Out of all of the many years that I have been on this earth, there is something that I have never done. I have never seen the ocean. Not once. It has something that I have always wanted to do, but never gotten around to it.
Maybe you have something like this that you haven’t gotten to do either. Maybe you wanted to go see a certain national park, or a certain city somewhere. But when you stop for a moment to think, are you certain that that place exists? How do you know that the place you want to go to is real? Maybe you have a picture of the place, but until you actually see it with your own eyes and are there yourself, the only thing that you have to hold onto is your faith and belief that it is indeed real.
That is what faith is. It is “strong, unshakeable belief in something, especially without any proof or evidence.” Now I indeed believe that the ocean is there, even though I haven’t seen it with my own two eyes. Likewise, though I myself haven’t seen Jesus or the many wondrous works that he has done as described in the Bible, I believe that they are all true. I have faith in the Word of God that everything inside is true.
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Many, many examples of faith are given in the Bible, about people who believed in something that they couldn’t see. From Noah, a man who God charged with building a giant ark to save himself, his family, and animals from the flood that would destroy the Earth, to Abraham who, when commanded by God, was prepared to offer up his only son as an offering, to Moses, who gave up all of the riches and treasures in the land of Egypt to serve the will of God. These and many more are examples of faith, the trust in things unseen.
It takes faith to please God. We must believe in the teachings of our Lord, diligently seeking the knowledge that comes from Christ.
Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
God wants each and every one of us to seek Him and to do His will, and to do this we must be able to submit ourselves to His teachings. We must humble ourselves under His hand, giving our lives over to Him in complete obedience, because even though we have not seen Him with our own eyes, we have faith that He is real.
1 John 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
The life of a Christian is just that: a lifetime. The moment we give ourselves over to the Lord to serve Him we must submit ourselves to what He wants us to do. No longer are we a slave to sin and the control of the flesh, but we are now His servants. And what causes us to do this? What causes us to turn to obey the teachings of the Bible?
Faith. The belief in the unseen.
In Christ
Andrew
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