The Center of Our Faith

November 5 (1 Corinthians 15:19)

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.  (ESV)

Does God help us in our daily struggles?  He most certainly does, and it is Jesus Himself who teaches us in the Lord’s Prayer to ask our Father for our daily bread, but there is much more to Jesus and His work than that.  Too often we treat Jesus as little more than a genie in a bottle, a cosmic magician to make all the bad stuff go away or a divine Santa Claus to give us the stuff we want.

If this is the be-all, end-all of our faith, than our faith is pretty shallow indeed.  Our hope in Jesus is not merely that He will help us get through the day, although we do hope that, but that we will be raised to new, eternal life with Him after we have died.  And yes, friends, we are going to die.  It may be easy to forget that or not to think about it in the modern world where countless painkillers line the shelves of the store and we have sufficiently tamed the forces of nature to live comfortably most of the time, but we will die, and our hope in Jesus is for resurrection.

Isn’t that thought amazing?  Doesn’t it pull your head up from the stack of bills to be paid, the homework to be done, and all the frantic getting and spending that consumes our lives?  You can live forever along with and by the power of the resurrected Jesus Christ.  That is the true center of our hope and faith.

Jesus, You have blessed us beyond measure with the gift of eternal life.  Forgive me when I am interested in You only for what You can do for me right now.  You truly are much more to me than that.  May the promise of life forever with You be the center of my faith and therefore of my life.  Amen.

Copyright © 2017 by Steven R. Perkins

When You Can't Feel God

September 9 (Matthew 27:46)

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  (ESV)

I have no faith that my wife loves me, nor that my children do for that matter.  At least I have no faith in their love when I am with them, for they make it abundantly clear in an infinite number of ways.  My faith in their loves kicks in when I am not in their presence, when I cannot see or hear them or feel their tight embraces.  It is rather like the lights on the instrument panel of my car.  When it is dark, those lights come on, but when there is sufficient natural light, they dim and go away.

I could hope that you would feel the love of God all the time, but you won’t.  Jesus Himself did not feel it as He cried out to His Father on the cross, so you can take it to the bank that there will be times when you cannot feel His presence or may even begin to think that He has abandoned you.  This is the time for your faith.  You keep going.  Yes, you keep going in the practices of the Christian faith even when it feels like one gigantic farce.  Yes, you keep praying and keep reading the Bible even when it feels like a waste of time.  Yes, you keep attending worship even you when feel like a fraud and are not even sure you really want to worship a God Who seems not to care about you.  That, my friends, is what it means to live in faith.

Even the challenging cry of “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me,” is a cry of faith, for though it may feel as if it is being hurled into emptiness, it is being heard on the far side of the dark.

Father, hear my prayer.  I am struggling right now, and it is hard to take even one more step.  I don’t even know what to ask of You.  I can only hope that You know my heart and know what is best.  I can only hope that You will direct my steps and bring me back into the light.  I long for Your presence, even as Jesus longed for it as He hung on the cross.  Restore me to life, Father, even as You did Him.  In the name of Jesus, I pray this.  Amen.

Copyright © 2017 by Steven R. Perkins

Keeping Your Faith

April 23 (Isaiah 7:9)
If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.  (ESV)

One thing I have learned in a lifetime of walking in the Christian faith is that it is a daily thing.  Jesus was right (no surprise there!) when He said that we must take up our cross daily if we are to follow Him (Luke 9:23).  Day in and day out, sunny or raining, when you are happy and when you are bored out of your mind, when you feel on top of the world and when you are under the weather.  All.  The.  Time.

You will not always feel like being a Christian.  There will even be times when you slip back and behave as if you had never even heard of Jesus.  You will question the Lord’s love for you and perhaps even His existence.  These are the times that faith comes in.  We cling to faith when our fingers are too weak to cling to anything else.  We stand on our faith even when we look down and see nothing.  We proclaim our faith to drown out the voices, including our own, of unbelief.

You will fail to do all that God has required.  You will do the very things He has forbidden.  And yes, these will happen even after you have been baptized and confessed Him before all the world.  Yet if you are firm in faith, you will grow firm in your other weaknesses.

Jesus, today seems like just one more in an endless string that stretches behind and in front of me.  I have questions about so many things and answers to almost none of them.  Keep me strong in my faith, which is in You.  May I not waver or falter in that faith, for it is what keeps me anchored to You, my strength and my redeemer.  Amen.

Copyright © 2017 by Steven R. Perkins

The Existence of God

November 8 (Romans 8:38-39)

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,  nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.  (ESV)

I love falling in love all over again.  Today, for example, I saw my wife moving through the house and did a double take.  I couldn’t help embracing her and telling her how beautiful she is.  The same thing happens when I look at certain pictures of our children or gaze on them as they sleep.  I am overwhelmed with a renewed sense of what I have always known, that I love them more than anything.

Our pastor recently delivered a message about the existence of God.  Did I really need to hear that message?  I have committed my life to Jesus Christ and strive to follow hard after Him daily.  Was there any doubt in my mind about the existence of God?

The sad fact is yes.  Yes, I needed to hear that message because, yes, despite more evidence than would fit in a dump truck, I still allow the world’s pressures to cause me to doubt God’s love, His grace, His provision, and His forgiveness.  As our pastor walked us through what I already knew, the most wonderful thing happened.  I fell in love again.

Lord, You are more real than my own hand in front of my face.  Strengthen my faith so that I may see with the eyes of my heart, relying less on my physical senses.  Even in those moments when I become faith-blind and cannot see You, may I cling to the truth that nothing can separate me from You.  In the name of Jesus, Who bridged the great divide for me, amen.

Copyright © 2015 by Steven R. Perkins