I spent the last three days at Salem in South India where I had the opportunity to attend the wedding of one of my close cousin’s son. While all the ceremonies were going on, I spent my time in the back benches talking to an old man who was curious to know more about Jesus. He had heard about my writings on Christian faith for a blog and wanted to know as to why God was not doing anything for him. He had a sudden need and was expecting God to whip out a miracle from the air to meet his problem. He was desperate and sorry for himself as he said “I have done no harm to anyone, I help many people and yet God is deaf to my cries. Is there a way out, please?”
The poor old man did not know anything about God’s way of doing things according to the Christian faith. I must admit most believers also face the same dilemma in that they do not see at all God operating in their lives. They face one failure after another again and again. They lose heart and give up after a time.
I had to show to the old man that the Christian way of receiving from God was only through faith. And that came only from the Word of God in the Bible. See what Hebrews 11:1 had to say “Faith is the substance and evidence of things not seen.” What does this really mean? It only means that what we need and want is already there in the spiritual realm! We may not see it, but it is there! The evidence is only in the faith.
Can we just hope and receive from God? No, we cannot. Because ‘hope’is in the believing that God will do something on a future day. We will hear a man who is just hoping say “I am sure God will bless me some day.” But the man with faith is bound to say “God has already given me what I want.” There is a difference, friends… Faith is for the ‘now’ but ‘hope’ is for sometime tomorrow.
How do we increase our faith? We heard several times before that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. The Bible is full of priceless promises, each one for every need we all have. The more we read and meditate on those promises, the more will our faith become. A stage will come when we will not doubt even a little that we will see what we want in the physical. What we want was always there in the spiritual. We only had to receive it by faith.
Folks, this should be our way of life for today and every day tomorrow. Instead of hoping and praying that God will do some day, we only have to have more faith in God’s way of doing things. Let us remind ourselves that our God is not a magician. The Bible is not one big bag of tricks as we want. He has already done what we want. We only have to receive it by faith. I heard one famous preacher say once to his audience… “How many of you want to be millionaires” The people in the audience had waited for hours to listen to this great preacher. They were surprised when he said “Read and meditate on the Word. I don’t have anything else to say today.” He just got up and walked away!
When we spend more time on the Word in the Bible, we will begin to have more knowledge on all that it says. All of a sudden those answers are there for all our questions on how to make God move for us. We will never have to beg and plead with God. We will never have to hope because we now have our faith.
Halleluiah!
Author: Sundar Venkataram.
it’s only one side of the faith/hope coin, 50 % truth.
There are inspired HOPE and FAITH as opposed to human ability to hope and believe.
Sometimes both concepts are meant in the Bible. It depends on the insights of the Holy Spirit as to fully understand their use in every case.