Beyond the Intellect

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)