Faith, Gratitude, and Dependence on God

So, how do people feed their faith?

Okay, we're talking enough about the fearful people. The people who feed their faith do the opposite of those who feed their fear. Let me give you an example: fear causes us to forget the good things God has done for us. Faith causes us to remember the good things God has done for us. Totally opposite.

You show me a person of faith, and they'll tell you, "Oh, I remember when God did this for me," and, "Oh my gosh, God did that for me." I'm telling you, there was a time when God— and they're always remembering. They just know; they remember. "Look what God did for me." They are constantly in an attitude of gratitude.

To David, from James 1:17, "Every good and perfect gift comes from God." And that's how they feel. They just say everything comes from God. I know we have Thanksgiving this Thursday, but listen, I'm telling you, these people are just not into Thanksgiving; they're into thanks-living. It's something they do all the time. This is something they do every day. They're just grateful for God and what He has done.

My father turned 95 this week, and so we're going up to be with him at my brother's ranch. The kids, the grandkids, we're all going. It's kind of good. He's still doing good, but he's just not quite as strong as he was. In fact, he's the chaplain of the assisted living facility, and he's got some lower back issues, so he had to give that up.

Mark and I were with him last Sunday, and he was so excited. He said, "You know, I had to give up my— I don't go around visiting the people now. I can't quite do that now." But he said, "I started a new ministry. I've got a telephone ministry now, and it's amazing." He said, "People can call in now, and I pray for them." He said, "I just hand my number everywhere and just say, 'Need prayer? Just call me.'" And he said, "The phone's ringing off the hook."

Isn't it beautiful? A 95-year-old man can't walk around and really help people like he wants to, so he's got a telephone ministry. My dad's going to live till he dies, and he's not going to get confused like most people do. I know a bunch of people; they're already dead; they just haven't made it official.

People of faith—what do people of faith do? They remember the good things. They remember the good things that God has done. An attitude is contagious, isn't that true? Birds of a feather flock together. That's why people of faith flock together, and people of fear flock together.

Now, all of us know somebody negative. How many of you know at least one negative person? Raise your hand. Just one? That's good. Yeah, somebody's got two hands up. Some of you are trying. How many of you are sitting beside that person right now? Just—yeah, okay. That second question is an IQ test.

Now, let me help you, though. We all have heard negative people, and they just depress us, don't they? They're like the barometer; they pull us down. But I want to tell you, I have a way that you can never have that happen again. So if you've got somebody who's always negative, let me—this works. It really works. Trust me, I've done this.

This is kind of like my— you know, my name's John; I'm your friend. This really works. If somebody comes up and they're negative and they just start dumping that stuff on you, just take this left hand right here, this finger right here, put it right there. You've got to be coordinated; do this. Close your eyes. They will stop immediately. Trust me, I've done it; this works every time.

What's really beautiful is all you have to do is do it once. Just one. If they ever do it again, all you've got to do is get about right here. You follow me? I mean, isn't that beautiful? That's all you've got to do.

Now, here's how faith and fear work. See, we never get rid of all fear. We have the negative and the positive within us, and the one that wins out is the one that's more powerful. If fear is stronger than faith, fear will usually win out. If faith is stronger than fear, faith will win.

What we need to do is understand that if we feed that faith, we'll starve that fear. When I was in my late 20s, I really felt God speaking to me about learning to be salt and light and learning to share my faith and lead people to Christ in the secular world. But I was full of fear. I was full of a lot of fear because I had never done this before. I knew that I'd get a lot of people who would say no, and I knew that there would be a lot of people who wouldn't be open to what I shared. I knew that it wasn't always going to be good, and so I had some of this fear, and the fear was a little bit heavier than my faith. It was holding me back.

One day, I was reading in Acts chapter four, and it was about the early church and the early apostles and the leaders who were out witnessing. They were threatened; they were put in prison, they were beaten, they were all gone, but they were threatened. As soon as I saw that, I thought, "Oh, that's exactly how I feel."

But they prayed a prayer, and it was amazing what they said. They said, "God, behold their threatenings." You know, the first thing that they wanted when they felt that fear was to know that God saw their problem. "I just want you, God. Did you see that? Did you see what they're saying? Did you feel that rejection?"

God, "Behold their threatenings." In other words, the first thing we need to do when we have fear is understand that God is aware of everything that we're going through—every fear, every negative thing, every bad thing. Understand God is aware.

The second thing that happened is they said, "Fill us with boldness." They were feeling cold, and they wanted to feel bold. They said, "Fill us with boldness." So they got bold. They said, "Would you do me a favor? The fear is a little bit heavy for me, so could you give me some boldness? I need something to boost my faith to get my faith above that fear."

The third thing they said was, "And God, could we see you do miracles in the lives of people?" In other words, "Could we see your hand? Could we see your hand?"

