"and now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."
1 Corinthians 13:13
A few weeks ago I felt drawn to write my thoughts on this verse. They are just that: my thoughts. This verse seems to encapsulate the message of the Gospel in three little words:
faith.......hope......love
Today I am going to begin to tackle faith.
Faith, for the Christian, is trusting God at His word; lack of faith is doubting Him. I have read that lacking faith is adultery. I can see the correlation because if we are His, it is like a marriage and we can not doubt Him in spite of our feelings or circumstances. Those feelings and circumstances would pull us away from him as a spouse would be drawn away in adultery. The Bible says in Hebrews 11:6:
"Now without faith it is impossible to please God, for the one who draws near
to Him must believe that He exists and rewards those who seek Him."
Faith is believing in what we can see and more importantly, in what we can't see.
Hebrews 11:1: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things
not seen."
The first step of faith is believing in Christ....that God sent Him as a substitute on the cross for our sins, and that He rose again for all those who believe and follow Him to have everlasting life with Him in heaven. That is the gospel in a nutshell. I guess I am speaking to those who are Christians and who ask, "How can I keep the faith when all around me is a mess?"
God wants us to believe in Him even when the "evidence" of the world looks bad. That is what
sets us Christians apart from the rest of the world. Faith is the state of being convinced about what we hope for. How do we grow our faith? ......the Word of God-----the Bible. We need to submerge ourselves, bathe ourselves, in the Bible. We need to open our hearts and ask God to speak to us as we read.
Next: Faith, Part 2
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