Faith, Are You In The Wheelbarrow?

A faith story, first, requires a step of faith! To believe God and to step, believing, but not seeing!
Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as, "being SURE of what we hope for and CERTAIN of what we do not see." Verse 2 says, "This is what the ancients were commended for."

Faith, is a leap into the darkness, with all CONFIDENCE that God is going to be there! It's a trust in God! We don't trust someone without coming to know them. Faith in God is built on a relationship, time spent with! Our faith grows as we grow in our relationship with Him!

The "ancients" mentioned in verse two, above, stepped with faith, believing God and therefore, experienced the blessing of seeing God at work. These great men of God got to witness what God was doing, because they were willing to join Him. Could you do that? Do the unreasonable? Leave all you have and follow God? Faith isn't easy! I haven't arrived either, I'm a work in progress! I struggled too, in letting God take complete control.

Moses struggled, "God I'm not eloquent." "Please choose someone else."
Gideon struggled, "God, I need to know this is your voice", and he put out a fleece twice. (We talked about these in a previous blog.)

Hebrews 11:7 says,
"By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith."

How did Noah come to this place with God?

Genesis 6:8-9 says,
"But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he WALKED with God."

 Noah spent time with God, trusted Him and Noah believed and acted on that belief! Noah breathed and lived in God's presence, he was blameless and righteous.

If Noah had not obeyed, he and his family would have died too. But because Noah believed, he and his family were saved. Wow! What a faith story they experienced FROM INSIDE THE ARK because they did believe and did, what seemed to others, what I'm sure, looked to be crazy and stupid!

Genesis 7:16b says, "Then the Lord shut him in" the ark.
(God sealed it. This was God securing His promise!)
Can you imagine how GRATEFUL Noah and his family were that God had shown them favor, that they acted in obedience, instead of disbelief!

A step of faith precedes the outcome! Don't we, often, want it the other way around? We want to know the outcome first, but then it wouldn't require faith, would it?

2 Corinthians 5:7 says,

"We live by faith not by sight." 

To join God in what He's doing requires faith in God!

Hebrews 11:8-12 says,

"By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, who's architect and builder is God. By faith Abraham, even though he was past age ~ and Sarah herself was barren was enabled to become the father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he was as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sand of the seashore."

Abraham believed God to be faithful and acted on that belief! The call to follow wasn't about Abraham, it was about what God was doing with a nation He called his own. Abraham answered the call and stepped in faith and got to be apart of something much BIGGER than himself and it was credited to him as righteousness, because of his obedience. There were famines, imprisonment, slavery, and alot of difficulties. With great trials, comes great blessing! God allowed them to go through hardships, but in their need, they got to see God provide, for those needs, in BIG ways! Being in need, BIG trials, leave room for God to provide ~ BIG blessings!

Hebrews 11:13 says, 

"All these people were STILL living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on the earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of a country they had left, they would have had the opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country ~ a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."

These people believed God and followed Him to do His will, they were not their own, they chose to belong to God, to fulfill all He gave them to do. Some, died along the way and didn't get to see the ending results, Israel established by God in the promise land, but these men are "heroes of faith"! They were sure of what they hoped for and were certain of what they did not see!

I encourage you to read the stories of Noah and Abraham, in their entirety in Genesis. You can find the "Hall of Faith" in Hebrews 11. Check it out! Men, with feet of clay, just like you and me, followed God because they believed, in Him, to the point of being willing to obey Him. They were human and imperfect, but God used them because they were willing.

To go with God, requires a step of faith! To take a step of faith requires trust and trust comes through time spent with. As we grow in our faith we, also, grow in our obedience.

I was told that a man was going to push a wheelbarrow, on a tight rope, across Niagra Falls, when asked how many believed he could do it, all raised their hands! When asked who wanted to get in the wheelbarrow, no one raised their hand!

When it comes to God, does your faith put you in the wheelbarrow? Do you just believe He exists or do you believe in Him to the point of following His ways?

So, exactly, what kind of faith or belief does it take to be saved? Can you know?

There's a dependency on God for salvation, a belief or trust that our salvation lies in what Christ did on the cross, alone, not on anything we have done or can do.

John 14:6 says,

"I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, except by Me."(It's a belief, a faith, that Christ's sacrifice was enough.)

So, why do we need Christ's sacrifice, anyway?

The scriptures tell us in Romans 3:23, "That all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

In Romans 6:23 we read,

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

God is Holy and without sin, we are sinners and were separated from God by our sin. God sent His Son, Jesus, who was both God and man, to die in our place, for our sins, so we could have fellowship with a Holy God. It's a free gift, there's nothing we can do to earn it ~ by believing, we are claimed righteous.

Ephesians 2:8-9 says,

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith ~ and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God ~ not by works, so that no one can boast."

There's nothing we can do, we can't be good enough. We confess our sin and turn to Jesus and we can be saved.

1 John 1:9 says,
"If we confess our sins, He's faithful and just and will forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Do you just believe God exists out in the great somewhere or are you "in the wheelbarrow"?

I leave you with this verse:
Colossians 2:6-7 says,
"So then just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness."

We have much to be thankful for! I'm continuing in prayer for you, my friend!