REPOSTToday’s Spiritual Food for Thought, provided by Cami King, now a friend of AMI, was first posted on October 17, 2015. Cami served faithfully as a staff at several AMI churches in the past.
Spiritual Food for Thought for the Weekend
“Mountain Moving Faith” (A true story)
Ezra 6:8-12
“I also hereby issue orders as to what you are to do with those elders of the Jews in order to rebuild this temple of God. From the royal treasury, from the taxes of Trans-euphrates the complete costs are to be given to these men, so that there may be no interruption of the work. 9 Whatever is needed–whether oxen or rams or lambs or burnt offerings for the God of heaven or wheat or salt or wine or oil, as required by the priests who are in Jerusalem–must be given to them daily without any neglect, 10 so that they may be offering incense to the God of heaven and may be praying for the good fortune of the king and his family.” 11 “I hereby give orders that if anyone changes this directive a beam is to be pulled out from his house and he is to be raised up and impaled on it, and his house is to be reduced to a rubbish heapfor this indiscretion. 12 May God who makes his name to reside there overthrow any king or nation who reaches outto cause such change so as to destroy this temple of God in Jerusalem. I, Darius, have given orders. Let them be carried out with precision!”
One of my favorite words in Scripture is that God “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think according to the power at work within us…” (Ephesians 3:20). After reading the passage above, I’m sure Israel was blown away by God’s provision for them!
A local pastor tells the following story:
A small congregation in the foothills of the Great Smokies built a new sanctuary on a piece of land willed to them by a church member. Ten days before the new church was to open, the local building inspector informed the pastor that the parking lot was inadequate forthe size of the building. Until the church doubled the size of theparking lot, they would not be able to use the new sanctuary. Unfortunately, the church with its undersized parking lot had used every inch of their land except for the mountain against which it had been built. In order to build more parking spaces, they would have to move the mountain out of the back yard.
Undaunted, the pastor announced the next Sunday morning that he would meet that evening with all members who had “mountain moving faith.” They would hold a prayer session asking God to remove the mountain from the back yard and to somehow provide enough money to have it paved and painted before the scheduled opening dedication service thefollowing week. At the appointed time, 24 of the congregation’s 300 members assembled for prayer. They prayed for nearly three hours. At ten o’clock the pastor said the final “Amen.” “We’ll open next Sunday as scheduled,” he assured everyone. “God has never let us down before, and I believe He will be faithful this time too.”The next morning, as he was working in his study, there came a loud knock at the pastor’s door. When he called, “Come in,” a rough looking construction foreman appeared, removing his hard hat as he entered.“Excuse me, Reverend. I’m from Acme Construction Company overin the next county. We’re building a huge new shopping mall overthere and we need some fill dirt. Would you be willing to sell us achunk of that mountain behind the church? We’ll pay you for thedirt we remove and pave all the exposed area free of charge, if wecan have it right away. We can’t do anything else until we get thedirt in and allow it to settle properly.”
The little church was dedicated the next Sunday as originally planned, and there were far more members with “mountain moving faith” on opening Sunday than there had been the previous week! “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work in us, to him be glory” (Eph. 3:20, 21).
Prayer: Lord, may we remember today that we, with mustard seed faith and the Holy Sprit’s power within, can become mountain movers. Help us to continue to trust in You and expect You to move in ways far beyond our wildest dreams in the face of our present struggles. Amen.
Bible Reading for Today: Romans 16