“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
This is the most succinct definition of faith in the Bible. Until one has true faith in Jesus Christ, the things of the Spirit will not be real. 2 Corinthians 2:14 explains this: “But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.” God is the author of faith, and it is God the Spirit who makes spiritual things real to us; therefore, it is by faith that He makes Himself real to us. We occasionally read of someone who read the Bible and came away from it unconvinced. We wonder how it is possible that something so real to us would mean nothing to them. The answer is printed above from 2 Corinthians 2:14, “But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: they are foolishness unto him.” To the person who does not believe, does not have faith, the Bible is foolishness. Things like the Red Sea being divided, an ax head floating, or water being turned into wine are impossible and could not have happened. He/she is partially right, for without God these things would not be possible. After all, it was Jesus who said, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” (Luke 18:27) We actually use faith every day. For example, each time we sit in a chair, we have faith that it will not collapse. Each time we ride across a bridge, we have faith in the engineering technology that assures us that the bridge will not collapse. When we get into our cars and drive anywhere, we have faith that we will reach our destination. But the faith that makes the unseen real is faith in Jesus Christ – period. We need to have as much faith in Jesus as we have in a chair. We need to trust Jesus when He says that if we will come to Him, He will “give us rest.” (Matthew 11:28) We live victoriously for Jesus when we realize that we can trust Him with our lives and in all of the events of our lives. This does not mean that everything will turn out like we want it to if we trust Christ. It means that however things turn out, we know that it happened for the best and we will be better off for it. Our faith is not real to us until we put it to the test. For example, when God led the Israelites out of Egypt, He did not lead them away from the Red Sea. He led them toward the Red Sea. There are other reasons for this, but I believe that God wanted the Israelites to see that they could trust Him when all else seemed impossible. When the Israelites had the Red Sea before them and Pharaoh’s army behind them, their only hope was in God. They had no avenue of escape until God did something to rescue them. God divided the Red Sea to allow them to pass over to the other side. (This event is in Exodus 14.) If God had not acted on their behalf, Israel would have been captured and returned to slavery in Egypt. The kind of faith that sees the unseen will launch out and follow the will of God, though what it is that God wants of us seems impossible. Instead of following the line of least resistance, we need to trust that God will act on our behalf and see us through. When is the last time you put your faith to the test? When is the last time the church that you attend put faith to the test? We do not realize all that God has for us because fear keeps us from acting on our faith. Churches do not realize all that God has for them, because they let fear keep them from moving forward. If we want to live victoriously for Jesus, we need to step out in faith, even when it would seem foolish to do so. Put your faith in Jesus and let Him show you that He can save you, or that He can get you through what you need to get through today. Faith in Jesus will not only make Him real to us, it will make all of the possibilities that He has for us real as well. Bro. Joe
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
All
Archives
September 2021
|