Using Your Faith to Make Waves in the Kingdom of God
Have you ever witnessed the power of waves in water?
They’re big, dynamic forces that can transform everything around them. Just as waves are created by energy passing through water, you too can create waves in the world through your faith in Jesus!
When you pray, you activate God’s movement, and you can witness change all around you! This book encourages you to pray boldly—ask God for things that may seem impossible, and watch as He works miracles in your life!
What You Will Discover:
The Power of Collective Faith: Just as a wave is formed by countless tiny water molecules, your faith can create significant impact when combined with others. One small act of faith may seem insignificant, but together, we can create monumental movements for God’s kingdom.
Nature’s Metaphor for Spiritual Waves: Explore the fascinating nature of waves—how they are driven by wind, tides, and even seismic events. Similarly, your faith can be propelled by divine inspiration, urging you to influence change in your community and beyond.
Cultural Waves: Just like trends that start small and grow into massive movements, your faith journey can inspire others. From tetherball to Pokémon cards, witness how small beginnings can lead to something extraordinary. Your faith can spark a wave that impacts lives!
The Longing for Connection: Deep down, we all desire to be part of something bigger than ourselves. You were not meant to be an isolated molecule; you were designed to make a difference in this vast world. This book helps you connect with that longing and embrace your role in God’s grand design.
Navigating Life’s Ocean: Life is full of ups and downs, just like the tides. You’ll learn how to navigate through challenges while maintaining your faith, even when facing turbulent waters. God is always with you, ready to catch you when fear threatens to overwhelm you.
Taking Bold Steps of Faith: Embrace the courage to take that first bold step of faith, even when it feels daunting. This book reassures you that God walks with you through every moment of fear and uncertainty.
Daring to Ask for the Impossible: Don’t hesitate to present your biggest dreams and desires to God. What do you have to lose? You might just create a wave of transformation in your life and the lives of those around you!
Why You Should Read This Book:
Using Your Faith to Make Waves in the Kingdom of God is a motivating and inspiring guide for anyone looking to deepen their faith and create meaningful change in their lives and communities. This book empowers you to harness the incredible power of faith to make a lasting impact.
If you’re ready to ride the waves of faith and transform your world, get your copy of Using Your Faith to Make Waves in the Kingdom of God today and embark on a journey that could change everything!
Take A Peak Inside The Book…Introduction
Faith That’s Ready In An Uncertain World
As the amazing story goes, he must have been in a hurry to get home to see his wonderful family. That’s the only reason his friends could think of to explain why Thomas Burnett of San Ramon, California changed his reservations and took an earlier flight on that Tuesday morning. All his friends knew how much he loved his wife and his three daughters. No doubt he was eager to get back home from his business trip. That’s why he ended up on United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco.
What happened next didn’t surprise any of his friends at all. As a senior officer of a powerful medical research firm, he was known as a real take-charge kind of guy. A leader of leaders. He had even been the quarterback of local his high school football team in Bloomington, Minnesota, and the president of his fraternity at the University of Minnesota. If there was any problem or a crisis at hand, Thomas Burnett liked to face it head-on and solve it.
And that’s just exactly what he did when the hijackers took over the airplane. The passengers had already heard about the other planes that struck the World Trade Center in New York City. Sensing that they were destined for a similar fate if something wasn’t done to derail the hijackers’ plans. The male passengers of the plane decided to make a stand right there on the plane.
Exactly what happened in the next few minutes is a matter of conjecture for nobody really knows for sure. Perhaps we will never know the full story this side of heaven. But we do know that Thomas Burnett called his wife with the ominous news that his flight had been hijacked. After filling her in on the details, he declared, “We’re all gonna die, but three of us are going to do something here.” Then he added, “I love you, honey,” and hung up.
A few minutes later Flight 93 crashed into the woods near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Thomas Burnett was only 38 years old. He is survived by his wife Deena, and three children, twins Madison and Halley, both 5, and Anna-Claire, 4.
Many Times, I’ve thought About It And Thought What Would I Have Done?
In the many days and years since then many of us have wondered to ourselves what we would have done if we had been on that flight. Would we have joined the others in an attempt to overpower the hijackers? Would we have risked everything, knowing we were going to die anyway?
It is said that the crisis never made any man, it only reveals what and who he already is. That thought is both comforting and frightening at the same time because we all wonder how we would actually react if everything we held dear was really on the line.
You know Our family …Our health …Our career …Our future …Even our very life …We wonder—would we have the faith to make it? Or would we collapse under the weight of the pressure of such an important decision? All the things we say we believe—would they still be enough when the crunch actually comes?
That morning was the longest week that any of us can remember. We all know exactually where we were at when we got the news of the attacks. When the final accounting is done, the terrorist attacks on Tuesday September 11, 2011, will prove to be the single bloodiest day in American history. It now appears likely that well over 5,000 people have died in the various attacks that day.
It may interest you to know that before that week took place in our history, the single bloodiest day in American history took place September 17, 1862, at the Battle of Antietam during the Civil War when 4,700 soldiers on both sides died. Then again on December 7, 1941, 2,388 American soldiers were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. And again 1,465 American servicemen died on D-Day, June 6, 1944.
It is still hard to believe, isn’t it? Suppose that one week before someone had said to you, “Someday hijackers will fly planes into the World Trade Center and destroy both towers. Another plane will be flown into the Pentagon, and still another hijacked plane will crash near Pittsburgh. And both Air Force One and the White House will come under a terrorist threat.” This very notion sounds absolutely absurd, doesn’t it? That sort of thing doesn’t happen in the great United States of America. Or so we thought. That awful Tuesday morning changed everything for all the time. As I’m writing this, I’m thinking about a Grecian Cruise that my wife and I are taking in a couple weeks. And guess what, we are flying on September 11th.
