Why Faith?
These past few weeks I’ve been studying and speaking on a subject which has been spoken about so much in the church already. Faith. You may ask, why bother when so much has been said about it. Well, because so few use it and even fewer really understand it. Another reason is the importance of faith. It’s so important to the life of believers that we need to know absolutely everything about it.
"And without faith, it is impossible to please God..." Hebrews 11:6
I started studying and speaking on the subject because I myself realized I
need more of the stuff. I got tired of being overwhelmed by a few things and
was like “this can’t be the life God has called me to.” And by that I do not
mean that life is supposed to be easy and free-flow for us believers, there’s
evidence all over Scripture that we ought to expect difficulty; even better, we
are advised how to handle it. So why wasn’t I coping? Because I was trying to
breathe underwater without my oxygen tank.
Habakkuk 2:4 is a scripture quoted throughout the New Testament
when the subject of faith is treated (see Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, Hebrews
10:38). It seems to be that one verse that emphasises the importance of faith.
But what is its meaning in its context?
The book of the prophet Habakkuk is a lovely book about
prayer since we get to witness the back and forth of prophet Habs praying (more
like complaining) and God's answering. It’s beautiful to see how personal he is
with God and how patient God is with him. Basically, Habs cry was that the
righteous (Israelites) are suffering under the hand of the wicked (Babylonians).
God makes it clear that He has appointed the wicked to execute judgement (Hab.
1:6, 12), but Habs further complains how God can bear to watch such evil, I
love his words in verse 13 of chapter 2:
“Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate
wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the
wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?”
(I’m so tempted to start on lessons on prayer we can learn
from this guy…look how his knowledge of God guides his prayer. Another time.)
God’s response is a very popular verse (Hab. 2:2-3) where He instructs
Habakkuk to write down what He’ll say since it awaits an appointed time, the
end times. He promises that it will not prove false, that though it linger, he should
wait for it.
“See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright – but the
righteous will live by his faith – indeed, wine betrays him; he is arrogant and
never at rest.” Hab. 2:4-5a
Look at that! God was going on about the enemy, starting off
in describing the calamity that was to befall him, and in the midst of it, God
addresses the core of Habs complaint…what about the righteous? God says they
will live, survive, and thrive, by their faith. This means faith is their only
way out of this big mess, faith is the only way they can live, the only way
they can make it. Without faith, they’re going to die right in the middle of
it. Faith is their oxygen tank under the water.
Doesn’t that say a lot? We might not be Israelites but we sure
know what it feels like to walk on ground ruled by an evil god where wickedness
and injustice are the order of the day. But check what Jesus prayed in John
17:15 concerning us being here: “My prayer is not that you take them out of the
world but that you protect them from the evil one.” He left us here knowing
what this world was like, all because He knew we could make it, only if we didn’t
live as the world did, but instead, lived by faith. So as much as we anticipate
heaven and His return, we do not live our lives seeking to escape the pain and
trouble of this world, instead, we thrive in it as we wait for the promise of
heaven and his return. This is why He said John 10:10 that He came to give us life and life in
abundance, that doesn’t only speak to our eternal existence but our earthly one
as well.
So, do you see just how important faith is? This is why I’m
busy studying what faith is, what it is not, how I am to use it and what using it can
change in my life.
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