Faith
I don’t have cable TV or a satellite dish. Several years ago I came to the conclusion that it was pointless to pay fifty dollars a month for two-hundred channels and still find nothing worthwhile to watch on TV. I cancelled the satellite subscription.
We live out in the sticks so our “air” TV reception isn’t so good. I never bothered putting up a TV antenna so we were able to receive only one channel, a major network, since the satellite was pulled. I figured that if there was nothing to watch on a TV with two hundred channels, it would be just as easy to watch it on a TV with one channel. If the end of the world came and the one network we could watch didn’t broadcast it, we would miss it entirely.
Sometime last year I picked up a second hand rooftop antenna at a garage sale. A few weeks ago I finally got around to putting it up. I’m proud to announce that the Spillman family now receives the same network channel we’ve always had, the other two major networks (poorly), public television (pretty good), and the local Christian station.
I’ve never been a fan of Christian TV. Most of it is just too icky for me. I never could get past all the big hair and crying and self-serving money-begging in the name of God. It hurt my heart, so I didn’t watch it.
Now I have a confession to make. I’ve been sneaking some peeks lately. A lot of the icky stuff is still there, probably more than before, but now some good stuff gets through. I don’t know if Christian TV has changed or if it’s me that’s changed. All I know is that in the midst of all the icky stuff, some good stuff gets through.
With that defense noted, I’ll get back to the icky stuff. I was watching a talk show on the Christian TV channel. It was really just a dialog between two guys, sitting at a table, drinking coffee; the set was fixed up to look like someone’s kitchen, complete with big picture window.
One of the guys was a famous “faith” teacher. His guest was a businessman and they were discussing “faith.” How God has all this great stuff for us and how we can have anything we want if we just believe we can get it and say the right words. The “faith” expert kept saying that “faith” wasn’t about getting money. He kept saying that “faith” was about way more than just money and that getting rich was only a minor benefit, kind of a side-effect of having “faith.”
But something about the guy just wasn’t ringing true. Even though he kept saying that “faith” wasn’t about money, you could see that everything about the guy was saying that he believed “faith” really was about the money. Because he had “faith” God gave him a big car and a big house and a private jet and a real expensive gold watch - but those were just side-effects; having “faith” was way more important that all that stuff.
It made me wonder … even though “faith” wasn’t about the money … if the guy suddenly lost his TV show, his bank account, his house, his car, his private jet and his gold watch, if he would still be telling folks about “faith”?
That got me thinking about what “faith” might mean from God’s point of view. After all, when we talk about “faith” we’re talking about an interaction with God, right? And if having “faith” in God means that we’re believing or trusting in something we don’t quite understand but He does, then we should probably get His point of view on what “faith” means before we start to ponder about the things “faith” gets us.
The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to Hebrews (Jews) who had become Christians and part of it was dedicated to the topic of faith. He knew the Jews would understand what he was saying about faith because he used their famous fore-fathers as examples.
In the beginning of his section on faith (if you want to follow along, it’s in the New Testament book of Hebrews, chapter eleven), he gives his readers a definition of what faith is: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” According to Paul, faith is being positive about receiving something we’ve been promised, without any physical proof that we’re actually going to get it.
That part seemed to be in line with what the “faith” expert on TV was saying. He got all his stuff by believing that he would get stuff because God promised it to him.
Then Paul went on to show how all the famous Jewish patriarchs demonstrated faith in what they did and how they pleased God by their actions. But a couple of things really struck me about the people Paul had listed as the heroes of faith.
The first was that they didn’t seem to be getting any big pay-off from their faith. They weren’t getting rich and they never made the move to easy street. It’s like these guys were always in trouble with the authorities or on the brink of some great calamity. In their stories, God always prevailed miraculously in the end, but it wasn’t like these guys were living at the country club during the process.
The second thing I noticed was that none of these heroes of faith seemed to be professing positive faith talk or claiming good stuff into existence. They just seemed to be doing something God told them to do.
And most of what God was telling them to do wasn’t some great glorious task involving a well-paying job. Most of it was dirty and dangerous work; a lot of them were killed in the process. And all of it went against the grain of whoever was in charge at the time. It seemed like being a faith hero in the old days wasn’t a very popular job.
Then Paul said something that really shook me up. “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised ….”
You obey God, you live by faith, and then you die. What kind of pay-off is that!? This wasn’t jibing at all with what the “faith” expert on TV was saying. Even though the money was only a minor part of the “faith” life, according to the TV guy, it was a pretty darned important part.
What happened to these faith heroes Paul was talking about? These guys were supposed to be the examples of how faith works. How come they all died without getting the big pay-off?
Then I found something else Paul said about the faith heroes of old. It was right after he said that they all died without ever getting what they were promised.
… they only saw [the promises] and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
Wow. I finally saw it. The big pay-off. It wasn’t about the money or cars or houses or private jets. It wasn’t about anything on earth. There wasn’t anything on earth good enough as a reward for having faith.
Those guys who Paul wrote about knew they were just passing through. Their real home wasn’t here and the stuff here didn’t really matter compared to the stuff waiting for them in their real home. The pay-off was ahead of them.
What earthly pay-off could possibly equal God not being ashamed to call Himself your God and Personally preparing a city for you to spend forever in?
What I got out of my lesson on faith is that having faith isn’t about expecting something back in return, not in this life anyway. I also got that faith isn’t “confessing” anything; saying the right words or not saying the wrong words. And faith certainly isn’t about sending “seed money” to some TV preacher. Keep your money, the guy’s a crook. He’ll have his own row to hoe on the other side of this life.
Faith is about obeying. Obeying God by doing the thing He told you to do. Knowing in your heart that God is really real and that He cares for you personally and that obeying Him will make your life worth living – without any physical evidence that all of that is true.
The thing God wants you to do may seem unpleasant at times and it will probably go against the grain of what folks around you expect of you. Doing what God wants you to do isn’t very popular most of the time.
There’s a pretty good chance that the job God has given you to do is way beyond your ability to do it. That’s one of the cool things. It proves that God gave it to you; there’s no way you can accomplish it without His regular involvement.
Living by faith, obeying God even though you can’t see the outcome, is really core to understanding your purpose and true potential in this life. You are here according to God’s plan and purpose. He has something He wants you to do for Him. For His glory. That’s your purpose. That’s why He created you. Living up to your full potential, your true potential, involves getting that purpose accomplished.
If good stuff comes your way in this life, more power to you. God loves you and He wants the best for you in this life and the next. But if listening to God and obeying Him brings a little pain and heartache, don’t sweat it and don’t turn back. Real faith means keeping to the task at hand even when there’s no evidence that things will ever get any better.
Besides, you’re in good company. Paul called all those faith heroes of old “a great cloud of witnesses.” They’ve been through the same stuff you’ll go through, they’re watching from above, cheering you on, and they’re saving a place for you.
Next Week…
We’ll be back next week with another issue. I hope by then to have our blog set up so we can receive and respond to reader comments and contributions in forum environment. In the mean time, if you have a question or comment just drop me an e-mail. We’ve received a lot of messages from you already, so far all positive (thanks). If there is anything specific you want to see covered regarding our purpose and potential, let me know. Until then, God bless you and keep you.
In Him,
Steve Spillman
