Our Temporal Existence Hebrews 11:1
Hebrews
{11:1} Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen.
Believing without tangible evidence.
Hoping.
We tell people we have faith in them. When we say we have faith in
someone we are telling them that we believe in them. What do we believe
about them? We believe in the goodness of them. We believe that what
they say is true. People can even have faith in bad people that
they'll come through with their *bad* acts. They believe they'll come
through, they have faith. They hope.
People lose faith when those they're believing in fail to prove
trustworthy.
The thing with God is the big picture. The overall plan is always in
affect. We can't separate God from His plan. We can't pick apart
life and put it into our own level, our own life span. God is
eternal, we are temporal with the potential for eternity.
People lose faith in God when they bring Him down to our temporal
lives and pull Him from eternity. We say God has failed to prove
trustworthy when our temporal existence ends up being horrific,
painful, seemingly impossible to bear. God doesn't offer us in our
temporal lives peace and ease, health, wealth, happiness. We bring
Him down to our level and we accuse him of being unfaithful,
untrustworthy, of going back on His promises when it is all untrue.
He promises us eternity through faith, not eternity based on what we
perceive as acts proving Him worthy of our faith here and not in
our temporal existence.
We try to bring God down to our level because we stop thinking
about eternity. We limit ourselves to today, tomorrow, a week, month,
year, several years, our lifetime and it's average span. We
compartmentalize our lives into phases. From about ten years on we
are focused on the future we have- what will we do with our lives?
Graduate High School, go to college, get a job, find a partner,
start a family, plan for the family, plan for many years of existing
and then plan for our death. Our lives have a beginning and an end
and we have no control when either happens. Suddenly we just are
and we know nothing before our own existence except through history,
through what we are told. We exist and we don't know when our
existence will end. We hope to have a long existence but in truth,
we live under the shadow of death always. We will die, we just don't
know when.
When we believe in God we are saying we believe in a life more
meaningful than the one we are offered here and now. No matter how
full the life is, or how empty, God offers us a life beyond that
here and now. He offers us hope. When we grasp that hope we use
faith to make it real to us and incorporate it into our lives.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for...the evidence of things
not seen.
We can't bring God down to our level, we have to raise our hopes to
Him. He has eternity and He offers it to us. Faith goes beyond our
lives it has to or else 'this is as good as it gets'. We get
glimpses of eternity but in the end-- we have to have faith to
grasp it all.
Hebrews {11:1} Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen.
2/6/10
One test after another and they come from such unexpected places and in such unexpected ways. A simple look at the wrong moment and doubt floods us fully, doubts about each other, doubts about life, doubts about ourselves and our Christian walk. Sure we are told we will face many obstacles, we are told our faith will be tried in the fire, yes we are told that suffering is the lot of those who will take up the cross and we believe it, we do and then it begins. Yes, it begins and the trials and tribulations start and Satan will go all out as his reigns are loosed to pound at us. We imagine ourselves strong and ready for the battle that's until a dagger is thrust into our hearts from the most unexpected source- from a loved one. The dagger thrust not once but over and over again, and not all at once but just when we think the wound is healed it's reopened again viciously.
Everyone without exception is to be tried and we're not all going to face the same tests because our lives are all so different. A high profiled person will face tests that fit their life, just as a person in poverty will face their own individual tests. Some might say the poverty alone is the test and others will agree that the life of a rich person has their tests with wealth. Jesus said it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get to heaven and it's true- how many rich people abandon their wealth for God?
Everyone is to be tried without exception and the trying is a personal thing individually crafted to bring us closer to God, closer to the full belief that God is everything while our lives are nothing- our lives are to be sacrificed to Him, living sacrifices.
Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
Our hearts can bleed through the suffering we endure and as they bleed we are--
Rom 8:36 ... killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Psa 44:22 Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
Psa 44:23 Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever.
Psa 44:24 Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?
Psa 44:25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth.
Psa 44:26 Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies' sake.
We can't pick and choose how we are chastened, the chastening comes from completely unexpected places, we can only hope and pray that we will recognize the chastening for what it is and cling to Christ as the pain washes over us time and again and we don't know where our lives are going. As one security after another is ripped from us and we flail about in despair wondering just how will survive may God become ever more real to us. As some tell us we should abandon God because He's abandoned us, let us by the grace of God tell them that no matter what God would never abandon us, we abandon Him. Will our lives be easy for that admission? No. Will the pain lessen or the trials cease? No. One trial might end only for another to begin. By the grace of God may we holdfast to the One with the power to save us from ourselves. Heb 7:25 Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
Heb 12:11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.
By the mercy and grace of our Lord and Savior now and forever.
In Christ.
Amen.