If you could live your life again what would you change?

I was humbled to hear that someone whom I know to have been deeply used of God apparently said towards the end of his manifestly fruitful life and ministry, “I would have believed God for more.”

I absolutely believe in the sovereignty of God in all things. Yet I am challenged by the principle, “According to your faith be it unto you.”

As this Sunday arrives and God’s people gather in thousands of fellowships across Scotland, what are you personally believing God for?

On several occasions over my years as a parish minister, I felt in prayer that certain individuals who did not come to church or who had not been for a while would be there on the following Sunday. I had no reason for thinking that, there was no cause that I could think of that was going to yield that effect. I felt God had simply indicated this would be the case. The first couple of times this happened, I could not believe what I seemed to be thinking or seeing as I prayed. Well, God is merciful, the people concerned were there anyway! God’s merciful help enabled me to believe more and to doubt less the next time I was similarly impressed in prayer. I learned not to ignore these impressions, these encouragements to believe in connection with Sunday services or pastoral visitation.

This has not only worked for me over the years but for others in my congregation. On one occasion someone told me that people who had left without explanation were about to walk back in without any explanation. They did! There they were in the Sunday Morning service which they had not been attending for about two years.

I have never quite managed to understand the mix of the will of God and our faith to produce a certain happening, but I believe it. Now in an “enforced” retirement, I feel the need to understand that mix less and believe in it more.

As I say the gospel will be preached in thousands of places across Scotland, in large city centre churches, in small fellowships of two or three believers gathered together; it will be preached to adults, preached to children and youth, preached in care homes, preached in prisons, in hospitals preached on the street, in churches traditional and mould breaking. What is being believed for in terms of the action of God in these same places?

Praise God that He is able to do abundantly beyond all we ask or think possible. “Only believe….”

God Bless

Kenny