Seeing with Eyes of Faith

while we look not at the things which are seen,

but at the things which are not seen;

for the things which are seen are temporal,

but the things which are not seen are eternal.

...for we walk by faith, not by sight---

II Corinthian 4:18, 5:7

By faith Moses...By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the

wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.

Hebrews 11:24-27

and though you have not seen Him, you love Him,

and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him,

you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,

obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.

I Peter 1:8-9

"Your Father Abraham rejoiced to see My day,

and he saw it and was glad."

John 8:56

This section of II Corinthians quoted above begins with II Corinthians 4:13, when Paul states, "But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written..."  The crescendo of this thought is in 4:18"while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

How can we walk by faith, and not by sight? How can we endure as seeing Him who is unseen? How can we look upon the things which are not seen? How can we be like Abraham and see Christ's day and rejoice in it? How can we not see Him and yet love Him and believe in Him? The answer to all of these questions is simple; we see with eyes of faith. Living by faith is what all true Christians do. It is living with eyes of faith that see the unseen through the Word of God, because we believe and therefore trust the Word through which God has spoken to us.

Seeing leads to knowing, and we see this played out in the verses in chapter five that follow on the heels of 4:18:
5:1 For we know
5:6 Therefore, being always of good courage and knowing
5:11 Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord
5:16 Therefore, from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer.

Abraham saw Christ's day through the promises of God. Moses endured by seeing Him who is unseen through His promises to Moses. We love Christ and believe in Him because we see our salvation in Him through the promises of God. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. By faith we accept the promises of God, and it is through the promises of God that we see Him and His salvation. These promises are not just words written upon a page, they are the daily reality in which we live.

These can only be seen with eyes of faith, eyes that look upon the eternal, eyes that look to the promises of God. It is the man or woman of faith who sees eternal things, who breathes holy air, who stands upon  holy ground.

When we have eyes of faith, we do not see Christ as a historical figure, we see Him as the Savior; in fact, we see Him as our Savior. We see that in Him our sins are forgiven. We see His blood as our atonement. W e see His death as our life. We see His shame as our glory. We see His resurrection as our victory. We see His ascension as our hope. We see His completed work as our confidence. All that Christ is and all that He has done have become real to us by faith.  

Even though unseen, the promises of God have substance and reality. The Lord talks to us and we experience Him and come to know Him through the Word of God. When we take Him at His Word and believe His Word, He opens our eyes to see Him and to know Him; and the eternal things become a reality for us...just like they did for Abraham, Moses, and Paul.

Do you have eyes of faith, my friend?  Have you seen Him who is unseen? Have you seen His coming day and rejoiced? Have you looked to the promises of God so that the Promise of God, Jesus Christ, has become real to you?

Trials-Faith Tested, Faith Proven

When I was young boy, one of my favorite books was The Red Badge of Courage. This was a novel set in the Civil War about a teenager who went to war as a drummer. He often wondered if he had real courage, courage enough not to run in the thick of the battle. Sure enough he would find out. In the heat of a fierce battle he sustained a head wound. His head was bandaged, and the bandage was soon soaked with his blood. Wounded and hurting, he grabbed the flag from a fallen comrade and led the charge. The red bloody bandage became the red badge of his courage for all to see. A great story, one that still gives me a thrill to think about.

Faith untested is faith unproven. So have you ever wondered about the proof of your faith? Have you ever wondered what you would have to show the Lord to prove the reality of your faith when you stand before Him on that final day? You can't hold faith, you can't touch and feel faith, you can't see faith itself, faith is not a physically tangible object. So how do you know it is real? Well, God in His goodness to us has provided us for a way to know our faith is real, to stand before him with something tangible in our hand, to have that definitive proof of the reality of our faith. We see this in I Peter 1:6-7, "In this you greatly rejoice, even though for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 

Think about it! Your enduring trials, your being faithful to God when under duress, your being wounded in some way as you remain godly in your circumstances, your paying a price because of your love for the Savior become the red badge of your faith. Just as the young boy in the story could look at that bloody bandage and rejoice because his courage had been proven, so we too can look at the trials that have proved our faith and rejoice in the knowledge that our faith has stood the test, and that we will stand before the Lord when He comes with tangible evidence of our faith in Him and love for Him. Yes, we will quote the Psalm that God is good and does good, but have you ever considered the goodness of the Lord in using trials to give us not only the confidence that our faith is real and has substance to it; but also that He is good by giving us trials to hold in our hand that prove our faith, on that great day when we appear before Him?

In Genesis 22:12 God has this to say to Abraham after He stopped Abraham from plunging the knife into the breast of the son, who was not only the son of promise, but the son in whom all the promises of God were to be fulfilled, "...for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me." Yes, Peter was correct, the proof of our faith is truly more precious than gold.  Gold perishes, but the proof of our faith does not, and we will always wear its red badge, not only before men, but more importantly, before God.

Lord, we want to close in thanking You for using trials in this way. Thank You for the proof of our faith that trials give us, and for the confidence that our faith is real that trials give us. May each one who is reading this post have that red badge of faith, so we will not shrink back from You at Your coming. Amen.

 

The Importance of Faith, Hope, and Love

In that well known verse at the end of I Corinthians 13 Paul gives us the three eternal Divine qualities, the three Divine distinctives that are to be present in the life of one who truly believes.  And to the extent these are present in the lives of believers, they will be present in the life of the church of which they are a member.

