Have Faith.
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Hebrews 11:1
This week I taught about the faith of Abraham to twenty-five 3-year-olds at church. Faith is a complex thought and an “idea” which 3-year-olds aren’t quite able to grasp yet. How do you explain this well? Here’s some of what I told them; Who has a subject for prayer? Does your mom, dad, brother, sister, need prayer? Do you want to pray for school? Whatever subject you have, do you believe God can answer that prayer right now? Do you believe He is faithful to do that? He hasn’t done it yet, that you can see, but do you believe? That is faith. I went over this a few times and had games to enforce this truth. But for us, adults who actually can grasp the concept of faith, what does that mean? And what does it mean in our day to day lives or as we walk into our futures?
What situation are you facing? What is going on in your life right now? What requests do you have to present to the Lord? Do you believe, here and now, that He can and will provide for these needs? Have faith. Keep in mind, our “answer”, or thoughts about what the answer to our problems should be, doesn’t always (or often) look like His answer to our problems.
Some translations of Hebrews 11:1 include the word “assurance” or “confidence” of things hoped for. This tells us what our attitude about this faith in God should be. Being passive and saying “yes, I laid it in God’s hands but I’m not sure if He’s going to do it, or what He’s going to do.” That’s definitely not walking out your faith confidently and with assurance. When we bring a request to God, leave it there at His feet. Then worship Him while waiting.
Psalm 27 gives us a good strategy for how to come to the Lord; dwell in His presence, sing His praises, seek His face, wait on the Lord, confidently expect. How are we coming to the Lord in faith? Do we come and dump all our troubles on Him, talking and talking, while also glancing at our phones, then leaving His presence quickly to move on to the next thing in our day? How would you feel if someone did that to you? Brought you all their issues, dumped it, never listened to you, then just walked away. Not so great. It’s not that God can’t handle that or that He doesn’t want to hear our problems. It’s that He’s worthy of so much more and when we do this, dump and leave, we are missing out on so much peace in His presence.
Do we have faith that God knows our problems before we even bring them? If yes, then we shouldn’t be so focused on those. Come into His presence and sit still, sing praises to Him, remind yourself who He is and what He has already done. If you need to end there because your life is busy, so be it, you spent time in the presence of the Lord and He already knows everything else.
But what about when you need to just come and dump it all to the Lord. Do it. He is always listening. But don’t forget to sit still. You’ve laid all your things at His feet, now let Him sit with you in it, let Him speak to your heart, comfort you, and be there.
I want to encourage you to walk in faith, walk out your faith, walk in confidence of who God is and who He is in you and in your life. Trust that He is faithful, He is always faithful. Our “main truth” that I had the kids repeat this week was, “Jesus is faithful, He is always with me!” Repeat this over and over, don’t forget that He IS faithful, and He IS always with you.
Persevere.
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance, character, and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
Romans 5:1-5
Persevere: continue in a course of action even in the face of difficulty or with little to no indication of success.
What is the Lord asking you to persevere in? I was reading a devotional (My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers – I highly recommend it) and one of the titles for the day was “Faith to Persevere”. We already talked about faith, now we will talk about persevering, but I think they must go hand in hand. The Lord has given us instructions to walk through tribulations which produce perseverance which leads to growth in our character which leads to hope which does not disappoint. If we do not have faith in God and faith that He is with us and will equip us for the life He has called us to, we will not be able to persevere and we will not survive the tribulations.
So, what can we do about this? Get. In. The. Word. Also, I’m going to reference Psalm 27 again because I think it is such a great tool to follow. Dwell in His presence, sing His praises, seek His face, wait on the Lord, confidently expect.
At each step of, well, of our lives, but also of whatever situation you’re in right now, we must be diligent to wait on the Lord, to seek His face, and to sit in His presence and listen. How else will He fill us with His spirit and equip us for each day?
You have the strength and the ability to persevere, the question is, will you sit still long enough for the Lord to equip you? Will you sit in His presence long enough to hear His voice? Will you persevere when you don’t seem to hear His voice and wait on Him, wait in His presence, fast and pray and listen for His voice?
Live Above.
“Therefore, we do not lost heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Where is our focus? What are we looking at? Are we so focused on our problems or “tribulations” (previous section) that we don’t look at or can’t see the Lord? Do we get so focused on the people around us, their voices, and the physical things we can see that we forget the eternal and that this is all temporary?
I’ll be honest and say yes, sometimes I forget. I get so focused on the (sandpaper) people and the constant changes in plans that it feels like I’m drowning or stumbling around. I recently told a friend that lately it’s felt like I’m stumbling up hill and constantly falling and getting beat up. What if I just sat down on that hill for a minute? What if we just stopped, waited, and listened for the Lord? Do we have faith that He will respond and speak? Do we have faith that He will equip us to persevere? Then we can also have faith that He will equip us to live above the chaos around us.
Do we ask the Lord to give us His eyes to see His people the way He does? Do we ask Him to help us love like He does? If we ask this, we must be ready for Him to do it. That means putting aside all pride and hurt. Did someone hurt you or offend you? Are you ready to love them like Jesus? That means letting go, completely, of the past.
What about in the chaos of the moment when it seems that everything is swirling around you, decisions have to be made right now and there’s no time to wait? Did you prepare for this and sit in the presence of the Lord? Did you ask Him to guide and lead you? Then you must have faith that He will and that He is with you in these moments.
Having faith in God is fundamental to our life as followers of Jesus. We must have faith that Jesus was born of a virgin, died on the cross, rose three days later, and has taken our sins. Often, we have such solid faith in this, and we don’t question this, but when it comes to our day to day lives, we forget that confidence. I say “we” because, me too! We must have faith that He is with us in every circumstance of our lives. We must walk through tribulations knowing that He is with us (like He was with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fire), will help us to persevere, and grow our character. We must rise above, live above, the chaos that is this world and look towards the eternal.
Dwell in His presence, friends. Sit still and listen. Sing His praises, use worship music if you need to, but also, just sing Him a new song. Glorify Him and remind yourself who He is. Seek His face. What does HE say about your situation. Wait on the Lord. Get still and quiet, don’t be in such a rush to move from one thing to the next, make time for the Lord, sacrifice your time and space. Confidently expect. Have faith in Him.