Matthew 21:21-22; Hebrews 11:17-19, 23-31
If you need a mountain-moving faith because you’ve got mountains that need to be moved, who’s going to need to move the mountain – you or God?
In the publication called The Gospel Youth, there appeared the following story that helps us to understand today how you and I can have the mountain-moving faith that we so long to have, especially when times are challenging and difficult. Jesus said in Matthew 21:21-22 that if we had enough faith, we could tell a mountain to be lifted up and thrown into the sea.
So how can we have such a faith?
It comes when we’ve put it all on the line……..
A young man, who was struggling to let the Lord have his way in his life, knelt to pray. He had been advised to “Let God to the work for him.” But as he was kneeling, he cried, “I want to let God have His way, but I can’t.”
The day before, he had cut out of poster-board the letters “LET GOD” and tacked them on the wall. He rose from his knees and with a feeling of defeat and despair, he left the room and slammed the door with a bang, saying, “I can’t ‘LET GOD.’”
On his return to his room, he was startled to note that the slam of the door had loosened the letter “D” on the word “GOD,” causing it to fall to the floor, and changing the motto from “LET GOD” to “LET GO.”
This time, the message got through. “I will, I will, ,Lord Jesus” he cried and threw himself on his knees at the side of his bed. “I will ‘LET GO,’ and ‘LET GOD,’” and he did.
(from Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations by Paul Lee Tan., p. 1404)
Have you ever had a “door-slamming” day with God - you know, when you’re having one of those days when it seems like everything is going wrong and it’s convenient to blame God and be angry with Him?
It’s kind of ironic, but door-slamming days seem to correspond with mountain-moving moments, if you really stop and think about it. Days when we are overwhelmed with some mountain, issue, crisis, or even just overwhelmed by a mountain of fear, anxiety, worry, or despair, are also those same days when we tend to have it out with the Lord, slamming the door on prayer, slamming the door on praise, and slamming the door on people who are really trying to help us move the mountain.
But if you already, instinctively know that God is the One that can move the mountains, then slamming the door on Him is not the best decision at those times, is it?
What the Holy Spirit showed me this week in my walk with God and especially in times when I need a mountain-moving faith, that many times the only difference between having or not having a mountain-moving faith is found in one letter…the letter D. For this is the letter that stands between letting God take a hold of our lives and us trying to keep control of it ourselves and slamming the door on Him. The letter “D” and what it represents, is what often keeps us you and I from having a mountain-moving faith, from letting go and letting God. Drop the “D” and watch the mountains move.
So, what’s the “D”?
It’s our DEMANDS.
So many times we fail to have a mountain-moving faith and we are stuck because we put demands upon God, demands upon ourselves, demands upon our faith, and demands upon the relationship we have with God. We let God know what will be the boundaries and the parameters in which we will live and we expect Him to follow. I will only do this, but I will not do that. I will go one mile with so-and-so, but I won’t go two. I’ll worship when I feel like it, but I expect you to be at my every beckon and call.
This was not the case for Abraham, Moses’ parents, Moses himself, and Rahab in our passage from Hebrews 11 where we have been looking at the ordinary people of faith who had extraordinary, mountain-moving faith. What God helped me to see this week and, I believe, wanted me to pass on to you, is that we stifle God’s work in our lives and fall short of moving mountains for one simple reason – our DEMANDS.
Dropping our DEMANDS is at the heart of a term we use in the church but don’t practice enough. It’s the word, “SURRENDER,” – putting it all on the line.
When you and I surrender our DEMANDS and put it all on the line, then we leave room for God to step up to the line and move our mountains…whatever they are.
ABRAHAM – He dropped the DEMAND to control His relationship with God and the blessings that God had given to him.
When God called Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, Abraham was putting it all on the line. The whole covenant and the promise of having heirs as many as the stars in the sky was all up for grabs and would be destroyed if Isaac died. What an amazing Father’s Day illustration of a father who put it all on the line, who dropped his demands that God do things Abraham’s way, and who trusted that the Lord of the covenant was also the Lord of life and is able to raise someone from the dead (Heb. 11:19.)
