Where Are You Placing Your Faith?
Dear Friends,
Some years back my family and I visited the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth. It's quite an incredible building, 170 metres above Portsmouth Harbour and taller than Blackpool Tower, the London Eye and Big Ben. It has 350 degrees panoramic views and stretches out for up to 23 miles.
Personally, I'm not a great fan of heights, but I did feel completely safe and it was an experience not to be missed. On view deck 1 there is a Sky Walk, a large glass floor, the overall thickness of the glass is 60mm and it can hold a weight of 288 stone!
To walk across it we had to take off our shoes and go barefoot. Some of us did it quite warily; others seemed to have no fear, having complete faith in the strength of the glass to hold them up. Josh even laid out flat on it! I wasn't quite so comfortable doing that!
Whether someone walked across the glass with complete trust or went with a little faith and more fear, the glass held up for each person. What was key was not the size of a person's faith but what they were placing their faith in.
This illustration is true too for our personal Christian journey. I may be just starting out in my journey of faith and it may be small, but it is there all the same. Or I may have a larger amount of faith. The size of my faith is not what is key. What is key is what I choose to place my faith in. What is the object of my faith? The object of my faith, the one I choose to put complete trust in, is God and he will never let me down, he will never fail me. He is greater than anyone and anything. The writer to the Hebrews in 11:1 says this "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see." (NLT). This verse is paraphrased in The Message as "The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see."
The size of my faith, the size of yours, does not affect who God is. God is still the same, for always and forever, for each of us. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." Hebrews 13:8 (NLT)
I may sit on a chair and have faith that it will hold me up. I may be full of faith that it will do just as I trust. However, if the chair breaks and I fall, my faith in that chair has been misplaced. The size of my faith and trust in that chair had little to do with whether it was a good thing to put my faith in.
In life, we can choose to put our faith and trust in all kinds of things, such as our relationships, our finance, our employment, our health etc. Perhaps this is how you have lived your life or how you are living your life right now. But that faith is misplaced faith. People may let us down, either intentionally or unintentionally, we may face redundancy, our finance may not be as secure as we had hoped, our health may fail us. We will never find our security, our comfort, our peace in these things. None of these things are guaranteed for ever. These things were never meant to be what we placed our faith in.
God is the one who we can, with confidence, place our faith and trust in. In him we can find security, comfort and peace. Why do I choose to put my faith in God? For various reasons, the main being that he alone is God and he alone is faithful. "And they who know Your name [who have experience and acquaintance with Your mercy] will lean on and confidently put their trust in You, for You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek (inquire of and for) You [on the authority of God’s Word and the right of their necessity]." Psalm 9:10 (AMP). He is true to his word and cannot lie. Another reason I put my faith in God is because of the example of men and women in the bible who trusted God above all else and God never once failed them. Finally, because I have followed God since childhood and I know he has never ever let me down before. So I know that I can place my faith in him for my present and for the future.
To Think About:
What are some of the things or people you have put your trust in? What was the result?
When you have chosen to trust God, to put your faith in him, what was the result?
In what ways can you encourage others with your testimony of putting your faith in God?
Is there a particular situation in your life right now which God is saying to you, trust me in this, put your faith in me?
Vicki
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| View looking down from the Sky Walk |
Some years back my family and I visited the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth. It's quite an incredible building, 170 metres above Portsmouth Harbour and taller than Blackpool Tower, the London Eye and Big Ben. It has 350 degrees panoramic views and stretches out for up to 23 miles.
Personally, I'm not a great fan of heights, but I did feel completely safe and it was an experience not to be missed. On view deck 1 there is a Sky Walk, a large glass floor, the overall thickness of the glass is 60mm and it can hold a weight of 288 stone!
 |
| Josh demonstrating faith! |
Whether someone walked across the glass with complete trust or went with a little faith and more fear, the glass held up for each person. What was key was not the size of a person's faith but what they were placing their faith in.
This illustration is true too for our personal Christian journey. I may be just starting out in my journey of faith and it may be small, but it is there all the same. Or I may have a larger amount of faith. The size of my faith is not what is key. What is key is what I choose to place my faith in. What is the object of my faith? The object of my faith, the one I choose to put complete trust in, is God and he will never let me down, he will never fail me. He is greater than anyone and anything. The writer to the Hebrews in 11:1 says this "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see." (NLT). This verse is paraphrased in The Message as "The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see."
The size of my faith, the size of yours, does not affect who God is. God is still the same, for always and forever, for each of us. "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." Hebrews 13:8 (NLT)
I may sit on a chair and have faith that it will hold me up. I may be full of faith that it will do just as I trust. However, if the chair breaks and I fall, my faith in that chair has been misplaced. The size of my faith and trust in that chair had little to do with whether it was a good thing to put my faith in.
In life, we can choose to put our faith and trust in all kinds of things, such as our relationships, our finance, our employment, our health etc. Perhaps this is how you have lived your life or how you are living your life right now. But that faith is misplaced faith. People may let us down, either intentionally or unintentionally, we may face redundancy, our finance may not be as secure as we had hoped, our health may fail us. We will never find our security, our comfort, our peace in these things. None of these things are guaranteed for ever. These things were never meant to be what we placed our faith in.
God is the one who we can, with confidence, place our faith and trust in. In him we can find security, comfort and peace. Why do I choose to put my faith in God? For various reasons, the main being that he alone is God and he alone is faithful. "And they who know Your name [who have experience and acquaintance with Your mercy] will lean on and confidently put their trust in You, for You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek (inquire of and for) You [on the authority of God’s Word and the right of their necessity]." Psalm 9:10 (AMP). He is true to his word and cannot lie. Another reason I put my faith in God is because of the example of men and women in the bible who trusted God above all else and God never once failed them. Finally, because I have followed God since childhood and I know he has never ever let me down before. So I know that I can place my faith in him for my present and for the future.
To Think About:
What are some of the things or people you have put your trust in? What was the result?
When you have chosen to trust God, to put your faith in him, what was the result?
In what ways can you encourage others with your testimony of putting your faith in God?
Is there a particular situation in your life right now which God is saying to you, trust me in this, put your faith in me?
Vicki
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