What Exactly Is Faith?

The eleventh chapter of Hebrews is definitive. It undergirds the whole message of the book of Hebrews, which is the whole message of the Bible in one book. Amazing.

The first verse does not define faith, but rather describes what it is. That in itself reveals that faith is greater than a definition. You can’t define faith any more than you can define a person. You can only describe it; or rather, you can only describe a person with it.

The first phrase is “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for…” The Greek word translated “substance” is hupostasis, and literally means “substructure.” It is a concrete word describing what buildings are built upon.

Faith is a substance in our lives upon which all of life is built. You don’t see the foundation, but you know it is there. Buildings don’t work at staying up; they just rest upon their foundations.

Faith is what Jesus was talking about in His parable about the man who built his house upon the rock as compared to the man who built upon the sand. Both had houses, but only one had a substructure. That was the one that stood up to the storms. Have you ever heard the saying, “I just don’t know how a person gets through something like this without the Lord.” The answer is they don’t.

This story also tells us where the substructure comes from, “Those who hear these words of Mine and does them is like the man…”  We do not build the foundation, God’s Word creates it. “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.”  That means that God’s Word creates the foundation upon which the fruit of obedience stands. The world sees the fruit but God sees the source, His foundation from His Word. God traces everything to its source. The obedience is also His. When it is from God, it is for God.

Hope is something we have that moves us forward because we can see what’s coming; it is looking forward to something. Have you ever noticed the way some people walk looking down while others walk with their head up, looking straight ahead? It is the difference between people of faith and people who can only “see” their own feet. By God’s Word, people of faith have vision; a future and a hope as Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us. They can “see” what’s coming, or rather, where they are heading because they know Who they are following!

The eleventh chapter of Hebrews will go on to describe some of the people of faith in the Old Testament who were not looking down at their own feet, but rather were looking forward to something that God had promised and their actions revealed that solid foundation and hope!

The question is does yours?

What Does God Say in an Explosion?

In our prayer meetings this morning, April 16, the morning after the Boston Marathon Terrorists attacks and explosions, we prayed and heard from God:

·        God, comfort those who lost loved ones, in the explosions. Heal those who were injured and may never fully recover the use of arms and legs. Their lives will never be the same again. Thank You, for the first responders. Have mercy on our nation and our nation’s leaders.

·        Psalm 46:10, know that God is God and He will be exalted over the nations, He will be exalted over all the earth.

·        Isaiah 2:11-12; If we do not humble ourselves, God will humble us. In the Bible God used evil instruments to call people to repentance, to call His people to Himself.

·        God is calling our nation to fall on our knees before Him in humility and repentance.

·        Spiritually, we must always be on “High Alert,” for the chief terrorist, Satan. We are kept and guarded by the presence of the Holy Spirit, if we stay turned and tuned to Him. God did not promise to keep us out of the fire, but to be with us in the fire!

·        In the picture of the first explosion, one man was knocked to his knees, while another woman simply looked at her watch to check the time of her run. Our nation must fall to our knees from these explosions and not keep running away from God and checking our pace as if this has nothing to do with our spiritual condition. We must not return to business as usual.

·        We may be entering the day in our nation where we depend more and more on the Lord, even for just going to the store and getting back home safely. We need to sing On Christ the Solid Rock more and more. He alone is our hope and stay…all other ground is sinking sand.

·        One brief picture from the terror of yesterday was a woman on her knees, with hands together, looking up with horror, in earnest prayer, crying out to God for help. Lets pray that our nation follow her example and not turn to anyone else, especially our own selves, for help. We need to get right and stay right with God.

·        God, have mercy; Christ, have mercy; Holy Spirit, convict us of our need of You.

The Danger of Looking Back and the Blessing of Remembering

This week is a time for remembering. This coming Sunday is the Sunday of all Sundays as we celebrate our living Lord Jesus Christ and the great Salvation He has given to us in His Life, death, burial, and resurrection from the dead.

The way we do that is by remembering Christ in the Lord’s Supper, on Good Friday, and on Easter Sunday. We remember when the story of Jesus became personal and real to us, when we received Jesus Christ into our hearts and were born again to a new relationship with God in Him and the future we have with Him. Hallelujah!

But there is a danger in looking back. Nothing about us points backward. God created us to move forward. We are prone to look back and tempted to go back for all the wrong reasons.

