Faith Focuses on God's Possibility Not on Human Impossibility

Faith Focuses on God’s Possibility, Not on Human Impossibility

Romans 4:19-21: “And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.”

God revealed to Abraham that He would make him the father of a son through whom would be born Christ, the Messiah, through whom all the families of the earth would be blessed. According to the word of God to Abraham, Sarah Abraham's wife would bring forth that son for Abraham. But as time went on Abraham discovered that his wife Sarah was barren and could not have children. It was humanly impossible for Abraham to fulfill according to God's way what He knew was the will of God for him.

What to do when one has a clear knowledge of God's will but lacks the human resources to accomplish it? Should the child of God give up on God's will and settle for a reduced version of God’s will which is achievable by the human resources available? This is a challenge that has confronted every child of God in this pilgrim journey. It is a juncture between the supernatural and the natural; between what is possible with God and what is lmpossibleimpossibleimpassibleimpossiblyimposableimpassableimpassibly with man; between living and operating in the realm of the heavenly and living and operating in the realm of the earthy.

The truth is God is calling and bringing forth a people who will live and operate in the heavenly in His Kingdom realm rather than in this limited earthy realm. God is giving birth to and raising His sons who will recognize they are supernatural and not just humans. When the sons of God face challenges like what confronted Abraham and Sarah it is a signal that they stand at the threshold of a critical opportunity to demonstrate who they are, to show forth that their sufficiency is not of themselves but of God. Some fail in this sort of challenge and settle down to reduced versions of the will of God for them within the potential of their human abilities.

Abraham and Sarah failed this way at first. They used their human wisdom to modify the will of God in a manner they could humanly handle. We read in Genesis 16:2: “So Sarai said to Abram, ‘See now, the LORD has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.’ And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai.”

Abraham and Sara, like many who have failed this way, might have been sincere in their intention to do the will of God using their limited human potentials. And, in fact, their approach has found popular support in the prevailing ideas about serving God today. It fits well with popular religious philosophy such as "God understands our failures.... He knows we are human." This evasive mindset has stripped accounts of God’s mighty works in the Bible of much of the supernatural element and has "cleverly" explained them away in "more reasonable" and "humanly possible" terms. And today, not many professing Christians sincerely expect God's miraculous interventions in their affairs. For example, many afflicted children of God are piously singing the praises of their doctors and medications more than seeking and experiencing the deliverance of the Lord who heals, even if they continue to languish in the bondage and pain of medically incurable sicknesses.

I am not here denying that God understands our humanity and its failures. But my intention is to highlight the fact that God wants to free us from the prison and paralysis of our fallen human nature and its constant failures and lift us up into the triumphant realm of His divine power and strength. God's dealings with man have demonstrated repeatedly that if we are going to participate with God at His level to do His will according to His way we will have to abandon our confinement to our philosophy of human reasonableness and human possiblenesspossiblespossibilitiespossibility'spestilencepostilionssiblingspostilion'ssibling's and give God a chance to do His work according to His way as foolish as His way may seem to our natural intelligence.

Abraham and Sarah obviously got a child by means of the humanly possible surrogate motherhood of their maid Hagar. But was this child, Ishmael, the will of God for them? Was Ishmael the promised son whose lineage God intended Messiah, the Son of God to be born from to bless all the families of the earth? Certainly not! Ishmael's presence in the home of Abraham and Sarah brought untold unhappiness to them until Ishmael and his mother Hagar had to be driven out. And, as history shows, Ishmael’s descendants have fostered unceasing conflicts among the families of the earth.

Nonetheless, as time went on, God maintained His promise to Abraham and Sarah that through Sarah a son would be born to Abraham even though both of them had reached the old age of being biologically unable to reproduce children. In total hopelessness in their humanity, Abraham and Sarah eventually turn their focus on God who was able to do what He promised. They came to believe in and rely on the infinite power of God who was greater than their humanity. “And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.”

It is good to note that Abraham and Sarah did not enter into their triumph by some gradual change in their human nature. In fact, their human nature, as far as its capability to reproduce a child was concerned, deteriorated. They both became biologically dead to reproduction. But it was by shifting their focus from the reproductive deadness of their aged bodies and focusing on God who was able to miraculously bring life into their dead organs and perform what He had promised, they received the power of God to bring forth the promised child and fulfill their calling.

Many continue to sit in the comfort zone of their humanity, behaving pitifully like “just human,” waiting for the gradual reformation of their fallen nature, for the slow process of overcoming the sins and infirmities of their humanity, for another "move of the Spirit," for "the rapture," when they hope to rise up and be able to fulfill their supernatural calling to walk in God’s holiness and righteousness and perform the works of sons of God. The truth is God has already provided for a complete change of every believer in Christ into a new creature, born of God, and freed from the old things of Adam’s fallen nature (2Corinthians 5:17). For all who believe and accept His Son, the Bible declares: “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’ Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, also an heir of God through Christ” (Galatians 4:6-7).

And so, the declared promise of God to raise Adam's fallen race from spiritual death and enslavement to sin into sons of God walking in the power and glory of His righteousness is before us in our time, like the promise of God stood before Abraham and Sarah in their time. Let us not look at the weakness of our humanity but look to God who is able to do in us what He has promised. Let us have faith in God. Let us exercise the faith which focuses on God's possibility and not on human impossibility.

God has called us to be sons of God, to walk in the power and righteousness of His sons upon the earth. The world is waiting to see God’s sons arise and fulfill this great promise of God. “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed” (Romans 8:19).

The entire creation is groaning and travailing in bondage waiting for sons of God to rise up in their true stature and level and bring deliverance to the creation, while those called to be sons of God continue to allow their focus on their humanity to enfeeble their faith. To usher in this event of great deliverance for the creation, sons of God must rise in faith and shift their focus from their human impossibility and fasten it on God's possibility.

God has already provided all that we need to fulfill our calling. The Scriptures tell us that God by "His divine power has granted to us all things pertaining to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, through which have been given to us precious and exceedingly great promises, so that through these we may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust" (2 Peter 1:3-4).

The truth is, like Abraham and Sarah, we will fulfill our supernatural calling to be sons of God, if only we can focus our faith on God with whom all things are possible and not on our human impossibility, and cease to consider the weakness and limitations of our own human nature; and if only, wavering not at the promise of God through unbelief, but strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, we become fully convinced that what God has promised He is also able to perform.

Amen!