Faith

Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see. Hebrews 11:1

TYPICALLY WHEN WE SAY we “hope” for something, what we’re really saying is that we’re not sure it is going to happen, but we want it to. This is wishful thinking, not biblical hope. There is nothing uncertain about biblical hope. What the Bible promises may not yet be realized, but it is certain.

How do we know? On what basis do we have hope? God has promised. To have faith is to risk everything on believing that everything God has promised is completely reliable. Noah believed what God said when he warned him about the flood, so he built the ark. Abraham believed what God said when he promised to bless him, so Abraham followed God’s instruction and went to the place where God told him to go. Sarah believed God when he said she would have a child, so she trusted him even in her old age.

Yet Hebrews 11 says, “All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it” (verse 13). They died waiting for the promised Messiah. They didn’t receive everything in this life that was promised to them by God. But what they received in the next was far better than anything they could have imagined.

So much of modern Christianity is about harnessing the power of God to get what we want in the here and now and to become better people in the here and now. But the essence of our faith is nothing like that. We want our children to be willing to step out to follow a God they have never seen with their eyes, whose voice they have never heard with their ears, trusting a reality that the collective voice of the world says does not exist and does not matter. We want them to believe that there is something that can be found only in God that is more durable, dependable, and delightful than anything in this world —and then live in that confidence.

Lord, please don’t let ________ settle for a generic, domesticated kind of faith that is acceptable to the world. Instead, fill ________ with a countercultural confidence that anticipates all that you have promised —not in the here and now, but in a heavenly homeland.