Faith-Filled Friday from Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power

Happy day to you and thanks for joining me for another Faith-Filled Friday! I know I said we’d share coffee in Cabo this Friday, but I decided to save that until after I was back as a way of savoring the memories created! Grab your coffee and come on in!

Last Friday we acknowledged that even the “bad” things that we do and/or the sin heaped upon us are actually part of our testimony, and this is certainly true of the “elders” acknowledged in the Hall of Faith.

Verse 3 has a lot of yummy meat, some potatoes, and definitely some good-for-you vegetables! Hopefully I can serve all of it to you in one blog! I’ll try.  “By faith we understand –STOP! See, that first part of verse 3 again reiterates what I’ve said from the beginning of this series: faith unlocks the door to understanding. Without it, we are unable to allow the things of God to wrap around our minds, let alone root in our heart. Creation is one of those things that we definitely need faith to understand!

Okay. So, “By faith, we understand that the worlds — oops, sorry, but do you see anything in that word “worlds” that causes your eyebrows to go up into your forehead? Well, I do, so please, bear with me.

Hmm, interesting! It translates to “alon” and means age, or time; always and on, being. Both in the singular and plural, it signifies eternity! Bingo! That’s why it says plural “worlds”!

Okay. Moving on through the verse, and I promise, no more interruptions. “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.”

“… framed by the ‘word’ of God” deserves another honorable mention. See, in the beginning, as in Genesis 1:1-31, our invisible God demonstrated all of the senses by first speaking light into the darkness over the surface of the deep.

Those without faith cannot grasp the depth of this truth of creation, but with faith we can celebrate the creativity of our Creator who though invisible experienced the senses of sight, touch, and smell. Read the first chapter and see if your faith helps you see what was/is not seen.

Faith-ing through the journey,

Evinda

Faith-Filled Friday @ Coffee Hour with Chicklit Power

Thanks for joining me for our Faith-Filled Friday! I am looking forward to discovering things from the Hall of Faith that strengthen your faith and mine. Let’s grab our coffee and our faith and begin.

We are finally at the actual recorded Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11! Let me tell you, I hope you are hungry! Grab a big plate and some good utensils to feast with because there is a lot of meat here! I’m sure we’ll find our vegetables and lots of sweetness along the way as well. 

So the very first portion/verse says that “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” And what’s the difference between faith and hope? Hope is innate while faith is His gift to us upon confessing that we are a sinner in need of a savior! Even an atheist has an inclination toward hoping for certain things.

Have you ever witnessed hope come to life in the midst of a tragedy? Recently, a friend of mine who is a sweet sister in the Lord experienced tragedy in her family and it involved her nephew. He had been involved in a serious car accident that left him with extensive brain damage. Death was knocking on his door. While he lay in a coma, many of his family members surrounded him, cemented by his bedside with hope. I don’t know how many or who of those in his family were at that moment in their lives without a relationship with Christ, but when this young man showed signs of actually feeling pain, their hope was renewed that maybe, just maybe death would leave and life would remain intact.

Their hope turned them toward the possibility of faith in Christ. Were they searching more for a miracle than they were for the miracle maker? That’s not for you or me to ascertain; it was just a reminder to me that often, for a nonbeliever, hope stirs up our faith. And for those of us who have been walking with the Author of our Faith for awhile, the reverse is also true: Faith reminds us to hope and in “Whom” to hope!

What is an example of “the evidence of things not seen”? Well, in fact, every example in the Hall of Faith is unseen by us, but our faith accepts each example in the Hall of Faith as true. We know and understand that the common thread in the Hall of Faith is the Author of their faith.

But let’s narrow the lens to things not seen in this life, our here and now. The very first thing that comes to mind is redemption. Another is transformation. Redemption and transformation are not physical things that we can grasp with our physical eyes; but they are the evidence of things seen with the eyes of our heart.

As I shared in the beginning of this series, my faith wasn’t just born full-grown and adult-like. I didn’t have that miraculous introduction where I came to Jesus and immediately had no more junk and was free from myself! No, He’s taken me through an unpacking process, to and through some things to strengthen, refine and purify my faith. And all the while, He remained behind the scenes, unseen.

Just because I can’t physically see Him working, the eyes of my heart are opened to His working all things together for my good and His glory, thus fulfilling His promise: to build me up and not tear me down, to give me a future . . .

What about you; what is He doing for you behind the scenes that can’t be seen with your physical eyes but you know in your heart you see?

Join me next Friday for more of this faith-filled series!

Evinda