Faith

15 years ago my family moved up to the D/FW area to follow my call to ministry. When we first moved up here I felt like I was acting on faith doing what I was called to do. But in the beginning things did not go as planned. A long story made short is that after 3 and half years I felt as if I had made a mistake and I blamed my faith for this. I constantly asked myself where is my faith? You too may have had moments where you have questioned your faith or you may even be questioning your faith right now. The last few years have not gone as many of us had planned and we wonder where God is in all of this.

I was wrong to blame faith, but I also wasn’t. What I was wrong about was how I understood faith to work. I believe that many of us (Christians) have a poor understanding of what faith is. The misunderstanding many of us have is that we think faith is some sort of magical power that some have and some don’t that enables us to control our life circumstances. Faith isn’t a magical superpower, it is a muscle and like any muscle we have to exercise it. The author of the Book of Hebrews in the New Testament speaks on this topic and how many examples of faith in Scripture demonstrate people exercising their faith to hold on the the promises of God. Let look at the first verse of Hebrews 11.

“Now faith is conviction in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

Hope is wanting something to be with no guarantee. Faith is having hope in something with a confidence that it will be made a reality. We lose hope when bad things happen. We lose hope when things do not go our way. How does faith keep us from losing hope? How can we use our faith to inspire others to have hope? This Sunday in worship we will discuss how faith is some of the Tuff Stuff of the Christian life and how we can live faithfully. Join us at either 8:30 or 10:45 AM as we grow together.

In God’s grip,

Pastor Chuck Church