Never Be Disappointed Again
As we approach another Christmas season there will be children of all ages everywhere who will be asking for and hoping to receive all manner of gizmos, gadgets, toys and trinkets.
Sadly, many will be disappointed as their hopes and wishes are not realised and their requests are not granted. Some will have to hear that saddest of parental statements, “I would love to be able to do it, but we just can’t afford it…”
A lot of the requests made will be unrealistic in the light of the economic limitations faced by many good parents. No such parent would be so foolish or as cruel as to make promises of providing something that they knew they were unable to fulfil.
However, as the children of our heavenly Father we can come to him with our requests knowing that he has already promised to be everything that we need him to be whenever we need him to be, and that he is the giver of every good and perfect gift.
The great thing about faith is that it never has to take no for an answer. Because faith is charged with a hope that never leaves us disappointed.
If what you need is something that God has promised in his word then you should never take no for an answer regardless of how religion and tradition may have programmed you.
Personally, I was raised in a tradition where it seemed that people were conditioned to live more by fate than by faith. Basically, whatever happened – whether it was good or bad – was God’s will and you just had to accept it. We were encouraged to respond to our circumstances with passive acceptance and were led to believe that this was actually acting in faith, when in reality it was more akin to embracing fate.
The good news is that Jesus told us that we don’t have to allow tradition to make the word and promises of God ineffective in our lives.
2 Corinthians 1: 20
For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.
For me, that says it all.
Listen to this account of a woman who was disqualified by religious tradition from expecting to receive anything good from God.
Matthew 15: 21 – 28
21 Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.”
23 But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, “Send her away, for she cries out after us.”
24 But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
25 Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, help me!”
26 But He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”
27 And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”
28 Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
According to Mark’s account of this incident this woman had heard about Jesus. Faith is activated by hearing. Nobody hears without a preacher, and so that is why we must be diligent in getting the message out and informing or reminding people of God’s promises.
When faith is activated it moves you from passive acceptance to active and aggressive expectancy.
This woman’s position was hopeless until she heard about Jesus, but the words that she heard restored the force of hope, overcoming all of the cultural objections.
I have seen this happen to people with denominational or traditional limitations to their understanding. They hear the truth of God’s word and it changes their position. Their hope takes them beyond their allegiance to man made tradition and experience based belief systems. Personally, I have experienced this many times over the years as my faith has been activated by the word of God and hope and expectancy were empowered to believe for what circumstances dictated to be impossible and impassable.
22 And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.”
When faith is activated it speaks. This loving mother had heard that Jesus cast out demons and healed the sick, and so she came asking for healing and deliverance for her daughter.
Galatians 6: 5 says that faith is activated and energised and expressed and put to work by love. Love for her daughter activated and energized and gave expression to her faith, putting it to work in pursuing Jesus and asking for healing and deliverance. Healing and deliverance are an expression of the Father’s love for the broken and the oppressed and so this mother’s love connected with the Father’s love causing her to break out of the bondage of passive acceptance and into the active and aggressive expectancy of faith.
23 But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, “Send her away, for she cries out after us.”
Faith continues to expect an answer even when it is slow in coming and it appears that no one is listening. It is easy to quit and give up at the first hurdle but that is not the nature of faith that is attached to the word of the One who never fails to keep his promises.
24 But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
This woman chose to persevere even when it appeared that she wasn’t getting the answer she was looking for. Remember, faith doesn’t take no for an answer because faith knows that all of God’s promises are yes and amen in Christ Jesus.
25 Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, “Lord, help me!”
Worship is how faith responds to the word regardless of whether it sounds like what we want to hear or not. Faith doesn’t always have to understand everything that happens in the process but it holds fast with active and aggressive expectancy to the desired result. The Father is seeking worshipers who respond to his every word in worship knowing that regardless of any apparent setbacks or knock-backs the end of our faith will always be the experience of God’s good, acceptable, and perfect will.
26 But He answered and said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.”
Always remember, you have to be unoffendable if you are going to make it. Sometimes there is opportunity in what the Lord says for our flesh to be offended. But the word of the Lord never comes to offend us, it only ever comes to activate our faith. Offence will lead to death but faith always leads to life.
Faith determines that if the Lord says I am like a little dog then all I need to do is access what is available to little dogs.
27 And she said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.”
I love this woman because there is no way she is going to take no for an answer. Jesus loved her too and so he was not trying to insult or hurt her but he was actually responding to her worshipful cry for help. And so, this amazing woman didn’t take Jesus’ statement as an opportunity to stumble but faith saw it for what it was intended to be – as a stepping stone to receiving what she was asking for.
We need to understand that faith doesn’t hear or see or speak at a natural level. Faith is the evidence of things that cannot be seen. Faith attaches itself to the promises of God’s word that are never bound by natural limitations.
