Faith
It has been often said that “faith is blind”. Others have said, even from the pulpits and teacher’s podiums that if you want assurances or understanding first or that if we want to “see” God move first that it is not faith!
However, God wants us to be anything but blind!
In fact, didn’t Jesus declare that He came to open the eyes of the blind? Didn’t Paul the Apostle pray 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,”?
Why is it that faith is so difficult for so many who claim to be Christians? Well two reasons come to mind, the first is that they are not really Christians – but that is not the subject of this article. The other reason is that too often Christians are told, taught and goaded into thinking that to want understanding is to not act in faith … and so we go on trying to live in blind faith!
Well, let your eyes be opened! Faith is not blind and God does not want us to follow blindly! When you are blind, you are handicapped! You bump into things, you bungle efforts and constantly need someone or something else to hold your hand or help you find your way!
Blindness is darkness and darkness is not what God wants us to be in!
Someone may argue, “Well if you can see it then it is not faith!” Yet, that is not at all what the Bible says! God does explain that we no longer hope for what we see (Romans 8:24). God further explains that it does not yet appear what we shall (ultimately) be like, but that when Jesus appears we shall be like Him! (1 John 3:2)
But beyond these, does God require or even expect us to function in any form of blindness?
In fact, God has said quite the opposite; that He wants us to understand! God wants us to know what our faith is and what we have faith for! God gives a vision which is what, the picture of what it is that He intends to accomplish! Is that being blind?
Does God want you or me to “move out in ministry” without specific purpose or vision? Does God want us to go aimlessly in some direction and call that “faith”?
Is that how God dealt with Noah about the ark? Did God just say to Noah, “Build an ark” and that was the end of it? Was the building of the ark left up to Noah’s imagination or planning? Or without the purpose or the intentions of God being made known to him?
Is that what He required of Abram? Did God say to Abram “Leave your country because I, God, tell you to!”?
Did Abraham send his servant blindly into his family’s land looking for a bride for Isaac?
Was Joseph left to live in blind faith when his brothers sold him into Egyptian slavery?
Did God require Moses to blindly go to Egypt to deliver Israel?
Did God insist that Joshua blindly follow His leadership into the Promised Land?
Need I continue?
The answer to all of these questions is NO!
When God instructed Abram to leave his family’s country, He explained the journey to Abram. Not all at once, but each step along the way.
When Abraham’s servant went to seek a wife for Isaac, he wasn’t sent blindly but God directed his thoughts to know what to look for.
When Joseph was sold into slavery, God had already given him the vision of what was to ultimately become of him and his family.
Didn’t God answer every concern of Moses when commanding him to return to Egypt?
Joshua received clear instructions from God as to what to do when entering the Promised Land!
All too often, people think that faith always means motion, if you don’t know what to do just do something and have faith that God will work it all out?
Is that in line with what God Himself says?
Hmmm. Seems like anytime a person of God took that line of action, not only was it NOT faith at all, but the consequences of taking such action were severe indeed!
Today, when God’s people are put on hold, it seems as though others of God’s people say that doing nothing is not of faith and therefore one must start to do something and leave the results up to God! Is that faith?
Abraham … listened to his emotions and literally placed his wife in two separate adulterous situations!
Abraham disrupted his faith when he listened to his wife and stopped waiting on God for the promised son to be born!
Moses listened to the angry, complaining Israelites and so struck a second rock for water! Water came out but it cost Moses entrance into Canaan land!
When people of faith were at a “holding” place in their lives, they took action not of God’s choosing and things happened alright, wrong things with wrong results!
Is it Biblically correct to “stand still” and call it faith?
Exodus 14:13 - - “And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.”
Just imagine what would have been the result if Moses or some other leader said in haste, “let’s jump into the sea and leave the results to God!”
No, faith is anything but blind! In fact, if it is blind, it can’t be faith! Why? Because faith is to be in total agreement with God! If you take some action and you are doing so without being in agreement with God … then simply you are not acting in faith but in presumption!
Faith either has or produces understanding. Faith understands God! Faith enables us to be obedient to God’s instruction and direction. Faith enables us to trust God! Now obedience and trust may be blind, we may have to step out in the journey before having the whole understanding of what lies ahead … but the first step is never without understanding if it is in faith!
When you are truly in faith, the results are not up to God in some future tense … the results are assured by God in the present tense! The results are already in place and the only thing missing is the time it takes to see the results manifested!
Faith doesn’t say “if it’s is God’s will” … faith discovers God’s will! Now James does instruct us (James 4:15) “For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.” But that is talking today about tomorrow! In other words, James is saying that today is the only day we have in our power to choose to act in. Think about this, there is no such thing as “tomorrow faith”! All faith is today faith because we are not alive in tomorrow … we are only alive in today! So, if we are to act in faith tomorrow it is because it is God’s will that we be alive tomorrow!
What kind of faith did Jesus have while in the flesh? He explained it this way: Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. John 8:28
Can it be said that in any way Jesus acted apart from faith? Do we think that Jesus acted “blindly”? Ever? Of course not, Jesus in the flesh was the epitome of faith! And now, are we not to be being conformed into His image? Are we not to be being transformed into how He was? Again, was Jesus living in a faith that was in any way blind?
Or, was everything Jesus did in total concert with our Heavenly Father? So then, is this not faith, to act in concert with the Father?
We can – and may have to obey before actually seeing the results … we may have to quite often. Just as Abram had not actually seen the land of promise, yet he moved in faith that was not blind because his eyes of understanding were opened. In fact, we may have to first obey in order to gain full understanding, but obedience is the result of true faith!
We can – and may have to trust without literally seeing … we may have to quite often. Just as Noah had not actually ever experienced a flood, much less rain before, he relied upon God’s integrity (trusted God) because his eyes of understanding were open and had faith to trust without literally seeing.
Thus God explains that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”, Hebrews 11. Acting in concert with God produces the confident expectation (hope) and the evidence that God already has assured the results!
Remember, “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all”, so how could He ever expect, require or demand that we experience blindness in our faith? That is simply a contradiction of terms … it just is not possible!
Blind faith is man’s concept … natural man thinking with a carnal mind that simply cannot comprehend the things of God! To say that we are not to question God is to misunderstand His love for us and the level of intimacy He desires us to share with Him.
Many blessings!
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