1 Corinthians 13:13 describes bare bones Christianity as just Faith, Hope and Love.
Love is essentially relationship and Paul gives a great description of it earlier in the chapter. But us English speakers struggle to differentiate between the other foundational truths of Faith & Hope.
We think faith is being really confident, and hope is being not so confident!
It helps to first understand what to place our faith in. Jesus commended us to ‘have faith in God’ not circumstance.
Faith is always retrospective in that it looks to what Christ has already achieved on our behalf through the Cross. He paid for our past & secured our future. I am holy, healed, prosperous, victorious, the light of the world, favoured of God, not because of my lifestyle or my circumstance but because He is, and He says so, and faith grows out of relationship.
Hope is futuristic & unlike the worlds hope its a highly confident expectation and it has substance. ‘faith is the substance of things hoped for’ Heb 11:1. E.g. I have hope (confident expectation) that my children will grow up in the knowledge, purpose and Blessing of God. The substance of that Hope?
‘I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able’ 2 Tim 1:12.
If my kids take a wrong turn or something should happen to them, my faith is not shipwrecked, it is in God. I rest in Him and He will sort out the outcomes.
Don’t allow your faith to be undermined by placing it in prosperity or healing or any other outcome. Place your faith firmly in God & have a confident expectation that what He has already done in Heaven will become a reality in your world.
May 1, 2009
‘Have faith in God’ Mark 11:23
Posted by Josh Miller under Basic Christianity | Tags: Basic Christianity, faith, hope, uncomplicated Christianity |[2] Comments
May 1, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Hey Josh,
For me, this took a bit of “unpacking”. I think my 21st century, western educated mind still likes to define terms, construct an intellectual model of the concept, & feel satisfied that I’ve “worked it out”.
But this stuff just sounds like nonsensical hocus-pocus, when you look at it that way.
It rings a bit like good-old-pentecostal “blab it and grab it”, or “name it and claim it”. Call it what you will. “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” Right? Sounds glib. Actually, it sounds like positive thinking nonsense. Only a religious fruitcake living in some kind of deluded nutshell reality could spout that stuff & keep a straight face, when all around, reality keeps on adhering to the good old laws of cause-and-effect, gravity, and nothing will ever, really, change. (I think that’s roughly how Newton put it!)
But you are saying that reality flows out of relationship. You are saying that the key to unlocking the matrix is not in knowing the code.
No way can you spout this stuff and expect it to work, unless you are really, truly, connected to the risen Christ, the God of the Universe, the Author of Everything! This is the crux of our faith. This is the scary step of commitment. If HE is not Who He says He Is – Go back to Newton. But if He Is… that changes Everything!!
May 30, 2009 at 3:40 am
RIGHT ON !