The Holidays have come and gone.
I rang in the New Year with my church’s youth group at a two-day-long
Christian extravaganza. We enjoyed great
music, awesome speakers, fun activities, and prepared our hearts for the new
year. When midnight hit there were
fireworks on stage. Balloons dropped
from the ceiling as eight thousand teenagers celebrated. Many resolutions were made for the new year,
and many have probably already been broken.
What about you? One of the
reasons we break these resolutions is that we approach them with will power
instead of faith. Will power fails when
challenges get tough, but faith is something entirely different. Faith isn’t relying on your own will, but
trusting in the will of God that works itself out in you.
In Faith
Is, Pamela Reeve wrote, “Faith is resting in the fact that God has an
objective in leaving me on the scene when I feel useless to Him and a burden to
others.”[i] Hebrews 11.1 (NASB) puts it this way: “Now
faith is the assurance of things hoped
for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith says, “I don’t know what’s ahead in
2015, but I know that whatever it is, God has me in his arms.” I
heard an old story that illustrates it this way:
One
night a house caught fire and a young boy was forced to flee to the roof. The
father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to his son,
“Jump! I’ll catch you.” He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. All the
boy could see, however, was flame, smoke, and blackness. As can be imagined, he
was afraid to leave the roof. His father kept yelling: “Jump! I will catch
you.” But the boy protested, “Daddy, I can’t see you.” The father replied, “But
I can see you and that’s all that matters.”
(Source Unknown)
That’s all that matters. God’s got you. You can jump.
The eleventh chapter of Hebrews, called the “Roll Call of Faith,” is a
list of people in the Bible who couldn’t see what was ahead of them, yet
through they jumped into the waiting arms of God.
Hebrews talks about Abel, who by
faith offered a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. As you look to the new year, rather than
making resolutions, consider what sacrifices you can make to God. What can you give Him—besides your money, which
is too obvious an answer? Can you give
God your business? Can you give God your
retirement plans? Can you give God your
talents, and use them for Him?
By faith, you can walk with God as
Enoch did. By faith, you can be like
Noah and listen to the warnings that God speaks to your heart, sharing them
with those around you. By faith like
Noah’s, you can make preparations based on what God has told you. By faith like Noah, you can reject the
attractions the world has to offer, and build something better.
By faith, Abraham went somewhere
that God called him, even though he didn’t know where he was going. Is there someplace that God is calling you to
go, even though there’s uncertainty?
Faith says “yes” to God’s call, and follows. Abraham and Sarah, who were well beyond
childbearing years, received the promise of God and conceived a son. What kind of faith will your marriage take
this year? How can you sow seeds of love
into one another, letting that love take root and grow? How can you take something that is barren,
and create new life in it? Not by an act
of your own will—but by faith!
By faith, Abraham offered his son
Isaac on an altar. Though God did not
ultimately demand this sacrifice, Abraham was willing to follow through. Writers have a phrase: “Kill your
darlings.” This means that sometimes,
for the sake of the book, you have to be willing to cut out your favorite
chapters or characters, if they don’t push the storyline or really add anything
to the depth of the text. In the same
way, we’ve got to be willing to give up what might be most precious to us,
trusting that God will perfect our story for us—and we may even receive back
alive that which we offered up to God.
By faith, like Isaac, you can invoke
future blessings on your family. By
faith, like Joseph, you can speak prophetically to your family, instructing
them in the way that they should go.
Hebrews mentions Moses’ parents, who
preserved his life, and the blood of the lamb that preserved the lives of the
Israelites from the Death Angel at Passover.
Like them you can say, “By faith I will believe that there are hidden
blessings that cannot be killed. By faith I will refuse to be called a son of
Egypt (sin), but will identify as one of God's chosen... even if it means
suffering. By faith I will leave sin behind, not being afraid of the devil's
anger. I will endure as seeing Him who is invisible. By faith I will
trust in the sacrificed Lamb and keep my household anointed with His blood.”
Like the Israelites at the Red Sea,
you can stand against any barrier by faith, raising your staff against it and
trusting that you will see the wonders of God.
Like they did at Jericho, you can march around those obstacles in your
life, praying through and shouting praise to God who makes the walls fall
before you. Like Rahab, you can welcome
God’s messengers who come to you, and the message that they bring—and by that
truth you can be saved through faith.
Like the heroes of old, you can say,
“By faith I will go into battle for my family. By faith I will see God
overcome. By faith I will not speak negativity but will be a positive voice to
those around me. I will endure pain, and, like Jesus, will offer up no defense.
I will bear the blame, never turning blame back on anyone else. And I will
leave it all up to God, whether or not I received what I hope for in this
life—because I will receive the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promises in the
next. By faith I will acknowledge that I
am a stranger and exile here, but that I’m looking to a better country, my
heavenly homeland.”
The truth is that life is hard. Hebrews 11 recaps the heroes of the Bible,
who all knew life’s struggles. Your life
is hard, too. And will power just
doesn’t cut it. But faith does. Again in Faith
Is, Pamela Reeve writes, “Faith is engaging in the deepest joy of heaven,
knowing His unfathomable love for me as I walk through the thorny desolate now.”[ii]
Sometimes it’s hard to see how God
is going to make it work. The thing that
lies before us seems impossible. Faith
knows that God will bring it to pass, and trusts God for it. One common story goes:
Todd,
a three year old boy from Rhode Island went down to the seacoast to fly a kite.
Never having flown a kite before, Todd had obvious doubts. His father assured
him that all was well, and the kite would go up as planned. As Todd unravelled the
string, and watched the kite go up, he was heard to say, "I knew it would
fly, daddy. You said it would." Simple statement, profound implications. (Source unknown)
What are you trusting God for this
year? What is God calling you to do this
year? Are you having a difficult time
seeing how it’s all going to work? God
calls you to faith. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not
seen (Hebrews 11.1).” I pray that in
2015, you’ll forget about resolutions and will power, trust God, and take a
step of faith.
2 comments:
This was helpful for me. Thanks for posting it.
Thank you for posting this. It was helpful!
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