How We Can Limit God (Part One)

       Wow, some of you are probably wondering if I dropped of the face of the earth!  Well, I didn't! (Obviously, or else I wouldn't be writing this!)  Anyways, I won't make excuses for not posting the last month; I simply didn't make time for it.  However, now that I am sitting down to write again, I am going to be doing a three-part series on "How We Can Limit God." (Much of what I will be writing is not original with me; it's based on sermons from my pastor, Joseph Brown.)

       First of all, it may shock some of you to hear that we can limit God.  You may be asking, "What do you mean by saying that we can limit God, and how can we do that?"  Well, thank-you for asking, and this week I will be covering the first way that we can limit God.  Before I get to that, however, we need to understand that the Bible specifically speaks of our ability to limit God.

       Psalm 78:41 (speaking of the Israelites) says this, "Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel."  I don't know about you, but this verse scares me!  Just think, we have the ability to limit the power of God in our lives!  That thought should give us some fear of the Lord! 

       So, how can we limit God?  One way is having a lack of faith.  Here are some references which give accounts of how Jesus worked while He was on this earth. All of these verses specifically mention the faith of a person- Luke 7:9, Luke 7:50, Luke 8:48, Luke 17:19, and Luke 18:42.  This list is by no means exclusive; these are simply verses I found while paging through the book of Luke!  Now, contrast these verses with Luke 9:41, in which Jesus said, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you, and suffer you?"  Jesus said this after his disciples failed to cast a devil out of a boy.  Clearly, God only works when faith is present.!
    
       Hebrews eleven is known as the "Hall of Faith."  Verse six says, "But without faith it is impossible to please him (speaking of God); for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."  If it is impossible to be saved without faith, we surely can't expect God to work in our lives if we don't have faith!

       Now, the good news is that we don't need an enormous amount of faith in order to see God work in our lives.  One of my favorite verses on faith is Mark 9:24, which says this, "And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."  In the very next verse, Jesus cast a devil out of the man's son.  This man didn't have a great amount of faith; he simply believed!

       God wants to do the impossible in, and through, His children.  II Chronicles 16:9 says, "For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him."  The question is, "Will we have faith?"