I just don’t have that kind of faith.
Have you ever had that thought? It’s certainly crossed my mind a time or two. My thinking on the topic was beautifully realigned a while back when Greg Fritz visited our church.
Fritz made the point that, as Christians, we’re already good a believing. That’s why the call us Believers. We believe that a God we cannot see created this world. Though we weren’t there, we believe a man and woman broke the beauty He made when they listened to the wrong voice.
We believe that Creator loved His children—us—so much that He came in the flesh to restore our relationship. We never held the baby Jesus, played with His curls, or tickled his chubby baby feet. But we believe He was born…from a virgin.
We believe He lived a perfect life. That one right there should stop us in our tracks. We’ve never had a face-to-face chat with Jesus, never shaken His hand or given him a hug. Yet, if we agree the Bible is true, we believe this man went through every type of temptation and trial, but never—not once, even a little bit—gave in.
I believe that. You believe that.
Greatest and wildest of all, we believe that this perfect man, God in the flesh, died a horrid death. Okay, that’s sad but not hard to accept. BUT we believe that His death accomplished what no man or woman ever could. His sacrifice set the broken world back to rights. It reversed the curse of sin and death. And, as if that’s not enough, we honest-to-goodness believe He came back from the dead!
Well, yeah, those are kind of the basics of Christianity, Megan.
Exactly. And we believe them by faith. I think, we have a lot more faith than we give ourselves credit for. In fact, Paul says we’ve each been given the measure of faith. (That’s not a dinky amount, my friend.)
Hebrews 11 is often called the “Faith Hall of Fame.” When you read about the incredible things these Bible heroes accomplished by faith, you probably wouldn’t dare add yourself to that list. But God would. Inspired by Greg’s words that Sunday, I think God might say something like this about you and me:
By faith, they declared God is good to a world aching with bad.
By faith, they refused to give into the fear blasting from every television, radio, neighbor, and doctor.
By faith, they raised children during lock-downs, shut-downs, and break-downs.
By faith, they got out of bed another day, and another, and another.
By faith, she wrote another book even when the first one hadn’t been published.
Okay, that last one is for me specifically. What would yours say? What have you done by faith? I bet there are things you wouldn’t even consider noteworthy that God is bragging about to all of heaven. You’re good at this, good at faith. You believe impossible things. You’re doing great things. You’re hall-of-fame worthy.
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