Life Well Inspired

FaithText

Faith.  Everyone has it.  As we read in Hebrews 11, “faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”  The question becomes from where does our hope and assurance come?

John Whitcomb, Jr so eloquently makes this contrast about faith in his book, The Early Earth:

By faith the evolutionist understands that the organic world was framed by chance in contradiction to the present biological processes.

By faith, the Christian understands that the organic world was created by the spoken word of an infinitely powerful, omniscient personal God as witnessed by the infallible Scriptures and by the obvious discontinuities in the fossil record and in biological systems today.

Clearly, it is not enough just to have faith.  In what do we have faith?  As Christians, our faith must be rooted in Christ or else all we labor for will be in vain.  As we read further into chapter 11 of Hebrews, we find a beautiful testimony to the Old Testament heros given to us as examples of faith for us to follow.

Interestingly enough, the very first example of faith is directly from Genesis 1, not of a person but of God himself and his work.    In Hebrews 11:3 we read

“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.”
~ Hebrews 11:3

The foundation of our faith needs to be a wholehearted belief in God’s work of creation.  Jesus himself spoke these words to the Pharisees:

“If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”
~ John 5:46-47

And it’s Moses who tells the story of the history of the world for us in the first 5 books of the Bible.  More and more, little by little, science is proving the case for creation and validating Moses’s account.  When our minds cannot comprehend God’s ways, we need to believe with faith rather then doubt.

To unpack Hebrews 11:1 just a little bit, we need to look at the order in which God created the world.  God created the day and night, then the sky and separated it from the water.  He followed that with vegetation, then the sun moon and stars.  Next came the marine life and then lastly humankind.

Did you notice that the sun was created after the vegetation? It is interesting to see that the plants were living and producing seed and fruit without the sun.  Today we know that plants need sunlight to grow and complete their life cycles, but God created the plants without the help of the sun.

It was God and his command alone that brought the world into existence and sustained it during the creation process.  We do not see things being created on a tier process where one could be used to develop the next.  No, rather we see God completely creating and sustaining his creation one piece at a time.  He truly made what is seen out of what was not visible, as Hebrews 11:3 says and we are told we need faith to understand it because we cannot see this being replicated or in motion here in our world today.  Our assurance comes from God’s word and the Holy Spirit.

As we read through Hebrews 11, we find that faith requires us to be walking with God.  Our faith becomes our number one testimony, shown outwardly through the way we live our life.

A few verses come to mind as I think about living our lives in faith that serve to inspire us.

And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God.
~Romans 12:2

And ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with your whole heart.
~ Jeremiah 29:13

For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.
~ Psalm 36:9

Faith seeks God wholeheartedly to renew the mind and find His light and His perfect will.

Faith produces trust, for what we need cannot be seen with human eyes.

Faith causes us to step out and receive God, either for the first time (salvation) or to discover what is good and acceptable, in line with His perfect will.

Faith is a whole-heart endeavor.

Faith is choosing this day whom you will serve because we cannot serve two masters.

Will your faith hope and assurance be in Christ or in the world?

I'd love to know your thoughts!

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