Faith teaching, part 3

Here are the earlier parts of this teaching:

Faith teaching part 2
Faith teaching part 1

OK, so back to this verse:

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (NIV)

We are talking about the type of faith that pleases God. Moreover, the type of faith that is necessary if we are to please God. We talked about the first aspect of this faith, which I termed the He can aspect of faith.

The second aspect of the faith that pleases God is to believe that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. This is an interesting contrast to the first characteristic of faith. The first aspect of faith talked about is belief in who God is. This second aspect talks about what God does. And of all the various activities that God engages in - creating, loving, judging, etc. - faith is the belief that he rewards.

Interesting word, reward. A reward is not an unmerited gift; it is a prize for having done something. In English the word is often used when the thing given is out of proportion to the actual work done, as in "a reward of $1000 will be given for any information leading to the capture of this dangerous criminal." However, in Greek, the word connotes being paid wages for doing work. There is a sense of duty in the giving, of obligation; that the reward given is in proportion to the work done. An amazing thing, this: to be paid wages for earnestly seeking God.

It reminds me of another verse, originally found in Genesis 15:6, but quoted three times in the New Testament. I'll quote it from Romans, because I'm allowed:

Romans 4:3: ...Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. (NIV)

Similar to Hebrews 11:6, a reward (credit) is given for belief. This word translated credited connotes in both the Hebrew and the Greek the ideas of calculating and counting. Again, there is the idea that there is a fair exchange here - on one side, the belief, and on the other, what is rewarded or credited. This is astounding, that one can receive a reward from God just for believing, and it is treated as his or her due to receive it! For this is what Paul goes on to say in Romans chapter 4:

4 Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. 5 However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.

Some people would say that God is obligated by the rules of the spiritual realm to credit our faith as righteousness. I don't like to think of it this way, because this makes God subordinate to what He has created. Instead, I believe that He has obligated Himself to repay our belief.

OK, so back to Hebrews. What is the reward given for belief? I think that there are many rewards, but the big one, the ultimate one, the one that really matters is given at the end of Hebrews 10:

39 But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved. (my emphasis)

This actually comes right before the "faith chapter" of Hebrews 11. We believe and are saved. The reward of our belief is to be saved. Lest there be any confusion over what it means to be saved, the New American Standard renders "saved" as "preserving of the soul." The reward of God, given to those who earnestly seek him, is that their soul may be saved to eternal life, that they may survive the great judgment that is coming and escape death.

Now here is another cool part. In the New Testament, God reveals a new name for Himself. It is the name of his son, who is God in the flesh. That name is Jesus. Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name "Yehoshua" (English "Joshua"), which means "Yahweh is salvation." More loosely, it might be said to mean "He saves," as from Matthew 1:21:

"She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins."

Above, we saw that salvation is our reward, so to say "He rewards" is similar to saying "He saves." So, in this verse of Hebrews 11:6, we have both of the personal names of God: Yahweh ("He is") and Jesus ("He saves"). Isn't that cool? Faith, then, is believing in the two major revelations of God's personal nature - that He is, and that He saves.

Finally, I want to talk more about this idea that rewarding is something God does. Because rewarding is something that God does, it is connected to the will or desire of God. He is not compelled to do anything; He is God! So God wants to save; God wants to reward. This concept was very important to my growth in faith, that I am pleasing to God when I believe that he wants to reward me. This shatters the idea that it is godly or holy to shrink away from God's provision, to say "oh no, God, you are so very busy, don't bother with poor lil ole me." I can ask God for what I need not only because He can give me what I need, but because He wants to give me what I need - and it pleases Him when I adopt this attitude! Part of the faith that pleases God is the belief that he wants to reward those who earnestly seek Him.

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

So, finally, let me say that I think of these two portions of faith in this way: Faith is belief that God can, and that God wants to.

Application

I have found that when I lack faith for something, I can usually trace it to having a deficiency in one of these two aspects of faith. Either I am believing that God can't act (He isn't powerful enough, or He is prevented from acting, etc.), or that He doesn't want to. Knowing this allows me to focus in on the specific beliefs that I need to correct. I can then challenge those thoughts and feelings with what I know about God from the Bible.

For example, suppose that I have trouble believing that God will save someone that I am praying for. When I examine my thoughts, I find that I am failing to believe that God can. I am, instead, believing that God cannot violate that person's free will to ignore God. However, I know that God turned the heart of Saul of Tarsus, who was very much against Jesus. My friend is not that hardened against God, so certainly God can turn their heart to Him.

Or suppose that I am praying for my healing, and I find myself lacking in faith. In looking more closely at my attitudes, I discover that I feel that God doesn't want to heal me. Maybe I feel that He can't be bothered with my sickness because it is small compared to others, or that he considers my physical health a less important thing than my spiritual health.

