Every Sunday my husband Pastor Rick Tidwell of Ponce Church records his messages. However there are occasions where, because of technical difficulties, some of those messages do not get recorded. This was one of those Sunday’s. Personally I believe it is one of the best messages on faith he has ever taught. Because I believe this without a doubt, I decided to write a blog which contains his notes including my own insights, that can help those who may be struggling in their faith – or who may need some inspiration. I believe that what I am about to share with you has the ability to bring great peace and understanding of how to deal with life and how important it is to look for – The Good Side.
The following is an Excerpt from his opening statement: “Have you ever heard the old expression, “There’s more to him that meets the eye?” Meaning, there is a part or side of him that is hidden. Or, not everything is visible, apparent, evident or perceptible by OUR eyes. Some things are hidden and unseen. The world in general does not look at the hidden or unseen, they in fact look at what they can “see” or how things appear. But to God, the “seen” is not nearly as important as the “unseen”. Just like the unborn chick. We see the “outside” the shell whereas the “unseen” is more important; what’s “inside” of that shell is much more valuable. So we can safely say that there is MORE to life than meets the eye!
1Samuel 16-6-8:
6 When they arrived, Samuel took one look at Eliab and thought, “Surely this is the Lord’s anointed!” 7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
There is ANOTHER side of life–the UNSEEN part of life is the GOOD PART. We need to see the Good! The Bible talks a lot about how the Christian, the follower of Jesus is to live and walk by Faith–The GOOD side of life is found by looking at the “unseen”.
Hebrews 11:1,3, 10, 26,27: says “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. v3 By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen…v 10 Abraham was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God…v 26 & 27 for he was looking ahead to his great reward. It was by faith that Moses left the land of Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger. He kept right on going because he kept his eyes on the one who is invisible. ” Abraham lived in tents and yet by “faith” he looked for a city- Moses left the “treasures of Egypt” and lived in the wilderness for the rest of his life while keeping his “eyes” on the One who is “invisible”. Faith always looks for the GOOD SIDE of LIFE. In life you have to make the effort to look at the GOOD – See the GOOD side of life. The Good is almost always hidden.
Pastor Rick shared how as a young man he heard one of the best teachings on the Greatest Faith in the Bible by Billy Graham. He said he was anticipating to hear “who” it could be. “Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” 43 And Jesus replied, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Luke 23:42,43 It was the thief on the cross. Here was a man who was in one of the most terrible situations in life, dying, nailed to a cross alongside Jesus and for that moment, when no one else believed it, the thief acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ! That took GREAT faith to look at the unseen! JESUS is the GOOD side of Life!
David is another example. He was the youngest of his brothers and he stood up to Goliath, who was much bigger and stronger than he was, and the scriptures say that Goliath “Laughed” at David. But what the Giant did not understand was that the “unseen” was much more powerful than the visible. David took the Goliath down with a sling and one stone!
The Prophet didn’t see a King and Goliath didn’t see a Warrior. Many times in life the good side is NOT visible, it is hidden from our senses.
THE QUESTION TODAY IS: WHAT SIDE OF LIFE AM I LOOKING AT?? Are we looking at the things we DON’T have OR the things we DO have. Faith always looks for and at the Good Side…even if it’s hidden and unseen – Faith ALWAYS finds it!
Another example of faith is found in Mark 5:25-28,34. Here is a woman who suffered a blood disease for 12 years and spent all her money on doctors, but her condition did not get better, in fact her condition became worse. Until one day she heard of another side of life! “A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. 26 She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. 28 For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition…v34 And he (Jesus) said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.” Because of her condition it could have been easy for her to focus only on the bad or dark side of life…but we can see that she heard of another side of life…she chose to turn her attention and focus on the “GOOD SIDE”. She heard that Jesus was coming and she decided right then that she was going to be healed. Had she decided to just wallow in her pity and her condition she would have never tapped into the “unseen” realm, a realm that was more real and more powerful than what she was living in!
Faith helps you to SEE the Good Side of life when there is no good to be seen.
What part of life are you looking at? Faith ALWAYS looks at the GOOD SIDE!
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Pastors Rick and Nina Tidwell are Authors of The Main Thing and The Right Thing
