I’m learning that one must be intentional about keeping up a
blog, and that it hasn’t come as easy as I thought it would :) It’s all good though; I’m going to continue post as often I can.
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Walking by faith is a concept that spans both the Old and
New Testaments. In the Old Testament Abraham had faith that was counted to him
as righteousness around 2000 years before Christ came. In fact, all of Hebrews
11 is devoted to this topic of real men walking by faith before Christ came to
this earth. Then, as I documented in my last post, this concept also had
profound significance in the lives of those living during the time the New
Testament was being penned. The steady testimony of walking by faith from the
bible must cause us to realize its implications for us today – we too are
called to walk by faith.
Before moving on, however, it is important to ask the
question that must be on our minds when dealing with this topic: Why walk by
faith? This is what I want to focus in on for this post.
First off, and most importantly, God says in the beginning
of Hebrews 11:6 that “without faith it is impossible to please Him”. Therefore,
we walk by faith because God calls us to. But more than that we need to realize
that anything that God calls us to do is for our good – as the rest of verse 6
states, “for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and
that He rewards those who seek Him”. So walking by faith not only pleases Him,
but it is for our good.
Even with understanding these truths, the problem arises
when we fall victim to the lie of ease. Our flesh cries out that it’s easier to
live by what we can “see and feel” – or more simply by what we can measure
using our human faculties of sight, touch, smell, taste, and hearing. The truth
is that all of these faculties are God given, and meant for our good. They can,
however, be deceptive if we don’t understand the why behind the what. The
reason God has given us these faculties is to enjoy what He has made – in His
way (this is another topic for another time perhaps), while faith is given to us in order to enjoy what hasn’t been made – Himself.
Undoubtedly, Satan wants us to believe that it is better to
live by what we “see and feel”. But the reality is that it really isn’t. It is
God’s design for us to live by faith in Him because it compels us interact with
Him during every moment of the day in order to experience His power and
benefits. He runs His Kingdom using this wisdom because at the heart of everything
God wants relationship with His people – and not just any relationship, but a
deep and abiding one. By interacting with Him in every moment by faith, we have
what He intended for us to have: relationship.
Also, if we only live by what we “see and feel” then we run the
risk of falling into the deception that God feels about us the way that we are
feeling about Him in any particular moment. This causes our emotions to become
the gauge for how confident we are in God, instead of the gauge being God’s
Word appropriated into our lives through faith for how confident we ought to be
in Him. There is a huge difference here that must be grasped by every disciple
of Jesus. What I am saying is that we can live anchored in the truth of God’s
Word – free from the emotional traffic that so often tosses us around – if we
would learn to “walk by faith, and not by sight”.
Alright, I’ve typed enough for one post. Stay tuned, more to
come!
Be Blessed!
Andrew
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