So, you believe, so you have faith!
So you believe, so you have faith! Jan and I seem to hang out with people of faith, that is the new term going around these days. Many will tell you they are believers! As a person who made a living asking questions, the following seem appropriate; what is meant by “I am a believer”? I think I know what you’re saying but what are you a believer in? What does being a person of faith mean, what are you putting faith in?
Believing and being a person of faith is the answer, to living a victorious life. Or is a victorious life found in what you believe or what you have faith in? I am not trying to play games with you, but I do hope to make you think. Each morning when I wake up and put my feet on the floor, I believe I am alive, and I have faith to believe I am alive in that I can do things that only people who are alive can do. I can wiggle my lips and words form, I can smell the coffee, and with the same lips that allow words to form I can drink the nectar of the morning gods. What if you said, prove to me you are alive, it would be easy, I would take you to a morgue and offer the guy on the first slab a great cup of coffee. Would he drink it? No, why, because dead guys do not like coffee, no, because he’s dead to coffee, and everything else, he has an earth suit, but no life.
Today on TV and in print we have people saying “I am a person of faith”, well what does that mean, Faith in what? I could put faith in a great company like 3M, but they could be gone in a few years, it has happened to many companies much larger. I could put my faith in a religion, but that also could be gone or change it views and ways of worship. I could put my faith in myself, in my abilities and skills, but that is a very slippery slide. What about the good old USA and it’s ability to keep me safe, we have seen great nations fall and that is not a good place to place your faith. Many people are putting their faith in their health or their finances but both can be gone in a moment. Therefore it is not faith in faith that has value is it? It would seem the object of our faith is of utmost importance.
The Bible has a lot to say about faith and belief! I went looking in the book of Habakkuk. You say what? The prophet Habakkuk wrote the book of Habakkuk and he is believed to have lived in the Chaldean period. Many scholars fixed the time of the prophecy during the reign of Jehoiakim. The main theme of the book is “The Mysteries of Providence”. The book opens with the prophet in perplexity over the mystery of unpunished evil in the world. Let us look in on some of the conversations going on between Habakkuk and God: “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity, and why do you idly look at wrong? (I could not help but think of today and the news of a young mother of 27 and her child not yet born being killed by they believe the dad. Sorry!) Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; so justice goes forth perverted.” It sounds like Habakkuk has presented a good case in his time or ours.
Look with me to the Lord’s reply: “Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize dwellings not their own.” You can read more of what God had to say if you desire, but in chapter 1:11 God ends this statement with; “Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god!”
Habakkuk is a much better man than I, for he is asking God questions and has believed by faith that the “I AM” will answer and have dialogue with him. So we see in verse twelve that Habakkuk has a second complaint. “Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.” Habakkuk has much more to say but look at God's answer in a vision to Habakkuk. “And the Lord answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; (Now that is a problem in our time, we want it at the moment.) It hastens to the end – it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.”
That is the key, “faith”, but not faith in faith, but faith in “O Lord my God, my Holy One. The eternal God, the "I AM", the one who spoke it all into being, that’s whom you put faith in. And who are the “righteous”? The best definition, of “righteous” is; “A person in right standing with God”. A great example is found in Romans 4:3 “For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” God speaks often in the Bible about “the righteous”, look at this example from Psalm 34:15, “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.” Jesus tells us that a righteous person will have fellowship with the Father and the Son. Look at John 14:15-16 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” I hope you read on to verse 20, it goes like this; “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” Now that is a promise!
Often I have read Scripture and it’s like my grammar, I have little understanding of what to do with what I just read. Often I have not stopped to ask what is a righteous person, not my definition but God’s. So the righteous is to live by faith! We see the faith lived out by Habakkuk in chapter 3:17-18 “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no fold, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.” What did he say? If Habakkuk were living today it would go like this; if the World Bank fails, the stock markets of the world all fail, and the food supply withers away, and you could not find food at your local grocery store, he would still find joy in God.
So faith is very important, in fact, the Scriptures tell us, “And without faith, it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6) But it is not faith in faith, that is very empty and has no value. Learn from the prophet Habakkuk, he knew whom he believed in because he talked with him, and because of that relationship he also put his faith and trust in God. This is one of many things Jesus said about faith. “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.” (John 12:44-46) My hope and prayer is that none who read this have placed their faith in what is seen. The Living Bible is paraphrased and puts it this way. “What is Faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead.” (Hebrews 11:1)
Often while reading something jumps off the page at me, and this paragraph is one of them. “There isn’t any way that we can make life succeed on any other basis than faith in God’s I will. He will do it. That’s the way it works. But it takes time for God to work His I wills into us and supplant our own I wills.” taken from “The Rest of the Gospel” by (Dan Stone and David Gregory). To live a victorious life we must first supplant our own I will be for God’s I will’s. We must believe that God has told the truth, and place our faith in Jesus only. Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) So you believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, so you have faith in Jesus Christ to do all that he promised!
From the Back Porch,
Bob Rice
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