But this isn't what the Bible says. The Bible says that Jesus healed a lot. In fact, the Bible says in several places (for example, Matthew 4:24, 12:15, and 14:36) that Jesus healed all that came to him - regardless of how big or small their illness. Also, in James Chapter 5 the author commands that the sick should be prayed over, and they will get well. James, who comes across as a pretty tough character in his letter, didn't offer up any nonsense about how the sick should be content to stay sick. Clearly, God wants us to be healed.

So, my charge to you is to examine your faith, to see if it is lacking in either of these areas. If it is, convince your heart from the Bible, or through the ministry of the Body of Christ, that God can and that God wants to.

"Do your job"

I have a coworker whom I have often heard use this phrase in frustration when he hangs up the phone after talking to someone. "Do your damn job!" he'll say with feeling. It's kind of funny. He apparently has wanted to inform several people (or, maybe, one person many times) that this is their responsibility. Implied in his exclamation is "Do your job, so I can do mine."

This phrase came to mind after I heard Christian's teaching at church yesterday. Christian gave an impassioned teaching on evangelism. I'm sure that you can get it the VCF Barn site later this week, so I won't review the whole thing, but I found it unusual because it was so very personal. Christian didn't just give a theoretical discussion of why we should tell people about the Gospel; he clearly talked about his own passion for and struggle with evangelism. In his teaching I clearly heard from him "I need to share the Gospel more; we need to share the Gospel more."

The teaching was also unusual in that I didn't feel guilty while listening to it. See, evangelism and I have a long and not very pleasant history. In fact, when I first heard teachings at the Barn (in the early '90s) on evangelism, it was a trigger that started me into a long, terrible depression. I know that it wasn't the cause of my depression, but it was a trigger. So it was fairly remarkable that I wasn't overcome with guilt while listening to this teaching.

Instead, I felt affirmed in something that I have felt for a while: that bringing people in to the church isn't my job. However, I love to talk and teach about the fundamentals of the faith, so part of my job is to teach young or not-quite believers. So I was led to pray that the Father would send laborers into the harvest so that I would have some to teach. In other words, I prayed that the Father would help other people to do their job, so that I could do mine.

Quality of life quote

For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three.

Alice Kahn
from Quotes of the Day

Faith teaching, part 2

For part one, read here.

This is the verse that I am focusing on:

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (NIV)

In this verse are two aspects of the faith that pleases God. First, the one who comes to God must believe that he exists. Now, this might seem like a weird sort of requirement - almost a given. I mean, if you are coming to God, then you obviously believe that he exists, right? You wouldn't come to God if you believed that he was a figment of peoples' imaginations or a plot of a domineering religious organization. As an analogy, suppose you wanted help with a computer problem. If you didn't think I existed, then you wouldn't ask me for help, would you? Also, isn't this a somewhat pale requirement? Many people believe that God exists, but they think that he is remote and uninvolved in their lives and thus their belief doesn't affect how they live their lives. Is this belief pleasing to God?

I think that this verse implies something about the type of belief in God's existence that you must possess in order to please God. I don't think that it is a great stretch to read this part of the verse as "must believe that he exists as revealed in the Bible." This means that faithful belief in God isn't belief that considers God to be remote and uninvolved. It is belief that God is the Creator of the world, that he is involved in his creations, and that as Creator he has power over the world. If he is Creator, then he can make or unmake any part of it that he wants. He is in control, and he is powerful. This is faithful belief in God's existence.

I term this portion of faith the "He can" aspect of faith. Because he is Creator, he can affect his creation. Because he has power over his creation, he can make changes. Faithful belief in God first believes that he is able to act.

Now, this is cool. When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3), Moses asked God what his name was, so that Moses could tell the Israelites the name of the God that had sent him. God answered "This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I am has sent me to you.'" A variation of this - "He is" - became the personal name of God for the Israelites; this name is the Tetragrammaton, which is commonly rendered as "Yahweh" in English. Notice, God's very name for himself proclaims his existence. This brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "believe in the name of the LORD [Yahweh]". Believing in the name of God is believing in his existence. To believe in the name of the LORD fulfills the first aspect of pleasing faith in God, because it is belief that he is the capable Creator God.

Now I have to sleep so I can take my kids to the Barn early in the morning for their trip to Belize.

Awesome Worship

Last night I was part of awesome worship. My church has meetings of small groups of people that meet in members' homes. We call these Kinship Groups. Here people get together for all sorts of Christian activities: worship (traditionally, to the accompaniment of a guitar), Bible Study, prayer, eating, stuff like that. It is a great way to get to know a small group of people in the church better.

Last night we had Kinship, and we had a great worship time. How was it great? For me, it was great because I was so focused on God and on how good He is and on His glory. I was so offended and hurt that the majority of people in the world don't care about Him or acknowledge Him. It felt so unjust, that the person who was the best, who loved the most and was so good should not be treated that way. I longed for the day when justice would be done and God would be honored the way He should be, when everyone would look at Him and say, "Yes, we see, God does deserve to be honored." One day, God will receive all of the honor that He is due. I wanted so intently for that day to come soon.