Some look back on “the good old days” with a longing for the way it was to be the way it should be now. That kind of thinking focuses upon something lost rather than something gained. This results in a life of ingratitude and misses the blessings of God today and yesterday.

Then there are those who look back with a longing to go back to “do over” some missed opportunity or mistake. With this backward glare, there is always regret, guilt, and/or condemnation.

We wonder what Lot’s wife was looking back to Sodom to see. Was she wanting to go back, or was she wanting to see them get what they deserved!? Either way, God was letting us know that it may be better to be a pillar of salt than to live with that kind of “backward look.”

In Christ there is now no condemnation, no guilt, nothing left undone. Jesus cried out on the Cross, “It is finished!” In triumph, He buried the past forever and inaugurated the New Creation with that victorious shout!

Still others claim that the past is instructive; learn from it. But God did not create us to look back in order to learn from the past. He created us to learn from Him, today; to ask Him for wisdom, today; to learn His ways and move forward with Him, today. Our foolish forefathers took the bait that we could learn from a tree (Genesis 3) rather than from God. And today, we are still going after that bait; desiring to learn from everything other than from God.

But God commands us to remember. The Hebrew word “remember” in the Old Testament involves much more than our English word “remember.” The Hebrew word “remember” encompassed a trinity of reflection (past), realization (present), and rehearsal (future); all centered upon God.

The Jews were given annual feasts by God in order to reflect upon the majesty and mighty deeds of God for them in the past, to realize that the very same God was active among them and with them right now, and to rehearse the promises of God for the future. We need to redefine our word “remember” to guard against wanting to go back in order to enjoy, to fix, to get back at, and/or to learn something.

And so, let’s remember Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. Let’s glance back with gratitude that God did not leave us back there in the past, and that He has led us to where we are today in order to prepare us for what He desires to give us tomorrow. Let’s give thanks and enjoy today what He is doing among us and seek with joyful anticipation for what He has promised to us and prepared for us in the future. It is all about Him, from Him, for Him, and to Him! Hallelujah; Blessed be His Holy Name!

The Problem With Self Esteem

For decades the self-help books, seminars, sermons, Bible studies, and message has identified the problem in our lives as “low self esteem.” Everything was blamed on “low self esteem.” To correct this problem there has been an emphasis upon developing a better self esteem by various methods.

Developing better self esteem is popular in just about any context; in family, in sports, in business, in education, and especially in religion. The problem with developing a higher (higher = better) self esteem is that once you develop a higher self esteem you end up with a greater problem than when you had low self esteem; higher = greater, and with self esteem “greater” = a bigger problem. Anyway you look at it, self esteem whether it is low or high, is your problem.

In religious circles this becomes very deceptive. In religion, self esteem is preached and taught under the heading of self-development; how to become a better….whatever; a better person, a better partner, a better entrepreneur, a better pray-er, a better pew-sitter (church member), a better part of society (participating more in compassionate causes). The message goes on and on and ends up with “as you learn and develop into the kind of person God wants you to be, you will feel better about yourself and about everything around you.” The end of the message reveals the problem; “…everything around YOU,” which is also why it is so popular.

The Bible teaches that self esteem must be lowered down to the lowest level; into the grave! Trying to improve (develop) self esteem will only create a bigger monster (good flesh, nice flesh, educated flesh…is still flesh! Of the worst kind). But once the death sentence for self esteem is carried out (crucified with Christ and buried, Romans 6:3-11), Someone else can become the focus, The Lord Jesus Christ! Then every circumstance, every experience, everything that happens is about Him, not you. When trouble strikes, you won’t ask, “God, what did I do, what are You trying to teach me…” Instead you will simply say, “God, this is not about me, this is about YOU, because everything in my life is about YOU and knowing YOU more; do what You do best, BE GLORIFIED, GOD!!! HALLELUJAH!”

Once you stop worrying about your “self-development” and start seeking, pursuing, desiring, digging, thirsting and hungering for and after God, He will begin forming Christ in you. You won’t even know how that development is coming along because you will only be focused on knowing Him. Then and only then will all of your esteem be of Him, by Him, to Him, and for Him. Hallelujah.

Oswald Chambers At His Best

I recommend reading Oswald Chambers. His little book, Approved Unto God, should be required reading for every believer, especially those of us who preach and teach God's Word. Below is one of the most powerful paragraphs I have read in some time from that little book.