I remember preaching somewhere one time and the Lord asked me to lay aside the message I had thought about sharing and instead to major on God’s word in regard to healing. To be honest, it soon became apparent why the Lord wanted to reach out to this group of his precious children with his heart to heal the sick and free the oppressed. Sadly, a couple of folks got offended at the word and it caused a bit of upset leading to the man who led the group trying to cover the offence by reiterating some more traditional responses to sickness and healing at the end of the meeting. I got the feeling that I wouldn’t be asked back there any time soon and sure enough the invitation has never come.
However, after the meeting I was approached by a man who told me that he really struggled with the message I had brought but that he didn’t want to close the door completely to the possibility that what I shared was true. He shared with me that his married sister – a young Christian mother – had been given a terminal cancer diagnosis.
He said that as he had been praying for his sister he had been led to a scripture in Song of Solomon 2: 10 which says:
10 My beloved spoke, and said to me: “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
He went on to say that he felt that this was a word from the Lord to him to let his sister go as the Lord was taking her to heaven. His understanding of this word was leading him to a place of passive acceptance of the fact that a young wife and mother was going to be taken by the Lord, leaving behind a bereaved husband and young motherless children.
When he shared this word with me I could sense his painful resignation to having to let his sister go. However, as he was quoting the Scripture I heard and saw something very different. I saw and heard Jesus at Jairus’ house speaking to the little girl who had died:
Mark 5: 40 – 42
40 And they ridiculed Him. But when He had put them all outside, He took the father and the mother of the child, and those who were with Him, and entered where the child was lying. 41 Then He took the child by the hand, and said to her, “Talitha, cumi,” which is translated, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” 42 Immediately the girl arose and walked, for she was twelve years of age. And they were overcome with great amazement.
Jesus didn’t say to this young girl who was already dead to arise and come away with him to heaven. He asked her to arise from her sickbed that had become her deathbed and to be restored to life and to live out the fullness of her days. He turned the house of mourning into a house of dancing, not through the passive acceptance fueled by fear but by the active and aggressive expectancy fueled by faith.
When I shared with the brother what I had seen and heard and how different it was from what he had seen and heard I could discern a real struggle going on within him as passive acceptance tried to choke the life out of the word that always comes to fill us with hope.
I told this precious brother that I believed that the Lord was calling his sister to arise out of the sickbed that was being predicted to be her death-bed, and to live out the fullness of her days as a wife and a mother.
I then sensed I had done all that I was there to do as I have learned that it is not possible to persuade someone by natural means of argument to accept what can only be received by simply taking God at his word.
I am sharing this because I had reinforced for me that day the reality that simple faith hears the word differently from what one hears after it has been been passed through the filters of tradition and passive acceptance.
And so, back to the woman whose daughter was severely demon-possessed.
Not even Jesus’ apparent snub could cause this mother’s active and aggressively expectant faith to stop short of what God has promised to those who simply believe that all of his promises are yes and amen in Christ Jesus.
She received revelation and she boldly spoke it out. She didn’t argue with Jesus, she just carried on believing that she could receive and so her faith goes to a new level and speaks out wisdom and revelation. Have you noticed that the most powerful and profound wisdom and revelation is always the simplest.
At the end of this encounter there could only be one conclusion.
28 Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
The Message
28 Jesus gave in. “Oh, woman, your faith is something else. What you want is what you get!” Right then her daughter became well.
Her active and aggressive expectancy and her persevering faith were rewarded with the only answer that faith can accept: yes and amen! Yes, let it be to you as your faith has believed and expected it to be.
Imagine having faith that impresses Jesus. It’s possible. Just hang on and don’t let go until what God has promised comes to pass. Don’t ever take no for an answer because all of God’s promises are yes and amen in Christ Jesus. And every fulfilled promise causes the glory of God to be revealed in us and through us.
As we enter this Christmas season the message proclaimed by the angel on the day of Jesus’ birth into this world still remains the same. We have a message of joy to proclaim to a world full of people who are without God and without hope.
Luke 2: 14
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
If someone you know fails to receive the gadget, gizmo, toy, or trinket they were hoping for this Christmas take the opportunity to share with them the good news that there is someone they can go to who will never disappoint their hope.
We don’t ever have to take no for an answer because all of the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ Jesus. We don’t have to rely on dropping hints with our heavenly Father. He invites us to come boldly into his presence and make our requests, regardless of how extravagant, excessive, or outrageous they might be judged to be by religious tradition.
You will never hear, “We would love to give you that, but we just can’t afford it” because everything has already been paid for in full, and you will never hear, “We can’t do that for you because then we would have to do the same for everybody” because everything has already been provided for everyone.
If our heavenly Father can’t be relied on to keep his promises then we really are in trouble. But the good news is that all of his promises are yes and amen. You can’t out-ask him.
Listen to Jesus.
Mark 11: 24 (NLT)
24 I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.
How could he say that? Because that was his testimony.
So whatever it is that you need, allow the word and promise of God to activate your faith in active and aggressive expectancy and don’t ever give up until you’ve got it. Through faith and patience everyone who refuses to quit will receive all of the promises that are yes and amen in Christ Jesus.
The good news this Christmas season is that your hope need never be disappointed again.