Why was this worship so great? There are a number of reasons. The kinship is led by a couple who are "old worshipers" - not that they are old, but that they have been worshiping God for decades and they know how to do it. This couple is also accomplished musically, and so the music sounds good and includes improvisation. Improvisation in worship has its downsides - it can get people who know how to improvise focusing on what they are doing musically rather on their worship (this is where I tend to have problems), and it can leave people who don't know how to improvise feeling left out. However, when it works and is focused on worship, improvisation can combine to lift the spirit. When I truly worship while improvising musically, it feels like my spirit opens up and I really begin to believe that all things are possible. In this way jamming in worship is similar to tongues - which we were also free to use last night.

However, beyond these reasons, I think the simple fact is that God has ordained this group of people to be blessed with great worship when we get together. There is just something unique about our times together that I think is beyond our individual contributions. I mean, I could get together with some other strong worshiper (hi, Jess! hi, Kathie!), and it would be good, but it wouldn't be the same. I used to think that this great worship was God's way of giving my wife and I sanctuary during a time last fall when other relationships seemed spoiled, but the other relationships have gotten better and the great worship has lingered.

I said "blessed with great worship" above, but that makes it sound like my focus is only on what I get out of it. It is not. Yes, great worship is a blessing, but it is a blessing in the same way that helping out a friend move is a blessing, or like knowing that that long, emotionally draining talk you had with a friend helped them out. You feel good at what you did, but there is still work involved. In the case of this worship, I really feel that we are accomplishing some work, beyond just blessing God (which is definitely a good work). It is very humbling to be involved in something that feels so great.

Worship God!

Faith teaching

I've had a teaching running through my mind for several months now. I know that it is a "teaching" and not a meditation because I think about it when I hear other people teach. It's like someone else using their teaching gift activates this teaching in my spirit, and I think about and ponder it and imagine how I would preach it. It makes it difficult to focus on what other people teach. On the other hand, it makes listening to teachings very enjoyable, because this teaching really revs up my spirit.

It's about faith. See, for a long time I didn't really understand faith. The word faith is thrown around within the church, until it seems to mean many things, so for a long time it wasn't really something I felt I understood.

The classic definition for faith - or at least, the one I heard all the time as a young believer - comes from Hebrews 11:1. Here it is in the Revised Standard Version, which is how I learned it:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Let's see, I said to myself. Assurance means to be reassured that something is true, right? Hmm, what are "things hoped for"? "Conviction of things not seen" - what does that mean? How does all this relate to having faith for healing and that God will make everything work out?

So, this verse didn't really make much sense to me for a long time.

The verse that I like as a definition of faith is just five verses later: Hebrews 11:6. This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible:

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (NIV)

This verse defines what faith is. Moreover, it defines a specific kind of faith: the kind that pleases God. I don't know about you, but if I'm going to bother with faith, this is the kind that I want to bother with - the kind that pleases God. Note, also, the converse: if you don't have this faith, you are not pleasing to God. In fact, this verse says that if you don't have faith it is impossible to please God. Gotta get me some faith, then!

Note also the God-centric nature of faith. Faith is not defined as that which allows us to get what we want, or to gain heavenly riches, or to overcome obstacles. No, faith is that which allows us to please God. Faith also allows a person to come to God. Faith in Christian circles is sometimes talked about almost as if it were an entity in and of itself. "You gotta have faith to push on through." "Exercise your faith to make it strong." Nice ideas, but the Biblical view of faith is properly focused on God. Faith is a means to get to God; faith is the way to please God. God is the center point and object of faith.

I'm going to end here for now and pick up the rest of this later.

Worship God

Worship today was, for me, pretty intense. I have had a sense since Friday that this would be a significant Sunday. Saturday I did a little Bible study, but I spent most of the day relaxing and not really focusing on God.

I was on worship team this week, so I got to church about 8:45am for practice. Thing were pretty normal until we actually started worship. Then I had this feeling of "Let's go!" I felt like the church got into a slow start with worship, whereas I just wanted to sing to God as hard as I could. It is hard for me to reconstruct just what i was feeling, which sometimes happens when worship gets really intense. Then I had a word of prophecy to bring to the church, and so when my pastor gave a call for prophetic words I went up.

Here is what I said:

"You guys know I love you, so take this in that spirit. All morning I've had this feeling: what are you waiting for? Worship God! The Spirit is just waiting to do something among those who will worship God. I guarantee you, there is nothing more important that you will do today than to worship God."

After this word I felt that something significant did happen, but I felt disappointed because I felt that it took us so long to get moving. I felt that maybe I should have spent more time yesterday praying in preparation for today. I do want to see God glorified, to see His Name lifted up, to have the whole church worship Him together. I think that when we really give ourselves over to worship that marvelous things will happen among us.