Faith is a supernatural force.

I hinted early at something of the supernatural, something like a little piece of God that might reside with each of us, an inheritance, but not a superior part, but a shadow of the Father, a shading of the Master.

Lucifer was said to be important at one time among God's ethereal underlings, until he sought to challenge God and take over dominance of all.

Of course, he was defeated, but is said to monkey with us still today.

But of our supernatural power, we are "the righteousness of God", as faith finds favor for the believer, and of course, we love Him, because He first loved us.  Paul says of the early church not only that there were roles in the church, but that there were different spiritual gifts distributed among the believers, like healing or the interpretation of tongues.

In today's vernacular, some are called or anointed to preach or pastor, but what of the other gifts?  Have these been lost?

I note also, that to heal and cast out demons, Christ himself said it took a lot of prayer and fasting.  Observe that he stepped away alone as if to both pray and fast after feeding the multitude, which was a bona fide miracle.

And of Peter and the earlier note that he may have for a second or two actual stood on water, and then, only then, began to sink beneath the waves.....  Remember that his faith burned hot at times, but of course, he was the one who denied Christ three times for fear of his own punishment at the hands of the Sanhedrin.  Despite all that, it was the peaks of his faith that seemed to resonate, such as the move of the spirit on the Day of Pentecost, or the dialogue where Christ vows to build his church with Peter as the cornerstone.

The point was, though that faith flagged at times, when it was hot, it was full.  Think of the mighty wind on the Day of Pentecost.  That spectacular move of the spirit of which Peter was a component and leader.  He was not the only of the Apostles there, but he was the leader.

And it was Christ himself who compared a grain of faith to a mustard seed, but he said just a little could accomplish so much.  Nevermind the harvest motif set up so often in financial terms.  For spiritual work, spiritual reward, maybe, and for the work of men, payment in their terms.

But so much we look to early deaths, or disease, even suicides as the work of a God that we in other moments call loving and just.  But there are men at work, and there is Lucifer/Satan at work to thwart salvations.  Satan would be the ultimate questioner, denier, and at his core, a top-ranked contrarian.

There was a man that had gone through a bad time, a time of mental illness, and he studied, and was ordained as a minister.  There were tales of him during recovery quoting long passages of scripture word for word.  He held to that and gave something of his life to the lord, and later he would be called in his early middle age home to the Lord.  

Some might say, "that's God's plan", but what of the enemy?  What of the enemy taking an evangelist out of the world?  With but a breath this way or that on a steering wheel, something so easy to accomplish such a major result, and cause the Christians a loss.  It's like Job who Satan set a personal mission to cause to renounce God.  In that plan, he killed Job's children and ruined most of his possessions.  He had, poor Job, in the end, only his wife, who begged him to renounce his God, after all the heartache and loss.

But he did not, because his faith in God was beyond worldly circumstance.  We don't drop an ice cream cone on the pavement by accident, and let that cause us to curse God.  It so much more important, with such larger consequences.  Believers keep the faith, not because their parents taught it to them, but its confirmed in each of them through the physical world, scripture, and homily.

It's like being given a car, if you can imagine a blind man or a young child being given a big shiny automobile.  One learns, one progresses, and faith grows and builds and takes new forms, like muscle tissue or patterns in the brain's networking of neurons.

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