Skip to main content

 

FAITH...WHAT IS IT?

Hebrews 11:1 “Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.”

Romans 10:17 “So faith comes by hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.”

Faith is not “wistful thinking”, it is not grounded in what we may want to see happen. Faith is not grounded in us at all. Faith is grounded in what God has already said and already done. Faith is grounded in the Word of God, in God Himself. God is eternally faithful to His Word; He does not change; therefore, it does not change. God’s Word is not altered by cultural norms. It is neither modified by human opinion nor by what “trend setters” declare to be in vogue.

I have faith because of what God has said. If God had not spoken long ago through His prophets and in these last days through His Son, Jesus Christ, I could never have faith. Faith is a response of trust and belief in what God says, in what God has done. Faith is not grounded in some philosophical concept, it is grounded in a Person, eternally true, eternally reliable, eternally unchangeable.

God has said that having begun a good work is me, that HE will bring that good work to competition. God has said that I am His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance to actually be my way of life. If anyone is actually in Christ Jesus, they are a new creation. The old life has passed away and all things have become new.

THAT is “the truth” that is being lived out in any follower of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit Who lives the very Life of Jesus Christ in them. That Life living in them is transforming them from the inside out and will be lived through them to demonstrate to the world that Jesus Christ IS risen from the dead and IS Lord of all.

The follower of Jesus Christ, the one who has believed Him, has been given a new heart and a new spirit, a new life. They are NOW a new creation living in resurrection life by the Holy Spirit. If you had not been made holy within, the Holy Spirit would never dwell within you. Your heart is no longer the issue. It is your mind that needs to be renewed, your will reoriented, your emotions harnessed and even your body with its urges and passions subdued to operate in TRUE life. That work is the work of the Holy Spirit in you, enabling you to repent, to trust, to believe, to obey and to follow Jesus rather than the world, the flesh or the devil.

I have yet to “see” all that it means to be a “new creation in Christ Jesus”, but my “not yet seeing it” can never invalidate what God has said He has done and is doing. My hope is not wistful thinking, it is grounded in what God has already said and already done to make all His promises to me, for me and in me, “YES”. God will complete in me what He started. God will give me the discernment and the power to cooperate with Him in the process. God will perfect in me the obedience of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The world is soon to be shaken in ways no one has yet to see. Things will become darker and more perilous on the earth as lawlessness increases. In these last days, as the Apostle Paul prophesied, “there will be very perilous times.  For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly.” 

All that was not only prophesied, it is the atmosphere we now live in; but it has never and will never alter what God has said. I have assurance that as the darkness grows darker, the Light of Christ, the life and ministry on the Holy Spirit manifest through His people will shine brighter and brighter. What God has already done and finished in and through Jesus Christ is the basis of my hope, the immovable ground of my faith.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

 THE FOLLY OF IDOLATRY Martin Luther said that the human heart is an idol factory. The truth is that we were created to know and live by the gracious rule of and in the Presence of God who created us. Our peace, our understanding of meaning and purpose can only be truly grounded in God who created us for that meaning and purpose. The rebellion of Adam and Eve, their decision to do the opposite of what God said would make for life, resulted in spiritual and ultimately physical death. They chose to believe they needed something more than what God had provided. Their doomed attempt to try and live life without reference to God as the ground of meaning and purpose did not make life fuller, but emptied it. They wanted to decide what was good and what was evil without God and the disintegration of human life was the consequence. Rather than living in the Presence of God and by the gracious rule of God all around them, they turned from wholeness to brokenness, from fulfilment to scarc...
Post a Comment
Read more
  TIMING Years ago, I head an old preacher say, “The right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing.” That statement is an offense to the culture being worshipped world-wide today. There is a lust for the immediate, as a line from an old movie stated, “Immediate gratification takes too long!” We want faster internet, immediate responses to our texts, mobile orders at the ready when we walk into Starbucks. What we want, we demand to have NOW. We are masters at justifying ourselves. “Well, we’re engaged already and we’re going to get married anyway, so what’s wrong with us living together and being sexually intimate now?” God’s timing in human relationship is not arbitrary, it is protective and covering. Sad to say, even some who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ choose to justify their living in sexual sin now, because they promise that they will one day get married. The context where sexual intimacy finds its true meaning and purpose is in the covenant of marriage. ...
Post a Comment
Read more
  WORKING AGAINST ALL HUMANITY 1 Thessalonians 2:15-16 “They fail to please God and WORK AGAINST ALL HUMANITY   as they try to keep us from preaching the Good News of salvation to the Gentiles. By doing this, they continue to pile up their sins.” WOW! What a startling statement! St. Paul is making it crystal clear that those who oppose and work to prevent the proclamation of the Gospel are actually “working against ALL HUMANITY.” Why would he write that? It is because the only means of the restoration, reclamation and salvation of humanity is what God has done for all people through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is the essence of the Gospel: Jesus Christ. To oppose and try to silence the presentation of the Gospel is to work against the reclamation of all humanity. Who would want to work against ALL humanity? Satan is the name by which he is known. He hates ALL humanity because every human being still bears the image of God, albeit that ima...
Post a Comment
Read more