Published: Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009 / Updated: Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009 12:35 PM
It's all a matter of faith
Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”
A.W. Tozier‘s explanation of this verse is, “Faith is seeing the invisible, but not the non-existent.” Some people think they have no faith. Yet they go to a doctor whose name they can't pronounce, whose degrees they have never verified and receive from him (or her) a prescription they cannot read. They take that to a pharmacist they do not know and he gives them a chemical compound they don't understand. They then go home and take the pill according to the instructions on the bottle.
Now does that take faith, or what?
Biblical faith is believing God when he tells us there is a reality which we cannot see.
It's keeping our eyes on God who controls our circumstances rather than on the circumstances themselves. Faith in God and his word is not a blind leap in the dark. I like Hebrews 11:3:
“By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”
Abraham is called the father of faith by the Jewish people. He waited for a home in the Promised Land. He spent his entire life living in tents and he waited until he was 100 years old for the birth of a son God promised: Isaac.
Hebrews 11:9: “By faith he made his home in the Promised Land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”
Does your faith require you to wait? Do you sometimes feel like you are stuck in an eternal waiting room? Waiting for an answer to prayer, waiting for a job offer, waiting for the results of a medical test, waiting for… (you fill in the blank). Do you feel as if you have prayed all you can, done all you can? Sometimes the greatest proof of your faith is that you simply wait. A faith that pleases God will enable you to wait with confidence.
All the heroes of the faith in the Old Testament waited with faith. Heb. 11:13: “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.”
Gil Kinney is pastor of Real Faith Assembly in Fort Mill.
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