These three Divine distinctives can be manifested in various ways, and we see them manifested in the life of two churches that Paul wrote to.  First, it was the Thessalonians.  In I Thessalonians 1:3 we see the activity of faith (work), the unction of love (labor), and the steady enduring of hope (waiting for Christ).  We also see them manifested in the church at Colossae.  In Colossians 1:3-5a we see the object of faith (Jesus Christ), the direction of love (toward all the saints), and the place of hope (heaven).  In two different churches we see the same qualities, but how they are manifested in each church was different....just as they are in the lives of individuals.

It is no accident that in both letters we see Paul commending the church, and rejoicing in thanksgiving for these two churches in his prayer for them.  Why?  Because a spiritually healthy church, a spiritually balanced church will be manifesting these eternal qualities, just as a spiritually healthy and spiritually balanced individual will be manifesting them.  Paul knew that these churches were spiritually healthy and robust, and therefore would be effective.  This is why he wrote what he did to the Colossians, so that they would stand fully assured in their faith (2:1-3, 4:12) and not be derailed by the false teachers; and why he wrote to the Thessalonians to not only keep doing what they were doing, but to excel in it still more.  In both of these letters you can see Paul wanting these churches to continue to grow in their faith, their hope, and their love.

Another example is the letter to the Hebrews, written with the goal of exhortation Hebrews 13:22 (speaking to the need of the moment).  These believers needed to be encouraged and strengthened in their faith, love, and hope.  In this epistle the author of Hebrews talks about the obedience of faith and the endurance of faith.  He talks about the confidence and assurance that hope brings, and how it is the anchor of our soul.  He talks about the encouragement in love that comes from gathering together, and how we should be stimulating one another (being a catalyst) to love and good deeds.

In I Timothy 1:5 Paul writes, "But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience (which is directly connected to the assurance of hope) and a sincere faith."

So, fellow pastors, what is the goal of our instruction, our exhortation?  Should it not be in developing faith, love, and hope in the people under our care.  Should not the things we do, the prayers we pray, the activities that we engage in be to developing these eternal qualities in our people?  I sincerely believe that is why the Philippians were Paul's joy and crown, not just because of their aid to him, but because of the manifestation of faith, hope, and love he witnessed in them.  May the faith, hope, and love of our people be to us a great and glorious crown and the cause of our rejoicing in that day!

Faith and Love

When our faith in God is put to the test,

so is our love for Him.

Untested Faith

Faith untested is faith unproven;

and an unproven faith is no faith at all.

Colossians 1:3-5a The Object of Our Faith

We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus

and the love which you have for all the saints; because of the hope

laid up for you in heaven...

Colossians 1:3-5a

Here we see both Paul and Timothy giving thanks for the Colossians in their prayers for them. Thanksgiving is an exercise that is motivated by joy, it is an expression of joy and here it is expressed to the source of the joy, who is God Himself. What do we see about the Colossians that would be the occasion of joy and its corresponding thanksgiving by Paul and Timothy? From the text we see it is their faith, love, and hope, and according to Paul in I Corinthians 13 faith, hope, and love are the three eternal Divine qualities, three Divine distinctives, and we see that these three are present and active in the life of the church at Colossae. It is interesting to note that there is only one other church in the NT that we see mentioned as manifesting all three of these divine qualities and that is the church at Thessalonica.

While both churches are commended for manifesting these qualities, how they manifest them is different. In Thessalonica they are manifested in the activity of faith, the unction of love, and the steady enduring of hope
(I Thessalonians 1:3). Here in Colossae they are revealed through the object of their faith, Jesus Christ; the direction of their love, toward all the saints; and the place of their hope, which is in heaven. So over the next few posts we will look at these three Divine distinctives as they are lived out in the church at Colossae.

So now let’s look at the object of our faith—Jesus Christ.

Well, what is faith?

Hebrews 11:1 Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Martin Luther describes faith as a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.

The Greek word for faith (pistis) means a firm persuasion, a strong conviction, a belief in the truth.  It is not the outcome of imagination, but based on fact.  It is a strong and welcome conviction that leaves no room for doubt. It is to be fully and completely persuaded beyond a shadow of any doubt. Out of this is conviction is born trust and the concept of trusting is implicit in the understanding of what it means to have faith. In fact, trust is the dynamic component of faith. Faith then must have a foundation to rest on, an object in which to place its trust. So for the Christian the object of our faith and the place of our trust is Jesus Christ.

Before we get to the object of our faith, Christ Jesus, it is interesting to note what Paul did not include as the object of our faith. It is not having faith in our denominational affiliation, our family heritage, our church membership as that is having faith in the agency of man. It is not faith in our faith, faith in a prayer we prayed or a decision that we made, because this would be having faith in ourselves. It is not faith in walking the aisle, faith in our baptism or our tithing, faith in the good things we do, or faith in our obedience as that would be having faith in our works, which, again, is no more than having faith in ourselves.

Here in Colossians Paul gives us only one object for our faith to rest upon, one place for our trust, and that is Christ Jesus. Now we need to understand there is a dual component to having faith in Christ. It is having faith in the person of Christ, which is represented by His name and having faith in the work of Christ, which is what He did to accomplish our salvation, and therefore trusting only in all that Christ is and all that He has done in securing your salvation. Without faith in both the person and work of Christ you do not have a complete faith and a faith that is not complete is not a faith that saves. Adding to or taking away from this is taking your trust off of Christ and is not saving faith.  All cults and heresies will attack either the person of Christ, or the completed work of Christ.