Walking by Faith, Part I

Beginning in September we began our unified study here at Faith Bible Church (Spokane, WA) through the book of Genesis. This is the third time we are going through the book of Genesis as a church. One of the themes that has captivated me this time around through this book is the topic of “walking by faith”. I don’t completely understand what it means to walk by faith, but the more I study God’s work in and through the life of Abraham, I see snippets of what it means to live a life of faith.

In Genesis 21:1-7, Isaac is born to Abraham and Sarah, thus, fulfilling the promise made to them in Genesis 17 and 18. Ishamael, at this time, was a young boy who was able to articulate “mocking” words towards Isaac. By this time Abraham and Sarah are well advanced in years, but God remained faithful to His promise to bring forth Isaac despite their age. When Sarah saw God’s faithfulness displayed she responded with joyful laughter over the kindness of God to provide a child for her. Moses lines this story up next to the story of Ishmael. Ishmael would be a constant reminder for Abraham and Sarah when they responded to their aging situation with fear (Genesis 16). Ishmael would not be the child of the promise. These two stories would be significant for the people of Israel who were preparing to enter the Promised Land after being in bondage for over 400 years. Its purpose was not to instill national pride (“we are the people of God”), but rather it should have provoked a heart of holiness, humility, gratitude, and obedience; a greater desire to remove anything from our life that would pose a threat to any future blessing. Living by fear keeps us from trusting in the promises of God. When we walk by fear we end up walking according to the deeds of the flesh (anger, rage malice, impurity, lust, greed and evil desires – Colossians 3). But when we set our minds on things above we begin to walk by faith because our hope looks beyond what is seen to that which is unseen.

The Immeasurable Riches of God's Grace

Early in the summer, I decided to give as a gift to the teachers in the Family and Children’s department the book The Cross Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney. Although the truths that Mahaney seeks to convey in this book are “basic” and fundamental to the Christian faith, he makes the application of these truths profound. His constant exhortation to remind his readers to think deeply of the gospel and to think daily of the gospel is critical in the process of sanctification. We can never exhaust our meditation on the gospel because for all eternity we will forever be reminded of the Lamb who was slain for our sins.

This morning as I was meditating through Ephesians chapter 2, I came across this verse: “…so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus…” This verse (Eph 2:7) struck me. Life has its many ups and downs. Our thoughts can be consumed by those things that affect our lives, whether prosperity or poverty, whether good or bad, or whether pain or pleasure. Pastoral ministry has its many highs and lows, and my mind can be consumed by either one. Part of the reason is because I love and care for the church so much. And when there are issues that I need to deal with related to the church, my mind gravitates towards wanting to fix it or develop a plan to make it right. But I am so thankful for passages like Ephesians chapter 2 where I am reminded that in God’s mercy and grace he chose to make me alive in Christ when I was once dead in my transgressions. I once lived my life according to the course of this world, but in God’s kindness he saved me by His grace. It is always refreshing and renewing to meditate on God’s saving work. Sometimes it’s hard to practically live it out in every day life. But this morning as I ran across verse 7, I was reminded that not only did God show his grace towards us in saving us. He will continue to unfold more of his grace towards us in the coming ages. Every unfolding of God’s grace will be refreshment to our soul in this life and in the life to come. We will never get tired of seeing God’s immeasurable grace unfold before our eyes. This is why we need to daily pray for God to show us not only evidence of grace in our own life, but also in the lives of others.

Can you identify glimpses of God’s grace in your children; maybe in the way they interact with their brothers and sisters or perhaps in how much more quickly they respond to your guidance and wisdom? Do you see glimpses of God’s work in your spouses’ life in the way they desire more and more each day to carry out the role of husband, wife, father or mother according the principles laid out in Scripture? If this is what we have to look forward to for all eternity, namely, the disclosing of God’s infinite grace, we must make it a pattern in our life to daily look for evidence of grace not only in our own life but also in the lives of others. When our first response is to identify evidence of grace in the life of others it will become easier for them to become our objects of joy because of God’s saving work in their life rather than burdens to bear.

The Need for Fresh Insights

One of my goals this summer was to do a devotional reading through the gospel of John. This week I finished my read through this gospel and I was struck by an event that took place in chapter 20 verses 1 to 18. The scene takes place after the resurrection of Jesus. Mary Magdalene goes to the tomb where Jesus’ body was laid, and she notices that the stone had been rolled away. She then runs to tell Peter and the other disciples, to which Peter and John ran to the tomb to find out for themselves. Sure enough they saw with their own eyes that the body of Jesus was gone. They walked away from there; it would seem, with their heads down and without hope. The next scene shows that Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. While she was weeping she was approached by Jesus who asked why she was weeping. At this point she was unaware that he was her Lord. But when she realized that she was staring her Lord in the face she calls him “teacher”. Jesus then gives her instructions. He tells her to go to the disciples. She was to tell them these words (v. 17), “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

Why was this, the message he wanted to send to his disciples? Why didn’t he simply say, “Tell the disciples you saw me, and tell them to get back over here.” Apparently, this was a phrase or a saying that he had said to them before. Therefore, when they heard these words it would have clicked in their minds that this message was from Jesus. They most likely would have thought, “Wait a minute she wasn’t there when he taught us this, and now she’s quoting him.” They would have then believed what she was saying because she was quoting something they had heard Jesus spoke before.

Sometimes God’s word must be spoken to us in fresh ways so that we are shaken up to say, “O, yeah…that’s what the Bible says.” It’s easy to get in a rut and just read the Bible without moving us towards greater belief in the Lord. When the Bible is read it should produce greater faith and confidence in the Lord.

I trust that in your reading through the Bible (particularly during the summer) you are reading it with fresh eyes and ears. Don’t look at the word of God as just another book. Read it intently. Listen to sermons preached with fresh ears every time. Allow it to produce in you a greater love for the Savior, and may it cause you to resolve ever more to walk in the ways of the Lord.

I love this quote from Maurice Roberts' The Thought of God. It encapsulates that thought I'm attempting to capture here.

If our hearts remains cold after all we can do to conjure up in our minds the wonders of Christ's love towards us, we must be ruthless with our affections and constrain our slow hearts to measure our debt of thankfulness to Jesus by a consideration of the gulf between our blessings and our deservings. Let us recall with deepest mortification that if Christ is my life, I was his death. If he is my righteousness, I was his damnation. As he is all my blessing, I was once his curse, this scourge, his "hell". O what a contradiction of God I was when Christ found me and renewed the divine image upon my soul! O at what a distance from God I was when Jesus breathed life into me and bade me live in the near presence of his Father!