Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 6:55 pm

This week, Pastor Jeff Johnson from Kingsview Community Church in Stoney Creek spoke on the reward of faith, from John 20:24-29. As Thomas did in this passage, we often take a sceptical view of anything that's outside the realm of our experience when we aren't presented with conclusive proof. Thomas had no precedent to look to of someone raising themselves from the dead, and he wanted some hard evidence before he would be willing to believe. (On a side note, it's not faith once you've seen it, just believing what you've experienced with your senses.) The idea of precedent is that you look to similar situations in the past, and give them influence over what you're going to do in your current situation. In many different areas, events that took place in our lives many years ago can set precedents for us, greatly affecting and limiting our spiritual life, and the fullness God offers. We need healing to break those negative precedents so we can walk in His freedom. When we use the excuse "But it's all I know!" we're really missing out on the fact that God is bigger than our precedents... He's more capable than we know. We need faith to see beyond the precedent. John 20:29 says, "...blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." There's a reward of faith for those who haven't had a chance to see, but have faith, asking God to increase that faith and believing Him for more than what we've already seen. The biggest challenge is conquering doubt without allowing it to grow into unbelief. While it's good to test things, once we see it matches up with God's will we need to go with it! Doubt will always want more evidence, even when we get proof there will be something to doubt about it. We need to grab hold of faith, and let go of the constant series of arguments that doubt provides. There is one precedent we can always trust - God's Word, the Bible. Everything we face can be conquered by the power of Christ in us. Instead of living according to the precedence of the past, we need to live according to God's possibility for the future.