Good Morning and Happy New Year.
Our lesson for today in Hebrews starts
out this way: “Now faith is the
assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by
faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds
were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things
that are not visible.”
A great many “people of faith” aren’t
satisfied with this definition. So many
people are convinced that they KNOW with intellectual certainty every bit of
God’s plan that they believe that they should dictate how the rest of us
understand our faith in God. They want
to dictate every aspect of human behavior even though the revelation of
scripture doesn’t anticipate a great many things about our life today.
What scriptural revelation does reveal
to us is the nature of the human condition, the desire of the Lord to love us,
and the historical difficulty that humanity has had in being faithful in our
response to God’s love. The scriptural
definition of “faith” allows for doubt and questions. The scriptural definition of faith challenges
us to find our way in this world in a way that is faithfully responsive to the
prodigious love of God. Sometimes that
“way” is clear to more than one person.
Christians belong in fellowship with one another, supporting one another
and building up the faith of one another.
Sometimes only you can see that “way.”
The test of your faithfulness is not whether I agree with you; it’s how
you and the Lord have wrestled with it in prayer. It also can help to seek out the counsel of
others within the fellowship, but in the end some decisions come down to only
you and the Lord.
That can be a little intimidating. Okay.
It can be very intimidating.
Millions of people would choose to have someone else take responsibility
for their “faith” and tell them exactly how to behave. But in the end it comes down to you and your
relationship with the Lord. If you’ve
done nothing to nourish your relationship with the Lord – if prayer is not part
of your daily response to God’s love – then in a crisis it may be very
difficult, frightening, to turn to the Lord for counsel.
The best news, the most assuring news
that is known to those who have developed that daily response to God’s love, is
that if you get it wrong then God still loves you and still wants to help you
find your way. Lot’s of people turn to
God in a crisis, but only those who seek to responds to God’s love as a habit
of their life understand that if they get it wrong then the Lord will help you
get up and start you back on the right path.
Faith is rooted in the assurance that
God loves you, and God will keep the promises revealed to us in Scripture. The rest is up to you.
Prayer:
Almighty and merciful God, creator of all that is, help us to seek you
throughout our lives. Through the ups
and downs, the peaks and the valleys encourage us to share our lives, our joys,
our doubts and our questions with you in our prayers. Remind us that You are beyond our
comprehension, and that Your desire is to love us and share Your joy with us as
we struggle to bring Your will into the reality of this day. Remind us that You are greater than our
doubts and questions. Remind us that if
we recognize You with the awe appropriate to our place in creation then we will
be filled with doubts and questions. The
only certainty is Your love. In Jesus’
name we pray. Amen.
Today’s readings are Genesis 12:1-7;
Hebrews 11:1-12; John 16:35-42,48-51;
Psalm 33 & 34.
Blessings.
Pastor Jim
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