"Nowadays the great passion is the passion for souls, but you never find that passion mentioned in the New Testament, it is the passion for Christ that the New Testament mentions. It is not a passion for men that saves men; a passion for men breaks human hearts. The passion for Christ inwrought by the Holy Ghost goes deeper down than the deepest agony the world, the flesh, and the devil can produce. It goes straight down to where our Lord went, and the Holy Ghost works out, not in thinking, but in living, this passion for Christ. Whenever the passion for souls obscures the passion for Christ, Satan has come in as an angel of light."

The self-centered, man-centered, tell-me-something-I-can-use, church culture in our nation needs a transfusion of Oswald Chambers to put us back on course; back on The Way, The Truth, and The Life. Focusing upon the blessings I can get rather than the One from Whom all blessings flow is to focus upon the wrong thing. Fix your eyes on Jesus and then whatever God gives you will be received for the blessing it is. In fact, you will be so enamored with Christ, you won't even realize you are being made holy!

Like Paul, determine to know nothing else save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

Approved Unto God, highly recommended reading.

India Mission Trip Report

Thank you for your prayers and support for this mission trip to India. It was amazing. Three of us from First Baptist Church, Kingsland, (Terry Taylor, Dr. Grady Miller, and myself) met Dane Gressett in the Washington Dulles airport on Thursday, January 17.We flew from there to Frankfurt, and from Frankfurt to Madras (Chenai), India, then drove five hours to Nellore. Dane is the pastor of the Blue Ridge Community Church in Ruckersville, Virginia. He has been going over to India for over 20 years and was the leader of this trip. After a 37 hour trip, we arrived at the mission compound in Nellore, India at 5:00 AM on Saturday, January 19.

Our first outing was to dedicate a new church building in a village on the outskirts of Nellore. While we were in India we dedicated two other new church building, conducted a pastors conference for pastors, church leaders, and new believers (about 500 present), I preached in the historic Lone Star Baptist Church in Nellore to about 1,000 people, and we visited and ministered in five other village churches. At each service there were new believers to baptize and hundreds to pray for after the services. God’s Spirit has been moving mightily among the Yanadi people. They are also known as “the untouchables,” the lowest caste among the people groups of India. The Alma New Hope Ministry of Nellore has a network of over 400 churches among the Yanadi. This has happened over the past 35 years.

One of the miraculous things that has been happening is that another people group called the Lambadi, have started coming to the worship services of the Yanadi and have begun coming to Christ. The main reason is because of the miraculous healings that God has been doing among them. At each service we heard testimonies of God’s gracious hand of healing and deliverance from demons. These miracles led people to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. But for one people group in India to feel welcomed and discipled by another people is miraculous indeed.

We baptized over 100 new believers. Terry and Grady baptized more than I did. As each person was baptized, they would make a verbal confession of Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Then, the pastor would ask them, “How long will you follow Jesus as your Savior and Lord?” They would answer back, “For the rest of my life.” One older lady said something more than the others and the crowd that was witnessing her baptism laughed at her answer. We learned later that to the question, “How long will you follow Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord?” she responded, “For the rest of my life, and just in case reincarnation is true, I will follow Jesus in my next life, too!”

We experienced the joy and power of the Lord on this trip. It was truly amazing. The three of us will be sharing in our worship service on Sunday, February 3. You can listen to the recording of it by Sunday afternoon on our web site, www.firstkingsland.com. Thank you again for your prayers. We could feel them.

A Pile of Gold or a Bible; Which Would You Choose?

Our 10-year-old granddaughter, Emma, and I were driving down the road in Boerne to get a few things at HEB when I told her that I wanted to practice my memory verse with her.

As we drove, I quoted “The words of Your mouth are better for me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.”  Psalm 119:72. Then I said, “Emma, Psalm 119 is a prayer that will shape our prayers if we learn it and pray it. I want to get to the place where if I saw a pile of gold beside a Bible, I would choose the Bible.”

Then I asked her, “What about you?” She thought for a moment, kept looking straight ahead, and said, “I would take the gold and then go buy some Bibles for people who do not have one.”

AMEN! Sure wish I had thought of that! Thanks, Emma.

I will be on a mission trip to India over the next few weeks and will greatly appreciate your prayers for our team. And I am taking some money that Emma’s daddy gave me to buy some Bibles for some pastors who do not have one. I will post about the trip when I get back.