Voice of faith

Where There is Faith – 4Him

These are three questions that find their way into my thought pattern every day:

Has God spoken to me today through His Word?
What needs to change in my life for me to look more like Jesus
Who is the Holy Spirit going to put in my life so that I can invest in them?

Hebrews chapter eleven challenges me when I seem to be slowing down by not being able to answer those questions – it stirs me up. It is the kind of faith that without having, I cannot please God.

It also happens to be the only place in the Bible where there is a clear, stand alone definition of faith.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. – Hebrews 11:1 ESV

Faith is one of the three foundations given to us from where all other Christian graces stand on. It is the foundation by which I keep my place as a follower of Jesus in which produces the good works that I am called to be known by. It gives me the confidence and conviction that enables me to grasp the future while living in the present – seeing the unseen in the midst of the seen. So I walk by faith and not by sight.

The world in which I live does resemble God in nature but not in operation. There are strange contradictions of justice, truth, goodness – we see wrong prevailing over right, honour given to what is known to be dishonourable. We honour the strength of mind and body over being good. I am confronted with my own hypocrisy, at every moment of temptation where the consequences of yielding to them seem far away. Even as far as I might be, or forgetful of my own inclinations or of my weakness, I have to share the truth – there is a voice from the depths of my soul that never ceases to repeat that right is really stronger than wrong, and truth is better than dishonesty and justice is more real than injustice.

I believe that this voice is the Holy Spirit and to believe in it, obey it and surrender to it as He guides me through life, I come away with a firm conviction that He will guide me and keep me until I come to be with Him. It is in believing in His voice that enables me to hear the voices of the world and understand that those do not belong to Him.

So when I talk about the questions I ask myself every day, there is still one more. When the enemy comes against me at the moment the voice demands my obedience, he proclaims my sinfulness. So I think I am too weak. So now which voice will I follow – the one that leads to peace or my own destruction? This is where this chapter captures my heart. Jesus’ life, words and death allow me with confidence to confess that He is in fact the very image of the Father. He laid hold of a human nature and made it His own. He declared promises that corresponded to every need of my soul. These have taken place in the lives of people of God throughout history. So He bids me to surrender to Him, following Him and His leading, trusting in His protection and ultimately His power. The promise of His power comes with the promise of victory over sin. He will forgive, He will love, He will carry me through all that I will encounter. I am to cling to Jesus in spite of the pain, darkness and perplexing questions, even the thoughts of my own sin – for this is the expression of my faith. For what is not seen by many is the strength of my Master who walks with me through the seen and the unseen.

Foundation of life

Pat Barrett – Build My Life

Each of us has within ourselves sources of life. What comes out in the character and behaviour of a person as a whole is an expression of a few sources in that person that provide the foundation of their life.

Jesus gives us a few of these in Mark chapter twelve when asked what the greatest commandment was. He did not give a list like the ten commandments, He instead talked about the part of a person.

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these. Mark 12:30-31 ESV

The Bible really likes expressing how the heart is the seat of a person’s emotions, will and conscience. Those expressions go from guarding our heart to loving with all of our heart. He wants my heart to be His – hence the greatest commandment. Again, love is a choice, not a feeling.

The idea of loving God passionately shows up in how we love Him and love people. I would assume that we would be tempted right here to keep it that simple – yet we know it is not. Love demands effort, action and passion.

Love is the leading affection of the soul and God’s love is the leading grace in the renewed soul. Love battles for the seat of the throne in our souls, it engages us to honour Him. The commandments have little effect on us if this principle of love rules.

That is the foundation of life. From here I can love my neighbour because I know where I stand with God. My neighbour can experience God’s love as much as I have and what a joy for me to share that with them.

The heart of a disciple maker

Go Make of All Disciples (Ellacombe) hymn

I actually get the Sermon on the Mount and the love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13. It makes sense to me and how my brain is wired, I understand what needs to change in my life if I am going to be a follower of Jesus. That is not the case with everyone. Some need different parts of their lives looked after in order to get the bigger picture. When I see certain individuals missing this, I see a life of frustration. They keep trying to change their lives without first changing the part of them that is broken – it cannot be done.

