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Monday, November 2, 2015

Faith is the Best Friend of the Impossible


Question: why would a loving heavenly Father allow his beloved child to wake up in the morning to the awareness of terrible nightmares and hopeless discouragement?

Short answer: because it is a necessary step in this child seeing the helplessness of depending on the self, and discovering the confidence of faith.

While discouragement does not feel good at the time, there is always this nagging Beatitudinal thing going on in the background somewhere, whispering to me that, as backwards as things appear, God is working this for good.[1]

After a bit of time to wake up this morning, and telling God how I was feeling, I suddenly “saw” that faith and the impossible ALWAYS go hand in hand. Or, said another way, faith and the impossible are the best of friends. We can face the impossible without faith, and end up like the world, the flesh, and the devil; but we cannot have faith without the impossible. That is what faith is, it is a trusting response to the impossible.

The sark/flesh wants a trusting response to the possible. It is the immaturity of children who know almost nothing about the world in which they live, but constantly talk as if they can do the impossible themselves (hence every kind of fairy tale, super hero, and pretend play).

I then took another look at the theme verse as of late:
         
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”[2]

This is how the faith-is-the-best-of-friends-with-the-impossible discovery fell into place:

Faith
Impossible
I am not ashamed of the gospel that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners[3]
because it is impossible for me to be good enough for God, or to save myself from how bad I am
The gospel is the power of God for salvation[4]
because I am powerless in myself to be righteous, or to save myself from sin
The gospel saves everyone who believes[5]
because there is nothing that can save anyone by works
The righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel[6]
because there is no righteousness in me, or in the world around me
The righteousness of God is revealed as coming from faith[7]
because there is no way that I have any righteousness in me coming from works
The righteousness of God is revealed for faith[8]
because the transformation into righteousness can never happen by works
The righteousness shall live by faith[9]
because we cannot be the righteous if we are living by works

Conclusion one: the reason for discouragement is that all that inner junk God is dealing with is of the sark/flesh, so it has long tried to feel good by what it does, and has utterly failed to do what is impossible. In God’s work, discouragement is the Beatitudinal response to self-effort. Life is impossible. Dirt cannot make itself live. Sinners cannot make themselves righteous. Discouragement is God’s invitation to give up.

In more spiritual words, it is, “blessed are the poor in spirit… blessed are those who mourn… blessed are the meek… blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…”[10] It is a blessing to see the bankruptcy of the sark/flesh, and to hunger for what is freely given by God.

Conclusion two: faith is best friends with the impossible. Faith only works and thrives as the childlike, beatitudinal response to the impossible. It is not that it blindly believes impossible things. It is that, in a beautiful childlike way,[11] faith looks at impossible situations while holding hands with our Father who can do anything he chooses.[12]

The childlike heart has come to rest on two accounts: one, that the situation is impossible for me, therefore there is nothing to do but meekly resign myself to the fact I cannot do what is required, and, instead, hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God that is from faith, for faith, and by faith. Two, that the situation is completely possible for God who is my Father, and I only need to hold hands with him as he does what only he can do.

Faith is perfectly at peace with impossible things because it sees God, and what he is doing, and knows that he is greater than the impossible that is staring us in the face.

This is why I must encourage all God’s children to get into the word of God no matter how impossible it appears to your sarks/flesh for anything to happen. What your Father says is, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”[13] Faith cannot come from sight, because sight-based, I-can-do-it situations, make the sark feel it can do things itself. Faith comes from hearing, because what it sees is impossible.

Or, rather, what it sees in its circumstances are impossible for the sark, but what it hears from God is completely possible for our Father in heaven. So, faith believes what is impossible for the sark, but what God says he can and will do for the sake of his children.

If we feel that faith requires us to really believe we can do something, we have it backwards and will keep feeling frustrated with our inability to figure out how to do whatever our sark/flesh thinks is required.

On the other hand, if we understand that faith requires us to really believe God can do something, we just need to hear what he has to say. Faith will come from hearing our Father’s voice telling us what he thinks, and what he is doing. And, we can hear our Father speaking to us through his word every day of our lives.

© 2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)






[1] Here are a couple of posts explaining what I mean by the Beatitudinal “thing” or “journey”: http://in2freedom.blogspot.ca/2015/03/pastoral-ponderings-beatitudinal-be.html; http://in2freedom.blogspot.ca/2015/02/pastoral-panoramic-ponderings.html
[2] Romans 1:16-17
[3] Romans 1:16; I Timothy 1:15
[4] Romans 1:16
[5] Romans 1:16
[6] Romans 1:17
[7] Romans 1:17
[8] Romans 1:17
[9] Romans 1:17
[10] Matthew 5:3-6
[11] Matthew 18:3-4; 19:14
[12] Luke 18:27
[13] Romans 10:17

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