Without faith in
God, you will not make "heads or tails" of God or much of anything
found in the Bible. First we believe;
then we understand. Before our faith
in Him becomes operational, we may be perfectly content with our opinions of
both God and Scripture. However as we
begin to believe in Christ, our ideas get sorted through and most of them we
sheepishly discard. Nothing is more
useless than waiting for God to show Himself to us before we will believe. Faith unlocks the universe of God. By faith, we see Him in our trip to the
store. We see Him during our
illness. We see Him at work and while we
study. Without faith, we have blinders
but the moment we begin our believing, the Lord sneaks into view. Moses' parents saw God as their son was
lifted out of the basket by the Egyptian princess. Abraham saw God as he began his journey away
from Ur. Paul saw God following His
baptism. If God tells us that faith in
Him is required to access knowledge of Him, why would we take faith so lightly
in our daily operations? In Jesus'
hometown, He showed only a bit of Himself and most did not even see that
because their faith was impoverished. And he did not do many miracles there because of
their lack of faith. (Matthew 13:58 NIV) Too many in the Christian community have a
wait and see attitude toward God when they ought to be crying out to Him like
the apostles, "Increase our faith!"
(Luke 17: 5 NIV) Until our faith begins
to leap out of our chests, we ought to have little to say about God, miracles
or the Bible. We are as ignorant in our
understanding of them as little children trying to explain quantum mechanics if
we lack faith. Our intellect must align
with developing faith if we are to know anything of substance in the realm
where God lives and has His being.
Someone somewhere who claims theological authority decided this is not
the age of miracles but it was not God who made that determination. There are
only two camps...one comprised of those who live by faith and one for those who
live by sight. The faith camp keeps
catching glimpses of God but the sight camp is as blind as a bat and oblivious
to the supernatural handiwork of God.
What have you seen lately? Have
you been living by faith?
We live by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7 NIV)
1 comment:
Greg, I am trying to learn what it means in Hebrews when it says, "Without faith it is impossible to please God." Keith
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