. It is purely and completely a gift from God. We often talk about faith as being a journey or a process. It is never complete, nor is it ever perfect – at least the way humans go about doing it! And, if it is a process, then there must be growth and work that accompany it – not work in the sense that we work for our salvation, but work in the sense that we try to faithfully discover more about God. Once we have had that encounter with God, our lives should be marked by continual renewal as we try to learn the ways of God, through prayer and reflection
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AND through the study of God’s written word. Having a ‘fresh faith encounter’with God, is more than a distant admiration or an emotional 5 minutes sometime in your life. A ‘fresh faith encounter’ with the living God is a true encounter with our Savior! An encounter with Jesus should not just excite us; it should change us.