Faith, Your Structure for Life
Everything is going to be OK. In truth, I must say, they are not going to be. The good old days for which some of us long are gone and won’t return. We have set in motion conditions to keep things from being OK. That is a gloomy resolve, but even if it is wrong, as I would like it to be, it is good to be prepared.
Discipline often has collateral disciplinary effects. There were God fearing Jews among those deserving the discipline of exile who were also exiled.
Often the perimeter of discipline deserved by some inflicts some who don’t deserve it. No, things are not going to be OK, but you can be OK. Following is insight regarding how you can be OK in a not so OK world.
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11: 1) This is the starting point for ensuring you are OK even when things aren’t.
Faith is the “substance” on which believers stand. Our word substance is made up of two words meaning: “to stand” and “under.” Substance is that which stands under us. It is the superstructure of life. There will be times like there have always been when we don’t understand why things are like they are. That is when faith kicks in and sustains us. I’ve been there, haven’t you? Remember that the next time you are tempted to say, “Why God, why?” Faith worked then, it will work when….
Skeptics scoff at the idea of faith, yet they eat in restaurants, fly on planes, drive in the rain, undergo surgery, and take prescribed medicine. They drive an automobile and there is no way to prove the brakes will work the next time they are needed. We live by faith. It is the object of our faith that counts.
A refusal to live by faith is modern man’s way of attempting to deny God. Man became the measure of all things. Everything outside man’s experience or understanding is denied. Yet, they don’t understand how a sheep, cow, pig, and goose can eat grass in the same field and one grows wool, another hair, another bristles, and the other feathers? Yet, we believe it.
The Greek word for substance, hypostasis, is a scientific term opposed to theory or hypothesis. It is used to describe a chemical which settles to the bottom in a test tube. It is the primary element in the formula. Thus, faith is seen as primary to all of life.
“Evidence” is another word in the text in speaking of faith. It means proof. Our faith is in the unseen, but not the unknown.
Faith is like a title deed to a property you own though have never seen it. You know you own it because you have the title. Faith is the title to God’s promise.
A photon illustrates this. Scientists believe in photons. Yet, they have never seen one. They only exist when traveling at the speed of light, 185,000 miles per second. At that speed they can’t be seen or photographed, yet scientists believe in them.
We live by faith. By it we can live well even in a world that appears to be falling apart. Study Scripture to be sure it, not the news of the day, is your superstructure. Remember. . . .
“You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, For in the Lord, is everlasting strength.” (Isaiah 26: 3,4) Make that your resolve for life. There is still a lot of good news to come the way of the person of faith.