‘Have faith in God’ Mark 11:23

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.

 

Do this in remembrance of Me

I’m often asked what the vision is for our church family. I find it kind of hard to answer. I don’t believe the projects & goals we might like to see accomplished should be what unites us. Amazingly Jesus didn’t give us a vision statement to remember Him by. He gave us a covenant affirming meal. And He did it in the context of denial, betrayal and shattered dreams.

What unites us is Christ. His blood has purchased us, His body broken so that His body the Church can be united and whole.

The Apostle Paul puts it this way;

‘The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, the many, are one bread and one body; for we are all partakers of that one bread.’     1 Cor 10:16-17

When we break bread together we covenant with each other to share our lives. When we share the cup we make blood covenant to be there for each other when it counts, when we are failed and disappointed.

Jesus claimed they would know we are His disciples by our love. Love counts most and is noticed when there is a reason not to love.

lets do this, in remembrance of Him.