Can you imagine a person looking at 1 Corinthians 13 being in so much despair not really knowing that they could become a person possessed of love. Unfortunately, they cannot see it and end up getting off the train.. They do not want to go on. They sign off. The same goes with the Sermon on the Mount – because they are thinking wrongly about how change occurs. In order to get this right, we have to think about the parts of our self that need attention.

What does the heart of a disciple maker look like? It is one thing to change a person’s behaviour and quite another to change their heart.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. – Matthew 5:8 ESV

I believe that it starts with pure motives. Remember James and John wanting positions of authority with Jesus? We see this in the three years Jesus was with the disciples and how many times did we ask ourselves why the disciples really wanted to follow Him.

The first experiences were quite awful – they forgot moments after Jesus taught. The blueprint of the Sermon on the Mount was for the disciples only. The blessing of this sermon were to be the blessings of those who committed their lives to the disciplined life of a follower of Jesus.

Moving to the matter of the heart – we are called to have a love for others. 1 Corinthians challenges me. The answer to division, confusion, chaos, fighting – love. A special love – agape – which means sacrificial love, a love that puts the needs of others ahead of my own. So really, my question is more in the line of how much I care for those around me? Do I love them, long to see them know God, share my faith and glorify God with my words and my actions? One thing is for certain, love is not a feeling. It’s action.

Unwilling to listen

“Will You Not Listen?” by Michael Card

Jesus warned His own disciples that there will be those who will not listen to what they had to say. It is true that I more often have individuals reject the Gospel that I share with them. I am encouraged to note that Jesus said it is not because of me, but because of Him.

And he said to me, “Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them. For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech and a hard language, but to the house of Israel— not to many peoples of foreign speech and a hard language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I sent you to such, they would listen to you. But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me: because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart. – Ezekiel 3:4-7 ESV

Ezekiel went through a similar experience. He did not go overseas, did not learn a new language – he went to his own people. Their rejection of what God had to say was not because of ignorance but because of the hardness of their heart. It was almost as if his prophecies were kept in a sealed book – that is how unwilling they were to listen. What struck a chord with Ezekiel is that if he did take this message to those overseas, just like Jonah, they would have responded and would have been obedient.

The prophecies that Ezekiel gave were not just admonishing words, they were words used to indict caution – so they would not lose their lives because of error or thoughtlessness. Ezekiel was a disciple of God who was appointed to be a teacher because hearing was not sufficient. He heard from God first and then speaks. When he spoke he could clearly articulate that the words were from God and not from him.

Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. – Ezekiel 3:17 ESV

May the grace of God keep me from being unwilling to listen and to give me wisdom when addressing those who are.

Deliver the hard message

MercyMe – Even If

The big idea from Ezekiel that I am picking up today is that sometimes God calls upon us to deliver the hard message– the message that is difficult to deliver. Perhaps we must confront a friend or admonish someone. A part of what it means to live the disciple’s life is having the courage not to put off these responsibilities when they come. Ezekiel is a good example of someone who was willing to deliver the hard message.

And he said to me, “Son of man,^[i] stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.” And as he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me. And he said to me, “Son of man, I send you to the people of Israel, to nations of rebels, who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me to this very day. – Ezekiel 2:1-3 ESV

So what is the hard message about being or not being a disciple?

This was one of my readings today.

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. – Hebrews 6:4-6 ESV

It would seem that the Hebrew writer is giving me a pretty hard message. It would seem that holding Jesus up to contempt could be my crime. By contempt – meaning that I would be nailing Him to the cross again.

“they tear him out of the recesses of their hearts where He had fixed His abode and exhibit Him to the open scoffs of the world as something powerless and common” [BLEEK in ALFORD].

As a disciple of Jesus, I abide in Him, hear and obey His voice. There is not a falling away to the point where the branch is dead and needs to be broken from the tree. Imagine if I were though. Even so, if I became like the fig tree that did not produce fruit, God’s grace can reclaim even such a hardened rebel. The impossibility is more in line with me knowing once the power of Jesus’ sacrifice and then rejecting it, I could feel that I have past by hope, except by a miracle of God’s grace.

This hard message reminds me everyday to be walking in all the experiences God has given me and to not cease in abiding in them. By abiding in them I will not fall away.