As Christians we say we live by faith. But what does it mean to live by faith in a world where mighty skyscrapers crumble into mere dust and thousands of people suddenly die prematurely? Many unknowing people wonder where God in the midst of is with all this unthinkable tragedy. And what does faith in God look like at the end of such a terrible week?
There are many places all throughout the bible where we see people’s questions. In this opening chapter or introduction of this book I want to focus our thinking on a passage that I have often turned to in times of sorrow and personal crisis in my own life.
How do you live by faith when the world itself seems to shake beneath your feet? When your world is quaking it’s so hard to stand up straight and strong.
So, in order to understand the answer to that question, I would like to focus our attention on Hebrews chapter 11. Not the whole chapter, but on one man, Abraham. And not his whole story, but just the record of his journey to the Promised Land. The long version of Abraham’s life is given in Genesis. This short chapter is just a short summary.
Let’s start with some brief facts about Abraham. When we meet him in the Bible, he is living 4,000 years ago in a far-off place called Ur of the Chaldees which is located on the banks of the Euphrates River not far from the mouth of the Persian Gulf. No doubt he and his wife Sarah worshiped the moon-god Sin. Beside that he is a really prosperous, middle-aged man, successful by any human standard.
Life has been really good for Abram and Sarah, certainly they had no reason to complain about their lives. It is at precisely this moment that God speaks to him—in a very clear and unmistakably way. What God says that night to him when he can’t sleep will change his life forever, and ultimately alter the entire course of world human history.
Faith Actually Means Accepting God’s Call Without Knowing Where It Will Lead You
“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as an inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8).
There is only one way to describe Ur of the Chaldees. It was known as a world-class city of its time. A place where things happened. Archeologists even tell us that in Abraham’s day perhaps 250,000 people actually lived there behind its great walls. It was a center of math, astronomy, all commerce, and philosophy. People from outlying areas even moved to Ur because they wanted to be part of that great city and all its splendor. No doubt many of Abraham’s friends thought he was crazy. Why in the world would anyone want to leave a place like Ur?
For him obeying God’s call meant giving up his friends and family, his career, his traditions, his home, his position, his influence, and even his country. More than that, it meant risking his health at such an age and his future on a vague promise from an unseen God to lead him to a “land that I will show you” (see Genesis 12:1-3). So, when Abraham left Ur, he burned his bridges behind him. For him there could be no turning back ever. Once he left the protective walls of the city of Ur, he was on his own, following God’s call into the unknown wherever it led him. You say, “He gave all that up?” “Yes.” “That’s kind of strange, isn’t it?” “Is it really my friend?” No Guarantees just promises from and a God he didn’t even really know.
Please don’t miss the main point of the story. When God calls us to do something or go somewhere, there are no guarantees about tomorrow. Abraham truly didn’t know where he was going, and he didn’t even know how he would get there. He didn’t know how long it would take him, and he certainly didn’t even know for sure how he would know he was there when he got there. All he really knew was that God had called him. Period. Everything else was up in the air. So, do you want to live a long life? So, do I.
You want to rise in your profession? So, do I. You want lots of friends? So, do I. You want to live long enough to see your grandchildren playing at your feet? So, do I. There is nothing wrong with all those desires. Nearly all of us feel that way about certain things in life. But living a life by faith means no guarantees and no certainty about the future. If you truly want to do God’s will, sometimes you will find yourself exactly where Abraham was—setting out on a new journey that doesn’t seem to make sense from the world’s point of view.
Hebrews chapter 11:8 says he “obeyed and went.” There is no greater miracle in his life than that. Everything else that happened flows from that one basic decision. God called, and he obeyed. That truth is the secret of his successful life. He stepped out in faith even though there were no guarantees about his own personal future.
Now think about his true scenario that actually did happen. It’s a Monday night in New York City. Thousands of people are watching the Monday night football game between the New York Giants and the Denver Broncos. On Tuesday morning many of the disappointed New York fans who rode the subway to work discussed with their friends the rather dismal performance of their Giants the night before. Many of those faithful fans eventually made their way to the World Trade Center to begin a new day’s work. Little did they know they had watched the last football game of their life. They had no idea what was about to happen in just a few minutes.
At precisely 8:45 a.m. the first plane slams into the north tower of the World Trade Center. Shortly after 9:00 a.m. a second plane slams into the south tower of the World Trade Center. Hundreds of people die immediately. Thousands of innocent people will die when the towers finally collapse a few minutes later.
Among the passengers on the first plane to hit the World Trade Center was Jeff Mladenik, who was an associate pastor of Christ Church in Oak Brook, a Chicago suburb not far from Oak Park. His particular calling was to find ways to encourage Christians to live out their faith boldly and creatively in the marketplace. That is a noble and very much-needed ministry in our modern consumer minded day.
So, we have to ask a few questions at this point. Was his faith weak? That’s a big No. Had he sinned? No. Was he somehow out of God’s will? No. Did God make a mistake? No. Did God break his promise? No. Did he plan to die that day? Absolutely not. Pastor Mladenik was in the will of God when he boarded that plane, and he was in the will of God when he died in the terrible crash.
It is also good to recall what soldiers are told by their commanders before a battle begins: “You have to go. You don’t have to come back.” The same is true for the soldiers in the army of the Lord. When Christ calls, we have to go. We don’t have to come back.
Living a life by faith and walking with God with the faith walk means stepping out for God and leaving the results to him. It’s no guarantee of long life and good success. No matter what the TV preachers are telling you. You may have it. But you may not. The life of faith means, “I am going to be the man or woman God wants me to be no matter where it leads me. I don’t know the future, but I’m trusting him to work out all the details of my life. In the meantime, I step out by faith and follow wherever he leads me.”