As I toss the subject of faith around in my head and heart I enjoy fresh insights from the Word of God. Here’s one that jumped to my attention in the past few days. Faith ignores the evidence. I have that on good Biblical grounds, too, so don’t go getting all hoity-toity about me going off on some esoteric hype-faith tangent. I’m interested in Real Faith that can be activated by real people of God. It has to work for me, and be anchored in the pages of the Bible. It has to be something I can get a grip on and teach to others.
So, take a look and see for yourself. One of the qualities of faith is its ability to ignore the evidence.
When we face a challenge it is indeed the very tangible evidence that makes the challenge. Something will be against us, in real tangible terms. That obstacle is our faith challenge. When our faith breaks through and we get the answer to our prayer then the physical, tangible, evidential stuff will be thrown aside and replaced with God’s miraculous provision.
Sickness will give way to health. All those medical charts, specialist reports and sincere prognoses will be worth less than the paper they are printed on. Not because they weren’t excellent and professional, but because God breaks through and brings health that overturns all the claims they accurately make. Lumps will disappear, cancers will be gone, imbalances will rectify, body parts will be re-created. So the evidence, as seen in the medical reports, is not the place to look for the future. That evidence will soon be superseded with God’s miracle.
What about a financial need. All the pages of calculations, contingency plans, garage sale advertisements or whatever, become of no consequence when God comes through with His provision.
People of faith don’t preoccupy themselves with the evidence; they ignore the evidence as they press in for God’s overthrow of the current situation.
OK, you’ve been patient with me. But I hear you tapping your foot, saying “Chapter and Verse!”
Let me choose as my reference point the most authoritative man of faith in the Bible. One man, of the many who lived by faith, is the father of all of us who have faith. He is the man whose faith was credited to him as righteousness, making him the model for all Christians who put their faith in Jesus Christ and are able to be declared righteous as a result. That man is Abraham.
Abraham was given the promise of a son from his own body, when he was an old, childless man. Abraham decided to believe God’s promise, even though the evidence was solidly against him. That act of faith is the most celebrated act of faith in all human history.
So, take a look and see that Abraham, the father of all who have faith, as part of being a man of faith, IGNORED THE EVIDENCE! (Oops, I’m shouting. Excuse me.)
“And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara’s womb” Romans 4:19
Abraham had two insurmountable obstacles to God’s fulfillment of the promise made to him. Abraham was about 100 years old and Sarah’s womb had stopped its monthly cycle. There was no more ovulation from Sarah’s body.
Did you see what Abraham did with this evidence? Abraham IGNORED it! Abraham did not give a thought to his own prolonged age, nor did he give a thought to the fact that Sarah was now past giving birth. Abraham, in showing us how to be people of faith, ignored the evidence!
The thing that will trip up your faith walk is the evidence. Just as Peter, while walking on the water took notice of the evidence and began to sink, we too can move away from faith when the evidence is too clearly in our view.
That’s why it can be an important step in your faith journey to take your eyes off the evidence and place them on God’s Word. God calls things into existence that don’t exist – so there will be no evidence of them being there until the miracle takes place. So don’t waste your time looking at the evidence. Spend your time pressing in to God.
Look at how Abraham understood God to be…. “before him whom he believed, even God, who quickens the dead, and calls those things which don’t exist as though they do exist.” Romans 4:17.
Abraham knew that with God nothing is impossible. So, in such a case, the physical tangible evidence is of no real concern.
Note: I’m not suggesting that you drink deadly poison, or deny urgent medical attention, or similarly act in a life endangering way. I’m directing you to a Biblical reality, that people of faith are able to look past the evidence and see the promise of God. If you have the faith to do what is daring, then that is between you and God. I’m simply stirring up your faith, and prompting you to step out with faith in God rather than being pulled under by your view of the evidence.
Tags: evidence, faith, faith in god, ignoring the evidence, impossible, miracles, press in to God
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