Today’s Scripture:
12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. 14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do if God permits. – Hebrews 5:12-6:3
“FAITH TOWARDS GOD – GOD’S GOT YOU AND HE’S GOOD FOR IT”
The essence of your faith is your belief, attitude, and corresponding action that God is good for it! Whatever His promise is, and your faith manifests in hope because you know God’s got you. When you have hope, you RELAX in faith knowing He’s good for it. Beloved, are you relaxing in faith concerning that matter that God has promised to you? People who are always running around, panicked—exclaiming, “Oh, things are going wrong” and full of anxiety and worry—have no faith. But still they will dare put on the end of all of that, “But I’m still trusting God…” A believer is not demonstrating trust in God like that. Recall that faith is the substance of the things hoped for, based on a promise from God. That means you have hope in your future. Until God becomes good for His promise in your mind, attitude, and corresponding action—you DO NOT have faith.
For example, God may promise you, “You are going to administrate a Kingdom-minded school” or “You will preach and teach the gospel to young women in the Houston area” or whatever it is He has told you. Because God told you, you don’t ‘trip.’ Anything that you are ‘tripping’ about is because God did not tell you. So often, we are trying to force something on to God that has everything to do with our heart’s desire vs. His heart’s desire.
Faith counteracts anxiety, stress, and worry. If you lived in hope, hope alone would have you in constant worry. Every day it would be, “Is it here yet; is it here yet? Did I get the job, yet? Did anybody call me from that company yet?” You see, that is what hope [alone] does. The Bible did not instruct us to live in hope—God told us to walk by faith (Habakkuk 2:4, Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11)! When you have faith, you can start acting like it’s already here; over time, your faith in God grows. The just actually live by the “past” faithfulness of God. It doesn’t matter what the circumstances may say, you know God’s good for it. God made me a promise and that gives me hope; and because I have faith, faith becomes the substance of what I am hoping for. My faith becomes the evidence of what I have yet to visibly see.
You might be reading this and thinking to yourself, “Well, you don’t understand Dr. Carson: faith is hard!” Yes, it is; Paul told Timothy you must fight the good fight (of faith). When the other trained warriors of Israel had refused to fight Goliath, do you think it was easy for David to go out there with no armor when he battled Goliath? David only had five smooth stones while Goliath had a huge sword and his helmet weighed more than David. But David also had the presence of God in his life. He had an abiding faith in the living God of Israel who had delivered him from “the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear,” and he declared, “He will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine” (1 Samuel 17: 33-37).
Beloved, you are cut from that same cloth but have even more than David!God refers to you as a “chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own special people that you may proclaim the praises of Him who call you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). As Kingdom citizens, we walk in, are filled with, and guided and empowered by the Spirit of the living God (Galatians 5:16, Ephesians 5:18, John 16:13]. Our very citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:20) by virtue of our new birth (John 3:1-8). We are His, those whom he has delivered “from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love” (Colossians 1:13). We possess much more than David! “The relationship we have with God is a covenant of faith, and faith is the thing that pleases God to no end:…without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him”(Hebrews 11:6).
Biblical faith is not a one-time act done at salvation, but a way of life. In the Kingdom, a true citizen must persevere to the end in faith – a lifestyle of consistent and persistent faith (Colossians 1:22-23, Hebrew 3:12-14; 10:38-39). God’s got you!
A Prayer for Today:
I praise and thank you King Jesus for giving me a measure of faith and for the Word of life that You so carefully crafted and inspired over the centuries to give me even more faith. I rejoice in the fact that my citizenship is in heaven, and since I have been raised with Christ, I will seek those things which are above. I will delight myself in You, my King, so that the desires of Your heart and Your Kingdom become the desires of my heart. I will know that I exist for Your purpose, and nothing can thwart the plans and purposes of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power of faith at work within us, let Your Kingdom be expanded through me. Amen.
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