What Does Jesus Have to Say about Faith, Determination and Success?

Is He For or Against it?

By James Banfield

Here are some questions I'd like to throw out to you,

1. Is Jesus for folks being equal or is he for folks striving to be the best they can be?

2. Is Jesus for people taking care of people or is he for the government to take care of them?

3. Is Jesus for those who are lazy with no drive or is he for those who step out in Faith, Determination and Success ?

4. Is Jesus for all to be the same, with no vision, no dreams, no personal accomplishment?

These are loaded questions aren't they? Not only that but in every case those who have actually read the bible would have easily come up with two or three scripture verses that would support each of those questions for instance:

1. To me personally the answer to this is 2 Tim 2:15 “ Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth ” Does this not show that God/Jesus is desiring us to make ourselves better by studying the Word of God and striving to be the best we can be? .

2. This one to me is Matthew 22:20-22 “And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? 21 They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's. 22 When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way. ” Why would I chose that scripture? This has to do with taxes? Right? No … what it has to do with is what is the government's business, what is the church's business and what is your business and responsibilities.

3. The parable of the talents is the best answer for this one. I could show the whole story of the Talents but to suffice only Matt 25:25-28 is enough to show the intent of this article. . 25 And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. 26 His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: 27 Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. 28 Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents . This is a classic case that definitely shows that the Lord wants us to be successful and he wants us to use what we have available to strive to do better and increase our holdings, be it money or talent to be used to bring in the increase. This one particular parable irks me to no end when I hear preachers preach on this using it for tithing. It is not about money, it is about using what the Lord gave you to use as He did, in building up the “business”. You want to know what the talents were? Its simple, just ask this one question of yourself, what business was the Lord in? “Saving Souls ” so the talents must be the “tools” that he used to “build the business”. He gave those same tools to us. So What are they? The 9 gifts of the Spirit! But that's another article...

4. Everyone the same, no dreams, no personal accomplishment, no vision? This one really pertains to Proverbs 29:18 “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he” What does this say? It's pretty clear, The Lord wants the people to have vision, a goal, to strive for something. Where there is no drive to improve oneself there be no vision. Where there is no determination to make one better themselves there is no vision. And this, where there is no drive to succeed there is no vision and all becomes a dead weight to be rid of for there is no production, no generation of productivity and they become “wards of the government” And it is only natural for the government to want to rid of the waste or dead weight that is not pulling its own weight in the whole of the national picture of things, hence uselessness gets rewarded with euthanasia. Medical care gets determined by the future worthiness of the person to generate productivity vs non-productivity. It becomes impersonal, which as we see already the ObamaCare Package has already begun to slide over that way of thinking and providing.

So, now what I would like to do is give a really good example from the scriptures of Faith, Determination and Success All of which the Lord loves to see happen. The scripture I am going to use is the one about the man who was lowered through the roof for the Lord to heal. It is a fantastic story of Faith, Determination, and Success!

Luke 5:17-26 And it came to pass on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judaea, and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was present to heal them. 18 And, behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy: and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before him. 19 And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude , they went upon the housetop, and let him down through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus. 20 And when he saw their fait h, he said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee. 21 And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone? 22 But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answering said unto them, What reason ye in your hearts? 23 Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk? 24 But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, (he said unto the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house. 25 And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God. 26 And they were all amazed, and they glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange things to day.

Mark 2:1-12 1 And again he entered into Capernaum, after some days; and it was noised that he was in the house. 2 And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them. 3 And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four. 4 And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. 6 But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, 7 Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only? 8 And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? 9 Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? 10 But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) 11 I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house. 12 And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion. ”

Now here is what I wanted to show in this episode. They were in Capernaum, which was where Jesus lived during his ministry. It was a sort of Base of Operations. Word got out that the Lord was “ In the house ”. I ask whose house? Seeing that he was in his home city, it must have been His house. When the Word got out that Jesus was home and was preaching to the masses, the people came. They sat in windows, stood in doorways, crowded the “living room” so that all could hear HIM. Now, imagine a man with palsy strapped to a stretcher. The four friends of the man with palsy ( which was borne of four.)  One on each end of the stretcher. Imagine his four friends trying to get into the house to bring the man with palsy to Jesus? It was jammed packed. They could not get in! No one would let them in either through the windows, nor through the doorways, nobody would let them in! With faith and determination they searched for a way to get him to Jesus. They discovered some rope and found that the tile over the “living room” was loose enough to remove the tiles and lower the man with palsy down through the roof to Jesus. Remember Verse 5? “ Jesus Saw their Faith” He also saw their determination! For he knew what they had to go through and still not be able to get in through the crowd, Jesus knew the determination that the friends of the man with palsy had when they began to remove the tiles in the roof to expose a way for them to lower their friend down to the Lord. Jesus knew the love they had for the man with palsy in-order to have that dogged determination and faith to get it done. Jesus, seeing this awesome FAITH of his friends had to have had a smile, seeing them lowering him down to Jesus and I, in writing the movie “ The Word From Galilee ” had the friends stop for just a minute when “Ari” was eye level with Jesus and saw that glint in Jesus' eyes, for it is Our Faith that trips Jesus' trigger every time! Jesus wanted to show not only the people who were in that house, but the Pharisees and Saddecees and Scribes that God heals when he sees the FAITH and The Determination being exhibited on our part.

FAITH – DETERMINATION - SUCCESS That is what we are supposed to do, have the faith, have the determination and with those two ingredients Success will come. But when you have an atmosphere that erodes; the drive to excel,  the drive to better one's self, you lose not only success but you lose the determination to excel to become better and once you lose the determination you lose the Faith.

Jesus is against anything that destroys the will, the determination, and the faith

of one who is trying to be a success.

In conclusion I think it is safe to say, that the course this government is on is not of the Lord. It takes away the will to succeed. It takes away the determination to strive to make better. It takes away vision. It takes away the drive to be successful in business and in public life. When you take away all that, where is the source that the government depends on to keep supplying its greed to feed upon the people to survive? Its gone, people with no jobs cannot contribute to the government's appetite for money. In order to stop the government in its suicidal spin to self destruct, it must stop the raising of taxes. It must back out of personal lives, business lives, State, city and county business. The Federal government must regress back to its original responsibilities. Protect the land against all enemies both foreign and domestic. That figures in Terrorist Activities, Border Control, The Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force. It means also to come against all attacks on the US Constitution. That includes challenges on all the Amendments. “In God We Trust” must remain in Our Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches as the foundation of everything we do as a country. We got away from the Lord who was guiding us and helping us along the way. We turned our backs on Him and so did HE. Again, 2 Chronicles 7:14 has a definite bearing on all of us as Americans.

2 Chronicles 7:14 , “ If MY people who called by My Name shall humble themselves, Pray, seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”   America, you think this is a joke? Keep on the course you are on and you will see that it is not. We as a country need to turn from our wicked ways and turn back to God. .Then HE will right the ship and get us back on track, including the crazy debt our do nothing congress has piled up over the last 8 years.

What Does Jesus Have to Say about Faith, Determination and Success?

Is He For or Against it?

By James Banfield