Faith Well Placed

 

The word is that 'faith' is trusting in God's Word and doing what He wants.  It's as trusting as this little anecdote illustration I heard long ago, to explain faith and trust in God.

Take a chair, sit on it, now lift your feet off the floor until your full weight is on the chair.  This shows your complete trust in the chair to hold your weight, and that it will not collapse under you.  You put your 'faith' in the chair.

Yes, sometimes that chair will bend and bow and break, so it does fall short of how we can put our FULL FAITH in God and His Word.

Open your Bibles to the book of Hebrews in the New Testament.  Find chapter 11 and verse 7; read it.  Out of all the Bible heros of faith in this chapter, Noah is chosen to illustrate how well he placed his faith in God and His Word, which in turn, led to his complete obedience to God.

He was a man of great faith and walked with God.   Noah,

"was a righteous man...and he walked with God" (Genesis 6:9).

I like that bit, "he walked with God".  This shows companionship, friendship and trust.  Do you have this connection with God?  He is reliable.

It's fun to imagine the two, God and Noah, going for a walk one day and God revealing to Noah what was going to happen.  Noah's eyes may have bugged out with incredulity, "Rain?"  "What's that?"  "Water falling from the sky?"  "Enough to cover the whole earth?!"

"Yes," God calmly replies, "furthermore, you need to build an ark to these specifications and simultaneously preach and tell people what's going to happen -soon - the whole earth is going to be covered in flood waters."

If you have ever experienced tropical rain, you will know what a very heavy downpour really is and how quickly water accumulates.  Perhaps, you fight rising water levels in your home every time this happens.  So you can well attest to what Noah experienced - or rather, was about to experience, only in his exponentially, phenomenal way - the whole earth would be covered up.  Really, how could Noah even begin to comprehend this?!

God told Noah to build an ark and that the animals would come 2 x 2 (unclean animals) and 7 x 7 (for clean animals).  Any human being who wished, could also enter.  It ended up only eight souls:  Noah, his wife, his three sons and their respective wife.

After about 120 years of preaching, how disappointing!  No one believed.  It's similar in today's world.  There has been much preaching of Jesus' second coming but most people turn a deaf ear.  They reject the message.

No doubt when the rain started and the flood waters increased, there was hammering and banging on the ark door for Noah to open up and let them in.  Tragically, it was too late because it was God who had shut the door.  They were too late.

Once Jesus comes back it will be forever too late for all unbelievers to accept Him as Savior.  He's coming back as Judge this time.

Well, Noah did believe God that this rain would come even though he'd never seen it fall from the sky before.  This is called - faith.

According to the book of James we believers must show our faith by our actions.  Noah did just that.  He built the ark.  What's more, he built it high and dry; that is, away from any water source where he could float his boat.

Who builds a boat (ark) away from the sea, ocean, river or lake?  Was there something wrong with Noah's thinking?

NO!

It was Noah's faith in God.  This is very important to think about.  When we put our faith in God we will show it by doing whatever it is He asks us to do.  Noah did just that.

The flood really happened!  Noah and his family were preserved, along with the animal kingdom, turning him into quite the conservationist, by the way.

When it was all over, God promised Noah something.  It was, as many of you know, that He would never ever flood the whole earth with water again.  God's sign of His promise was the rainbow.

That promise to Noah was made about 4000 years ago!  We still see rainbows today.  There are pockets of floods throughout the earth but never ever is the whole earth flooded in one go.  This is God keeping His promise.  He is faithful.  He is truth.  He has proved He can be relied upon.  If we place our trust and faith in Him to bring us safely to Heaven before end days come, it is faith well place.   Will you trust Him?

Lift your feet up to show full trust if you do.

                                                    ~ ERC  July 2023 ~

Based on Kawan Grace Resource P4b - What is FAITH?;  Hebrews 1:4; Genesis 6-9:17.

Sing, By Faith, along with Keith and Kristyn Getty and My Hope is Built.