Thursday, October 2, 2008

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Faith and Patience

"We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised" (Hebrews 6:12).

What would it be like if we simply had to have faith and the thing we were believing for would instantly materialize?  Would that be a good thing or not?  Maybe it happens that way occasionally, but most often there is some time between the believing part and the receiving part.  And it is this in between part that most often causes us the biggest problems.

This is the time when we are tempted to slack off in our believing.  Maybe doubt sets in and we start to wonder whether we will ever see what it is we are believing for become a reality.  Maybe it is not God's will, we think.  Maybe I have done something to disqualify myself from receiving.  Maybe faith doesn't really work.  The devil will come up with as many possibilities as you can imagine, all designed to do one thing:  to talk you out of your faith.

That is why faith and patience have to go together.  We believe.  And then we wait patiently.  And, we wait expectantly.  "We do not want you to become lazy," the scripture says.  And that is part of the walk of faith too.  It is not always easy.  I sometimes wonder whether it is ever easy.  Faith is hard work.  But the hard work of faith is what actually ends up paying even more dividends than just receiving that for which we may be believing.  When Abraham believed God, it was credited to him as righteousness (Galatians 3:6/Genesis 15:6).  Not only did he get what was promised to him, he received righteousness, he received a relationship with the living God of the whole universe.  God wants us to receive immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20).  And the only way for us to do that is for it to take some time.

When Abraham, who is the example we are to imitate here, received the promise from God, he did what he could do, and then left the rest to God.  Could he bring about the results by means of his faith?  No, he could only believe, he could only have faith.  God had to work out the results.  God had to bring about the promise.  And, it is no different for you and I.  Romans says,

"Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, 'So shall your offspring be.'  Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was a good as dead — since he was about a hundred years old — and that Sarah's womb was dead.  Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised" (Romans 4:17-21).

Can we have that Abraham kind of faith?  Can we have that Abraham kind of perseverance?  Why not?  We have the exact same God as he did.  And we even have much more revelation of God than Abraham did, including the coming to earth, life, death, and resurrection of God's Son, Jesus Christ!  We can and should believe anything that God has promised, no matter how hopeless it might look to us that it could ever be true.  Against all hope, believe!  Abraham faced his reality and still chose to do the ridiculous and believe God!  What God had promised seemed to be nonsense.  Sarah had laughed when she first heard it.  "Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised" (Romans 4:20-21).

Patience only strengthens faith when we choose to hang on to it no matter what.  God can do anything.  Nothing is impossible to him (Luke 1:37).  And, by extension, apparently nothing is impossible to him who believes (Mark 9:23).  However, it doesn't matter whether that is true or not if we let go of our faith because of impatience.  The promise of scripture is that we will get what has been promised through faith and patience.  Neither one on its own will accomplish everything that God has planned.  Together, all things are possible!  Abraham had to wait for seventeen years!  But,

"after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised" (Hebrews 6:15).

I so often want instant faith.  That is not God's kind of faith.  At least not always or even often it seems.  He has a much bigger plan for faith.  He wants you and me to have so much more faith.  So put faith and patience together and let's work our faith and not be lazy.  Faith plus patience will bring about the result every time in God's time.