The Fruit of Faith!

(Hebrews 11:8) “By faith Abraham obeyed ...”

Over the next week or so I thought we could look at the actual effect God’s Word has in reality. We often, or I often am the first to say we must believe the Word of God above everything else and even when our emotions resist the “Word” and it seems like a futile exercise to obey, it may even at times go against ever fibre in our bodies, against all common rational, nevertheless we must obey! Why? Well for many reasons; God is the only true God and He is the supreme ruler over the entire universe, therefore all are subject to Him, regardless of whether we agree with Him or Not, He is the final authority! If someone was to say, “If that is how your God operates then I want nothing to do with Him”. Will that now excuse that individual from His authority? Absolutely not! If the law of the land stated that its residence must pay taxes and we were amongst the number that disagrees with that law would we be excused from the punishment that government would impose on those who break the law on taxes? Obviously not! The “creature is subject to the creator” and not the other way around. Imagine if you had scientific skills and created a helper, let’s say a robot to help with the daily chores and that invention now operated against your will and its intended purpose, in fact it was now causing more damage than good. Would you let it run riot and make your life even more difficult as you now had to run around cleaning up after it? Your work load having now doubled. No you would not! You would either fix the problem or do away with the robot. As the inventor you would have final authority. Now then, why do some then think that they are not accountable to God? The answer is simple; they have been blinded by sin. Sin has had its part to play in society and all have been trapped by the snares of sin, this is why our great Redeemer came to defeat sin and its power by dying a cruel death on a Roman Cross. Now as believers and individuals who live with His Spirit we still find ourselves waging war against sin on a daily basis. We are instructed to find grace in time of need. Grace is now available to believers and not the unbelievers in that sense. What chance does someone have who does not have the Spirit of God? Absolutely zero! But that does not excuse them; "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God." (John 3:16-21)

We must also obey because God has chosen what is foolish in this world to confine the wise; “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;” (1Corinthians 1:27) – I would like to unpack some great examples throughout scripture highlighting God’s brilliance in this area. We will see how His wisdom unfolds even though initially at times our minds would scream out against what we are called to do in obeying our God and His instruction. This is the test of faith. When God instructs will we obey or will we feel the need to help Him along the way. I know this deliberation will make us feel very uncomfortable at times and so we must be sure of what God is saying, we must use scripture in context to back up our findings. I am somewhat excited about what we will find. 

I remember when I was in the process of writing my auto-biography for the first time. It was a daunting task as I never thought that I would be proficient. With much help in the post editing arena we eventually ended up with a thin paper-back. But along the way, I faced a serious challenge. I had just fallen very sick and was no longer able to perform any work duties, my days as a photographic journalist had been shelved. I was put on permanent disability, in other words I was paid seventy five percent of my basis salary and was not entitled to do any other work to supplement my income, and this was part of the disability insurances agreement. I had however been given permission to write a book. I wrote this book on my Apple laptop. About halfway through I hit a snag, my laptop needed serious repair work, and it now no longer was an aid but a hindrance. Many questions needed answers; was I doing the right thing? My mind was full of doubts but unless I could have it fixed I was not going to finish this project. It was a substantial amount of money and I did not have it. I was barely coming out on my abridged salary. What was I to do? I was despondent and feeling rather defeated. Just as I was about to throw in the towel, out of the blue I got a phone call from the office informing me that through some fund raiser they had been involved with that they were left with a positive balance and after a management meeting they had decided to give me the money. Without over mystifying this encounter I must tell you, that it was a surprise, there was no reason whatsoever for them to give me this money, except that God through His goodness and mercy was proving to me that He was in perfect control. The situation was totally outside of my control and this is where we need to find ourselves before God will step in and teach us to live by faith. It was such a wonderful experience, but at the time I must confess I was feeling rather defeated and almost without hope.

I realise that these kinds of experience are a “dime a dozen” and people misrepresent the application of faith in so many bad ways. People often use living by faith to excuse themselves from any biblical responsibility, or they manipulate the use it to for self gain. There are many dangers we must be on the lookout for, but the Word is very clear, “the just shall live by faith”! It is true faith we must learn to appropriate into our lives and it must become a way of life for every believer.

All that really means is we must learn to trust God’s Word even when logic rejects it. Abraham the father of faith has this testimony; “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:8-10)

We must learn to look beyond the here and now and we must resolve to trust the Word of God above everything else, we must look to God and not our circumstances as they will often leave us walking in unbelief.

Signing off

Tyrone