When you read the Bible stories does it ever pique your inquisitive mind? Do you find yourself asking hard questions? For example, in Matthew 15 a woman of Canaan asked Jesus to heal her daughter and He appears to ignore her and even call her a dog. What made her persist? What made her endure this apparent mistreatment without taking offense? 

Or in 2 Kings 5 what made the little maid, slave really, want to help her captor, Naaman, get over his leprosy? Further more, at this time in Biblical history we have no stories of a prophet healing someone of leprosy. What made her think that Elisha in her home country could or even would want to?

Where in the world did Joshua come up with the unheard of idea that he could make the sun and the moon stand still (Josh. 10:12)? Fire walking has been done for a long time but what would make three young men stand up to a king by saying they could survive a blast furnace (Dan 3:17)?

The Bible is chock-full of stories that strain the imagination let alone reason and scientific understanding. The Bible claims that all this was accomplished through faith.  Well what is faith?  With all the people in the Bible as examples of faith it would seem that Christians today would have a clear understanding, and even an ongoing personal experience in faith. No doubt each of us have experienced faith at different times but it is more likely that many of us only bump into it on occasion and that seemingly by accident. 

That’s why we’re taking The Next Step in our study. And perhaps after going through the next two sermons faith will be something we’ll all want to engage in every day! After all, the just shall live by faith! (Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Heb 10:38)

Join us for the sermon Divine Imagination as we unpack the working model of faith.  You can also download and follow along with the handout by clicking this link

The entire Next Step series is available at the Grants Pass Seventh-day Adventist Church Youtube channel.