Hello everyone!
What a week it has been! There have been many opportunities – that is, many challenges! It all depends on your focus, doesn’t it? When we view life and earthly realities from God’s perspective and decide to accept and go with God’s agenda, or God’s leading, that’s living by faith, and challenges become opportunities. For the believer, that is the proper, preferred and exciting way to live. What have been your “challenge opportunities” this week?
The key in all of this is to be able to discern what God is doing and saying (knowing His will in the moment), and going with that. This is what the apostle Paul called “walking by faith” …
2 Corinthians 5:7-10 (NRSV) 7 “… for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.”
In other words, Paul was saying here that we do have confidence to live here in the flesh before we eventually go to be with the Lord. That confidence – despite many prevailing human perspectives, ideas, philosophies and non-God focused options – comes from walking by faith. Knowing what God’s will is and walking in it. Now, to clarify here (slightly tongue in cheek) walking is a step-by-step process – it’s different to standing still. When we walk by faith, we’re ensuring that every step we take, every decision and so on, conforms to what God wants, and not what the world thinks. We no longer walk by what we see and understand from a worldly perspective – because that’s not faith – that’s unbelief. We walk by faith in such a way that, where necessary, we override what we see with our purely human perspective and wisdom, and we choose the leading of the Lord. We replace the human perspective and the human wisdom with God’s perspective – even when that does not seem logical from the world’s perspective. It may seem like foolishness in the world’s eyes.
That’s daring faith, right there! That takes courage.
FINAL WORD
So, with this walking by faith thing – which is the only way to live the Christian life (it doesn’t work any other way) - I’m not saying we need to get God’s permission about what socks we’ll put on and wear today. That’s silly. No, I’m talking about ensuring day-to-day that our faith walk is true and genuine – and never compromised by worldliness, or worldly logic if it tries to displace God’s perspective, God’s view of reality and God’s leading.
This is not new by the way. The apostle Paul once wrote about the cross of Christ saying …
1 Corinthians 3:18-19 (NLT) “Stop deceiving yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world’s standards, you need to become a fool to be truly wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, ‘He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness.’”
Wow! He nails it, right there! As one is born again we deceive ourselves when we live by the world’s standards. We deceive ourselves! We betray ourselves! We swindle ourselves! We cheat ourselves! We double cross and con ourselves … when we don’t walk by faith. And so, Paul emphasises that we need to become fools in order to be truly wise. What does that mean? It means, in the world’s eyes we walk by faith and not by worldly standards and values. The world sees and determines that those who walk by faith in God are fools.
Us born agains, need to become fools … again!
Isn’t this how we started in faith in the first place? Again, Paul …
1 Corinthians 1:22-25 (NIV) “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
If we have believed the “foolishness” of God in the cross for our own salvation – and we are certain of God’s salvation, and certain of the “foolish wisdom” of the cross – why do we find it so hard to walk by faith and not by sight each day? I think there are two basic answers to that question. The first is that we see salvation in very narrow, contractual, transactional historical terms, and not as an active daily application that releases abundant living to us. The second answer (which flows from the first) is that we just don’t stop to think about what it really means to walk by faith, step-by-step each day … and we just do our own thing … and so, swindle ourselves out of the rich blessings of God’s salvation and the power and joy of the new life we have in Christ.
That’s not abundant living. That’s the real foolishness.
You are dearly, extravagantly loved!
Ps Milton