When I read that, I began to understand very quickly that how you feed your faith is you recognize your problems. Say, "God, I've got a fear here. I've got a problem here. I've got a difficulty with this. This is hard for me. There's a mountain in front of me. I've got this challenge." It's okay to tell God; He already knows. He's aware of where you are. Let Him know. Say, "I've got some fears, so I need some boldness. I need some boldness."

And God, "Can I just see your hand every once in a while? Just work in the lives of the people." You see, fear causes us to despair of our future, but faith enables us to depend upon God for our future.

You see, fear is the result of being self-dependent, and faith is a result of being God-dependent. So how do I feed my faith?

Okay, the story is unfolding now. Gratitude. You feed your faith by being grateful for what God has done for you. It's exactly opposite of people of fear; they don't remember the good things. People of faith remember the good things God has done.

Gratitude. Second is growth. They become people of faith because they do things of faith. They cross the Jordan; they begin to take the risk; they move forward; they begin to grow.

The third area is being God-dependent. They realize that there are things in their world that they have to depend on God for. If they don't depend on God, they will never receive them and never achieve them in their life.

So how do you feed your faith? Gratitude—don't forget what God has done for you. Growth—go forward. Don't wonder; don't be satisfied; don't stay where you are. And become God-dependent.

I was in Washington, D.C., a couple of weeks ago, and wherever I go, a lot of times people give me coins, and they're very popular right now. I had a man come up to me, a leader, and he said, "I want to give you a coin." He said, "I think this is the secret to the Christian faith and walk." So I thanked him and stuck it in my pocket. I really didn't even look at it.

Later on, when I got in the car to go back to the plane, I pulled it out, and I looked at it. On one side, it has gratitude, and on the other side, it has dependence. I thought, "How true that is! Be grateful and remember every good thing that God has done for you, but be dependent." Because those fears and all the things that you're going to face in the future, you need God.

In fact, I'll tell you how we're supposed to be in a relationship with Him. It's the story that I love so well in Luke chapter 18. People brought babies to Jesus, hoping that He might touch them. When the disciples saw it, they shooed them off. Jesus called them back. "Let these children alone. Don't get between them and me. These children are the kingdom's pride and joy. Mark this: unless you accept God's kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you're never going to get in."

What is a child? A child is dependent—dependent on God, dependent on a parent.

When I was young in my ministry, there was a passage of Scripture that bothered me, and I wrestled with it for probably six months. I wrestled with God over this. Jesus said, "Without me, you can do nothing." I couldn't figure that verse out because I said, "Man, I don't mean to sound unkind, but I'm doing a lot of things without God." I'd make my list and say, "God, I did this, I did this, I did this." I wasn't trying to be aloof; I wasn't trying to be arrogant. I was just having a hard time with, "Without me, you can do nothing."

Then one day, I just learned and sat at His feet, and He said, "What that means, John, is without me, you can do nothing of eternal consequences. There's nothing that is going to be eternal that you can do. You have to depend on me for every eternal thing."

Because I'm a person of eternal values, every day I basically pray this kind of like this declaration of dependence with God. I basically say, "I don't know who I'm going to see. I don't know where I'm going to go. I don't know what I'm going to be interacting with and who I'm going to be acting with. But God, here's what I want: I want you to do eternal things through my life today. I don't want to do wood, hay, and stubble."

Why would I want to do wood, hay, and stubble? Well, I know that's what I do; that's what Maxwell does. I want to do the eternal stuff. I grew up with a plaque in our home that said, "Only one life, it'll soon be passed, and only what's done for God will last."

That's God dependency. When you and I just depend on God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.

There was a little song, a little chorus that we used to sing a long time ago. This is going to date me. I'm going to give it to you, and probably none of you have heard it, but it was a beautiful, simple chorus called "Learning to Lean."

"Learning to lean, I'm learning to lean on Jesus, and I'm finding more power than I ever dreamed."

Why? Because I'm learning to lean on Jesus.

It goes something like this: "Learning to lean, learning to lean, I'm learning to lean on Jesus. I'm finding more power than I ever dreamed. I'm learning to lean on Jesus."

Now, how many of you have ever heard that? Ten of you? It's just pathetic how uneducated all of you are.

So let's—it's "Learning to lean, learning to lean. I'm learning to lean on Jesus. I'm finding more power than I ever dreamed. I'm learning to lean on Jesus."

Sing it with me, would you? "Learning to lean, learning to lean. I'm learning to lean on Jesus. I'm finding more power than I ever dreamed. I'm learning to lean on Jesus."

So that's pretty good. Again with me: "Learning to lean, I'm learning to lean on Jesus. I'm finding more power than I ever dreamed. I'm learning to lean on Jesus."

And when you learn to lean on Jesus, do what He tells you to do. Lean harder. Lean harder. Cast all your anxieties, your fears on Him.