As a dad and as a Christian, I have door slamming days with the Lord because of some mountain that needs to be moved. When I stop and consider the circumstances, though, I find that I’m in no different a place than Abraham in that I am being tempted to control my relationship with God and the blessings He has given to me. Many of my mountains are self-made for the simple reason that I want God to do things my way. I want this relationship on my terms. I’m demanding that I not have to give up anything that’s precious to me.
Do you know what the origin of the word “DEMAND” is?
It comes form the Latin conjunction of two words: dare – “to give” plus manus – “a hand.” The root meaning is “to put in one’s hand.”
So is our relationship with God something that is in our hands to control or God’s?
Abraham had a mountain-moving faith because he believed that his relationship with God was something that he could not put any demands upon or take into his hands to control. It is a relationship begun by God, authored by God, and therefore must always stay in God’s hands.
AMRAM
Amram and Jochebed were ordinary parents in that they looked into the eyes of their son, Moses, and saw that he was “beautiful,” according to Hebrews 23. But Pharaoh had made a decree that the midwives of the Hebrew women were to slay all male babies and keep the females. When Amram and Jochebed had Moses, they dropped the demand to control the future of their child. They hid Moses until he was three months old, and when they could no longer hide him, Jochebed made a basket of papyrus, put Moses in it, and placed him in the bulrushes in the hopes that Pharaoh’s daughter might rescue Moses when she came down to the Nile for her daily bathe. And we know the rest of the story, don’t we?
But the “rest of the story” happened because Amram and Jochebed dropped the demand to control their future and the future of their son. They set him afloat, laid it all on the line, and turned everything over to God.
On this Father’s Day Sunday, I think that one of the hardest things for me to do as a man, as a husband, and as a father, is to drop the demand to control my future and the future for my wife and children. As men, we want things to be in our hands to control them, whether it’s the remote control to the TV or the steering wheel of the car, our male
Some of us will have a mountain-moving faith if we will just drop the demand to control the future and the future of others as Amram and Jochebed did.
MOSES – He dropped the DEMAND to have God’s call on his life and the mission for his life on his terms.
One of the greatest struggles to let go and let God took place at a burning bush. It was the moment when God confronted Moses and told Moses that it was time to go back into
Many times I have not moved mountains in my life and have, in the process, actually created more, was simply because I was resisting God’s call and mission on my life on any given day.
This is my time. This is my life. This is my day off, and I’m going to spend it the way I want to and do what I want to.
The interesting thing about deciding to follow Jesus is that you surrendered your life to Him, which means that He can now make “demands” of you. Remember, the word “demand” means “to put in one’s hand.” Listen, if I put my life into God’s hands for my salvation and eternal life, then why do I feel I have the right to take my life back out of God’s hands whenever I want to and do whatever I want with it and still expect God to give me what I want?
When Moses finally relinquished, let go of his demands, and followed the call of the Lord, the Bible tells us that Moses went on to move mountains, big mountains. You may not be moving mountains at them moment because you’re resisting the call of God on your life, some mission He’s trying to get you to get on with…even if that mission is simply reaching out to someone at work or in the family, with gospel. What call of God are you resisting because you’re making too many demands.
RAHAB – She dropped the DEMANDS of people on her so that she could help God’s people in need.
Rahab was a prostitute who lived in
Sometimes n order to move mountains, we must decide to lay it all on the line and drop the demands that people place on us so that we can pick up and do what God is wanting to place in our hands. I have heard countless stories of woe and pain from people who continually caved in to the demands of others, even to the abuses of others, and were prisoners of those demands. One night, Rahab said, No more!
If you want your mountains moved by God, then you’ve got to let go and let God. But to do this, we need to drop the “D.” We need to drop the demands.
So where are the demands in your life that are getting in the way of God having His way? What demands are you placing on your relationship with God that are causing you to have a door-slamming day instead of a mountain-moving day?
