There's a guy in my
neighborhood who drives around in a monstrous old yellow checker cab and
doesn't charge passengers for rides, instead relying on tips.
He has three fake New York
State license plates on his front bumper. From left to right, they read, "RIDES",
"4 U R", "FREE."
The sentiment makes me think
of something the Apostle Paul says: "For ye are dead, and your life is hid
with Christ in God."
Knowing we are citizens of
heaven, and that our role here on earth is as "ambassadors for
Christ," as Paul tells us, makes the Christian's whole life one big free
ride. Making the most of it depends completely on a Believer's faith that all
of this is really the case!
One of the great definitions
on faith in the Bible is in Hebrews 11:1, which says, "Now faith is the substance
of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
As my pastor, Richard Jordan
(Shorewood Bible Church, Rolling Meadows, Ill.), likes to ask, "How do you
see something that you can't see?" The answer is in the verse.
"Substance is the thing
that's the foundation," explains Jordan in a study I have on tape.
"The SUB-STANCE. The foundation underneath something. When you're standing
on something, you're standing on the foundation. Faith provides the firm
footing and foundation. Everything is dependent on the facts that God has
revealed in His Word.
"So 'faith is the
substance'; it's where we get the foundation for what's going on in our life.
And it's the 'evidence of things not seen'; it's the proof. It's what furnishes
proof and enables you to treat things as though you'd seen them. You know
they're real and it's your faith resting in some objective facts that God's
stated that gives substance to faith."
Just think how completely
removed this is from philosophy, where you have guys like Kierkegaard tell you
faith is a "blind leap in dark."
Or from the insanity of
occultism and Eastern mysticism that says you can "speak" something
into existence by your faith.
"Faith is nothing more
than a system of perception," says Jordan. "It's a non-meritorious
system of perception. Faith is of no more value than the object in which your
faith is trusting. Faith is to trust. Faith is to count on something—to
reckon it to be so."
I John 5:9 says, 'If we
receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.' "
What this is saying is while
we know to trust what a person tells us by listening and evaluating what is
said, the "witness of God is greater." Men might be mistaken, they
might let us down. When you put your trust in men, your faith is in the object
you're trusting in and man is fallible. But when you believe God, the object of
your faith is where the power is.
This is why it is so
absolutely essential to understand God's Word "rightly divided,"
knowing of the dispensational changes in God's program through time.
As Jordan explains,
"People say, 'Well I got a scripture that says. . .' When you read the
Bible, but don't rightly divide it, you can literally quote Scripture and be
out of the will of God. Did God say to Noah, 'Build a boat to the saving of
your house'? I knew of a preacher once in West Virginia who was building an
ark, quoting Hebrews 11 and Genesis 6 and 7, but you know better than
that—you know that's not the will of God today. You know that because God
said He would never destroy the earth with a flood again.
"So building an ark to
get away from the judgment of God isn't going to help. There are all kinds of
people out there in the world who use the Bible for all different kinds of
reasons, but it's only when you rest in His Word 'rightly divided' that you
have the ability to have the power of God's Word. The Spirit of God takes the
Word of God and works in you who believe."
In Eph. 1:18-19, the Apostle
Paul prays for Believers that "the eyes of your understanding being
enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the
riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
"And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who
believe, according to the working of his mighty power."