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Hebrews 11:1-6
We invite you to join us for worship each Sunday morning at 9:30. You can also download our service at Baptist-Christian in iTunes. When it comes to “faith” do you as a Christian believe God can or do you believe God will? There is a significant difference. God does not want us to wonder how to live the Christian life, He wants us to know for certain. That certainty is the basis for our faith. In Heb. 11:1 we see
- FAITH DEFINED. I Googled “a biblical definition of faith” and got 10,500,000 results. I find that amazing since God gives us one very clear definition of faith! God calls faith “the reality of things hoped for, and the proof of things not seen.” The two key words are reality and proof. Someone has rightly stated, “Biblical faith is not believing God can, but knowing God will!” Where do you stand? The difference between “believe” and “know” is how much faith you have in God. The distance between believing God can, and knowing He will, is the amount of doubt you harbor in your heart! Watch how beautifully God explains faith.
- REALITY. For our purposes I’m going to show how God defines reality in three segments. 1. In John 1:1, then 14 God tells us Jesus was a physical, visible, touchable human being. When something is physical, visible, touchable we say it is real because we experience it with our senses. God teaches us that He (Spirit-John 4:24) became in the Person of Jesus Christ physical, visible, touchable (1John 1:1-3) so we could KNOW He is real. 2. In Ex. 33:12-23; 40:34, 35; Matt. 17:1-5, and Rev. 21;9-11, 22, 23, 22:5 we learn that whenever God the Father reveals Himself to us it is always through His (Shekinah) glory, or blinding, bright light. That light is the manner God has chosen to show us He is real. 3. In John 14:8-11 Jesus says “if you have seen Me, you have seen The Father.” Now read Heb. 1:2 and notice that Jesus is the exact representation of God’s glory. Jesus doesn’t have God’s glory, Jesus IS God’s glory! If you read Rom. 1:18-20 Paul tells us that when God’s invisible power and nature become physical, visible, touchable God is telling us in ways we understand that He is real. Faith being reality means that we allow God to demonstrate to us, through events in our daily life, that He is real. When we understand that God is real, we change from believing to knowing!
- THINGS HOPED FOR. Things hoped for, in Scripture, is never neutral but always looks to the future as either good or bad. That expectation then becomes either hope or fear. In Scripture the expectation of good is always hope! It is always associated with trust (Prov. 3:5, 6), desire (Ps. 37:4), and patient waiting (Ps. 27:14). Answer this question: what do you expect from God? A broad question but is your FIRST answer something that begins in the spiritual realm, or in the worldly realm. Matt. 6:33 tells us to begin in the spiritual realm desiring the things of God (invisible) over the things of this world (visible). When we desire the things of God and give Him the opportunity to work in our lives so those spiritual attributes of God become physical, visible, touchable experiences in our lives, we receive real, true, faith that is in fact our reality.
If we can help you in the matter of faith or any other spiritual area, call us at (574) 643-9419.
