Posted by Jonathan Bingham on January 8, 2007 under Blog | 
Darius saw the hand of God writing on the wall. Moses received stone tablets with the “ten words” written by God’s finger in the rock. When the prophets of old spoke, they spoke God’s Words, and their words were truly a message from Him. And don’t you wish you knew what Jesus wrote when He wrote in the sand in front of the adulteress’ accusers?
I was reminded of this just now when I picked up a book and noticed what appears to be marks on the edges of the pages. It’s not a spiritual book – in fact it’s a Photoshop manual. But I take such impeccable care of my books that it was a surprise to see anything other than pristine white. I closed the book to see if the marks formed letters – and in my mind I thought, “Hmm. Maybe this is a message from God.”
How many times have you just wished that God would give you a special message? A Word from Him specifically for you. I certainly have more than I can count.
Well, the marks don’t form letters and I don’t know what caused them, but they’re probably not divine. It only took a moment for God to remind me, though, that God has already given me, and you, a Message specifically for us – His Word. It is, in fact, highly unlikely that He would speak to us by any other tangible means. His Living Word, as applied by His Holy Spirit is His Message to us – and He probably doesn’t get too happy about us wanting more, especially when we spend so little time reading what He has already said.
Posted by Jonathan Bingham on January 1, 2007 under Blog |
(Preface – the idea that “the just shall live by faith” is one that has the rare honor of being declared no less than four specific times in Scripture: Hab. 2:4, Rom. 1:17, Gal. 3:11, and Heb. 10:38.)
As some of you know, we’ve been facing some pretty hefty challenges over the last four or five months. The trials have forced me to live by faith, a condition expected in Scripture, but not common in a culture where everything is going so well in all aspects of life.
This forced me to face the fact that I have not had to live by faith in a long, long time.
Why is that?
Well, I guess it is because I live in one of the more prestigious, well-to-do counties in the most prosperous country in the world, and everything has been going just fine. I have a decent (well, actually, compared to the rest of the world, ludicrous) income. We live in a nice house (we think it’s way too small, but most of the world’s population would think it was a mansion). We have everything we need and all but the most extravagant things we desire. And even the infrequent difficulties we face are common elsewhere.
So when we faced the challenge and realized that we had not felt any great need at all to live by faith since the last (distant) challenge we had seen, I had to ask myself the question, “How does a Christian who lives in the U.S. with few real problems keep living by faith?”
An honest question, but one that probably disgusts God.
I prayed about it and was given at least one answer. (Maybe just one is all that’s needed.)
When I asked God, “How can a Christian live by faith when you everything is going fine?” He said immediately and clearly, “What makes you think everything is fine?”
Good point…
“…when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8
