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 FAITH IS GROUNDED IN GOD

In Luke's Gospel, Chapter 8 and verses 22-25, we find Jesus asleep in the back of the boat as it was crossing over the Sea of Galilee. There was a raging storm threatening to sink the boat and the disciples were terrified. They woke Jesus up saying, "Master, Master!!! We're going to drown!" Jesus gets up, tells the storm to stop and it stops immediately. He then turns to His disciples and asks. "Where is your faith?" In Matthew 8:23-27 the same event is recorded, and Jesus says, "Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!"

People have read into these passages an idea that faith is some sort of quantifiable "stuff" that if you have a proverbial "bucket-full" of it, you can make things happen. That is sheer silliness. Jesus was speaking to His disciples then and now that trying to have living faith in anyone else but Him is puny and sheer folly.

In Romans 10:17 we read, "Faith comes by hearing the Word of God, His Good News." Faith is a born response of trust and reliance upon what God has said, His promises. When God speaks, it is as good as "done" even before we can see it. Confidence that what we hope for will actually happen is the essence of faith. Hope is not wistful thinking. True hope is grounded in something solid, reliable and trustworthy. When God speaks, we can believe Him. That "believing" will result is us living very differently than if we were trusting in our own finite resources and wisdom.

If you read Genesis 4:6-7 you will see the conversation God had with Cain. The Lord tells Cain that if he does what he knows is right, his sacrifices will be accepted; things will go well. That indicates that God has already communicated with Cain as clearly as He had to Able what was necessary for true worship. Taking God at His Word, trusting Him, we can do what He says to do. Trusting in anything short of that will ultimately end in disaster.

God's Word is not empty. It does not call for religious "busy work." In fact, the Will of God revealed in the Word of God is the only reasonable thing to rely on and act on because it makes for life in its fullness, human flourishing. None of God's promises are empty. They are all fulfilled in the Person of Jesus Christ.

If you will read through Hebrews chapter eleven, you will find recorded the lives of people who lived by faith. Read carefully, for the faith they lived by, that they acted out of was ALWAYS a response to God having spoken to them, having revealed His Word to them. It was THAT WORD that they acted on believing God, believing He had told them the truth, believing that what God had declared would come to pass. For all of them, it was never the "quantity" of their faith, but the fact that the Object of their faith was God alone. The substance of their faith was the Word of God revealed/spoken to them.

Their faith was demonstrated by their obedience to what God had revealed to them even when such obedience and trust cost them their mortal lives. The reputation of these people of faith was remembered because their faith was in God alone, in His Word alone, relying on His power alone to enable them to live out their faith in obedience.

Remember, Jesus said that if we had faith the size of a mustard seed and God told us to do something monumental, we would be able to do what God had told us to because God's Power is manifested through His Word. Noah could build a huge ark because God told him to. Abraham could, with confidence, leave all the security of place and family and go somewhere else without knowing where in the world he was going because God told him to go, and that God would lead him.

When the Eternal Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the object and ground of your faith, its focus and touchstone, and God's word is the substance of your faith, living in faith can become a reality. God, Himself, will enable, strengthen and confirm your faith in Him. He is eternally faithful and worthy of believing, obeying, relying on and hoping in. His Word is eternally reliable. He speaks, and things that had never existed, began to exist. He can give you a new heart, a new spirit, a new and eternal life. Receive His Word spoken and live!

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