SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 05-26-03
My
Worship Time Focus: The description of
faith
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Hebrews 11:1-3
Message
of the verse: “1 Now faith is the
assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the men of old gained
approval. 3 By faith we understand that
the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made
out of things which are visible.”
(NASB) “What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we
hope for is going to happen. It is the
evidence of things we cannot yet see.
God gave his approval to people in the days of old because of their
faith. By faith we understand that the
entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come
from anything that can be seen.” (NLT)
This is
the third section in the book of Hebrews which Dr. Wiersbe calls, “A Superior
Principle—Faith.” The first section was
that Christ was a superior Person and the next was that Christ has a superior
Priesthood, and these ought to encourage us to put our trust in Him, which is
demonstrated by faith.
True Bible
faith is confident obedience to God’s Word in spite of circumstances and
consequences. This description is from
“Be Confident” written by Dr. Warren Wiersbe and it is how he describes true
Biblical faith. He goes on to talk about
three words in Hebrews 11:1-2 which summarize what true Biblical faith is: 1. Substance, 2. Evidence, and 3. Witness.
Substance means to
stand under to support. An example from
the building would be the foundation in which the entire structure stands
on. This is what believer’s stands upon,
and of course the object of his faith is Jesus Christ. The word evidence means conviction, which is
how it is translated in the NASB. “This
is the inward conviction from God that what He has promised, He will
perform.” Witness is translated in the
NASB as approval, and in the KJV it is translated a good report. This is how the Strong’s Concordance
describes this word: “to be a witness, to bear
witness, i.e. to affirm that one has seen or heard or experienced something, or
that he knows it because taught by divine revelation or inspiration.” This word is used twice in verse four, and
one time in verse 5, and also one time in verse 39. Hebrews 12:1 calls the people that are
written about in chapter eleven “so great a cloud of witnesses.”
As I
stated in an earlier SD entry this section of Hebrews has stemmed from chapter
10:38 where the writer quoted Habakkuk 2:4, “The just shall live by
faith.” As believers the blood of Jesus
Christ justifies us, and we are now to live by faith, which means as stated
above as, “True Bible
faith is confident obedience to God’s Word in spite of circumstances and
consequences.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: As I look
at this description of faith I can see that in order to increase my faith I
need to continually be in the Word of God so that I can know what His Word says
about circumstances that arise in my life and how to handle them in a true
Biblical way. For instance I have
learned that a good Biblical principle is not to owe money to others if you do
not have to do so, and I blew that by borrowing money on our house to invest in
Haven Equity and now there is some doubt as to when or whether we will get this
back. My mistake, and by the grace of
God we will receive our money back and I will pay off the loan and never again
borrow from it again to invest in anything.
The point to all of this is to believe what the Lord says in His Word
and act upon it.
The Word of God was challenging, and it was refreshing to
me, and it was also convicting to my heart as I read and studied it this
morning.
My
Steps of Faith Today: Just
a little side note on this section that is in my diary each and every day, and
that is that I would hope that the things that I step out on faith in this
section from now on would be things that are already promised or taught in the
Scriptures. Today’s entry will be that the Lord will care for our moneys that we
have invested with Haven Equity, that we will receive them back. I do not know any specific promise from the
Scriptures that will say that God will take care of this return of money,
however His Word does say that He will take care of those who tithe to Him, and
that if we confess our sins to Him He will be faithful and just to forgive us
of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He will give us peace in the storms of life,
He will pray for us in the storms of life, and He will even send us into the
storms of life for our good and for His glory, so there are many things in His
Word that are principles for this situation.
Today is January 27, 2017, some fourteen years after what is described in this Spiritual Diary and I can say that even though we have never received any payment from those who actually stole our money that God has been and always be faithful, and for that I praise His name. Many lessons were learned from this difficult situation that we went through and for that I am thankful.
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