Can You Believe This?
 sermon by Manfred Schreyer

Mat 21:18 Early in the morning, as he was on his way back to the city, he was hungry.:19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, "May you never bear fruit again!" Immediately the tree withered.:20 When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. "How did the fig tree wither so quickly?" they asked. :21 Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done.:22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."

      There is nothing more difficult in the life of a pastor when friends ask to pray with them for something very specific . . . and then prayers do not come true. . .for us!

      From that moment on it becomes very hard for me to explain how God works among us. On the one side we have given ourselves to God; we trust Him with all we have and with our actions we have expectations of God’s love.

      Yet how does this love for God work for us? In our understanding of love . . . love is usually conditional. Our love from our parents is usually conditional, because all of us have experienced actions from our parents. Our parents have lied to us; sometimes they have made us feel less important in comparison to others; they have halted us in our move to greater heights. . . .

      Yes, they love us and they even loved us when they committed these actions, but it leads us to believe that their love for us is conditional.

      And so. . . . in our understanding of God we can feel no different. We transfer this experience of love into an understanding of God’s love for us.

      And out of this understanding of love we recognize that every action in our life is only motivated by two singular emotions: Fear or love. There is NO human action that is NOT motivated by either one of these two emotions.

      The author of a book I read by Donald Walsch calls this "the sponsoring thought" in life.

      Fear and Love are in such great opposites to each other, but every action in our life is run by these two emotions.

      One of the reasons we feel that way now, is because we really do not know who we are! We have never found our true self. We either please others of love or out of fear.

      However, if we would truly know who we are we would live without fear in this world. If we would truly know how magnificent we are, how remarkable we are and if we would recognize the wonderful person God created - we would not fear.

      We have forgotten what it feels like to be loved without condition.

      Fear wraps out body in clothing, Love allows us to stand naked. Remember the story of Adam and Eve? The condition present was the condition of Love by God, but the serpent brought the momentum of fear into the life of the two. The question to Eve if God really said not to eat the fruit . . . the possible fear that God did not want them to know everything as described by the serpent . . . all of this motivated the two to eat that fruit.

      And then they recognized that they were naked (they clothed themselves), they were hiding (in fear) and they lied about their actions.

      And ever since that day . . . we as human kind have been motivated by fear and love.

      From the moment you first said: "I love You" you worry about whether you will hear it back. If you are lucky enough to hear it back you start worrying about losing that love. And with that all action becomes a reaction . . . a defense against loss.

      How strange . . .

      Well, what does that have to do with prayer? I tell you it has everything to do with prayer, because before we pray we have to know who we are. How we see ourselves and how we see our relationship with God.

      I want you to know (as hard as they maybe to understand) that God loves us unconditionally; that you are a wonderful human being, because he created you and he created you with a purpose for this life.

      Secondly I want you to know that He gave you free choice to believe and to do whatever you feel like doing or believe.

      Thirdly: Rely less words given to you by others but rely your feelings in conjunction with words . . . Words are the least reliable source of Truth.

      And now I will come back to the verse where Jesus uses the fig tree to illustrate the power of prayer.

      What Jesus is saying is this: In order for you to experience the power of prayer you must first rid yourself of the sponsoring thought. What is the sponsoring thought? "Fear . . . " . . .and with fear guilt remains existent.

      When you fear, when you are able to set conditions upon events then you will encounter combinations of fear and the wish becomes not true.

      Faith has no fear! Faith is love. Faith is unconditional. Faith is to believe that God is the Alpha and the Omega and that He knows the destination point where you will arrive.

      To experience is what you know. Remember eve. Eve knew not to eat the fruit. God is what you know by your feeling and only then will it become a reality.

      So prayer is really seeking God. Not so much a petition or supplication, but a prayer of thanksgiving.

      Because if we grow closer to ourselves; when we get to know who we are (our true intended being) we can know who God is and understand God.

      In prayer we give way to the ultimate understanding that the outcome is assured. We cannot allow that we are overcome by doubt (fear) the enemy of this life, because if we doubt the outcome we doubt our God and we must live in fear.

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