January 22, 2020 – Click here to listen
Last night I received word that the father of a friend of mine passed away a few days ago. I attended a family dinner with them about a year ago and remember him as being healthy and full of life. His entire family spent most of the conversation that evening talking about God and spiritual matters. He and his wife seemed to revel in the fact that the family they had raised was so engaged with Jesus.
Now this patriarch is with Jesus and his family mourns his loss. I offered my friend’s wife my most profound condolences for their personal loss but said I was happy for heaven’s gain. I asked how my friend, her husband, and his mom were taking the news and she said they were hanging in there. This couple had been married for 54 years and she said her mother-in-law was a lot stronger than she would be.
I respectfully disagreed and told her from what I’ve seen she has tremendous faith which gives her power to overcome and find comfort and gives us hope through Jesus. There is no substitute for faith, especially when someone’s life on this planet concludes.
I know many people whose faith is not where it needs to be. They have doubts about all sorts of things including their own salvation. This attitude reminds me of an angry sea that is churning waves and tossing their boat about, first in one direction and then another. I’ve been in situations like this at sea and actually seen grown men cry because they were so afraid.
Franklin Roosevelt once said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” FDR was telling the American people that their fear was making things worse. He goes on to say, “nameless, unreasoning, and unjustified terror paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” He was trying to convince Americans not to make a run on the bank and withdraw their money, but it has applications for our spiritual lives as well. We need to convert our despair and fear into action to advance. Our strength and drive to do that is derived from our faith.
So how does one make their faith stronger? Through studying the Word of God. The Bible is clear about it. So why do so many forego reading the Bible daily? It makes no sense to me. My faith is rock-solid and guess what? I study the Bible every day, 7 days a week. Coincidence? Not hardly . . .
Faith in God means believing in and trusting in the greatest hope—that God became man, lived a perfect life, died a sacrificial death for your sins, and rose again to glory so that you could have eternal life by the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
The writer of Hebrews talks about faith in God. Faith is knowing that God is real and that you can trust in God’s promises. You cannot trust someone who isn’t there, nor can you rely on someone whose promises are not reliable. This is why faith is talked about as the substance of things hoped for and as the evidence of things not seen.
Both words give us a sense of reality. Our hope is not wishful thinking. Faith does not make God real. On the contrary, faith is the response to a real God who wants to be known to us.
But how do we enhance our faith? Paul sums it up by telling us one can come to faith only through hearing the gospel, and the specific message that must be heard is the word of Christ, that is, the good news about Jesus Christ as the crucified and risen Savior.”
Hearing in the verse below implies reading and hearing the Gospel . . .
Romans 10:17
“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”