Always Been About Faith
Adam and Eve had the garden of Eden,
Flowing with blessings from God’s own hand.
They had it all in the Garden of Eden,
If they would just follow one simple command.
But Satan came in with his hatred and lies,
And they ate from the tree that would open their eyes.
Abraham fathered the Israelite nation;
He was blessed for his faith in a living God.
God kept his promise to his chosen nation,
Even when they did not.
For his people have not always valued his prize.
His law they have flaunted, his prophets despised.
A shepherd boy trusted the God of creation,
And he vanquished the giant with one small stone.
David became a great king of a nation,
And his offspring would sit on an eternal throne.
But David was human, and he sinned in God’s eyes,
And the sin of his heart did the Lord realize.
It’s always been about faith. It’s always been about trusting him.
It’s never been about what we say or do.
It’s always been about faith. If you let him, he will guide your way.
You know he’s got a master plan for you.
God has a plan for his master creation.
He loves us much more than we ever could.
Though our failures would prime us for his devastation,
His grace is abounding and good.
For he sent us his Son who would suffer and die,
So that we could be worthy to join him on high.
So now we come to him in faith. We bow our heads and trust in him.
We confess the sins and shortfalls that we do.
Because it’s always been about faith. If you let him, he will guide your way.
You know he’s got a master plan for you.
But God showed his great love for us by sending
Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
(Romans 5:8)
Several years ago, my life changed drastically. Raised in a Christian home, I had always believed in God and Jesus and all of the other things that Christians were supposed to believe. Unfortunately, the knowledge I had never quite made it to my heart. I never developed a real relationship with Jesus, so I never really got to know him. All of that changed one day when I picked up a book on Revelation that changed my view of the Bible.
That day, the Bible came alive for me. I no longer saw it as a dusty book of history written for people long before my time. I now realized that it was just as relevant for today as it was for then. The Word of God spoke to me, and I gave my life to Christ. With him in the driver’s seat, I began to understand things that I never understood before, and I began to thirst for knowledge of the truth. This thirst led me to an in-depth analysis of the Bible. I started this search in Romans.
Romans is often described as an outline of the plan of salvation. I would certainly agree with this assessment, as it lays things out very clearly in that matter. However, Romans did one other thing for me; it demonstrated the coherence, completeness, and continuous message of the Bible. Up until then, I was confused about the Old versus the New Testament. It seemed as though God expected one thing in the Old Testament and then changed his mind when he sent Jesus to provide salvation. It seemed as though somehow the rules had changed, and that caused me doubt about the efficacy of my faith. When I studied Romans, however, that changed for me. I began to see that the rules never changed. I saw that it had always been about faith.
It appears that the Romans had the same confusion that I did, and Paul spends considerable word to demonstrate that this was not the case.
Abraham was, humanly speaking, the founder of our Jewish nation. What did he discover about being made right with God? If his good deeds had made him acceptable to God, he would have had something to boast about. But that was not God’s way. For the Scriptures tell us, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.“
Romans 4:1-3
Abraham was not perfect, yet he put his faith and trust in the Living God, and it was “credited to him as righteousness.” He was saved by faith.
The Old Testament is filled with descriptions of the human failures of all of the heroes of the Bible:
- Abraham and Isaac both lied about their wives.
- Abraham and Sarah doubted God’s ability to fulfill his promise and tried to fulfill it themselves.
- Jacob lied and manipulated his way to steal his brother’s birthright.
- Noah got drunk.
- Moses was a murderer.
- David committed adultery and then had someone killed to cover it up.
- Solomon worshiped false gods.
And the failures continued into the New Testament prior to the resurrection. The disciples argued over who should be first in the kingdom, and Peter denied ever knowing Jesus three times. Yet in all of these cases, they were justified by their relationship with the Living God; they were justified by faith just as we are today.
When Jesus took on the sin of the world on that cross, he took on the sins of the past, the present and the future. The plan of salvation through Jesus Christ was always there – it was always the plan. It’s always been about faith.
Often the challenge for us is staying strong in our faith. When we first come into that saving relationship with Jesus, when things are still fresh and exciting, it is easy to put our whole heart into ministry, Bible study and prayer. But what happens when life happens? In the case of Noah and David, they were strong in their faith and gave everything they had, but after achieving success, they got lazy and fell into sin. Or sometimes, when crisis comes, prayers seem to go unanswered, and we begin to doubt God, just like Abraham and Sarah. I have been guilty of both of these.
Consider these truths:
- The Creator of the universe created us in his image, cares deeply about us and desires a personal relationship with us.
- Jesus left paradise, lived as an impoverished human, died a horrific death and took on our sin just so that he could spend eternity with us.
- The Holy Spirit lives inside of us and is with us all the time in all circumstances to counsel, comfort, guide, and pray for us.
The best way for us to stay strong in our faith is to spend time with God through prayer and Bible study. The more we understand about his love, his promises, and his plan for us, the easier it will be for us to trust him. And we don’t have to do this alone, because his Spirit lives in us and will be there to give us understanding.
Related Devotional
Resources
Tools for Bible Study:
“Believer’s Bible Commentary” by William MacDonald walks you through every verse of the Bible providing you with the historical references, word studies, and other relevant research.
For an online Bible, go to www.bible.com. You can log into this from your PC and connect to your phone or table with the YouVersion app.
Francis Chan wrote a book called “Crazy Love” which encourages us to really fall in love with our Savior. You can purchase it here: Amazon Crazy Love
In addition, he did a 10-part series of short YouTubes that are designed to go along with the book or be used in a small group Bible study. You can find all 10 here: Crazy Love Study Guides
Music and lyrics by LuAnne Barnet. Copyright (c) 2003 LuAnne Barnet. All Rights Reserved
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a Division of Tyndale House Ministries, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Royalty-free images from Videoblocks.com
Some photographs taken from the Creation Museum. Information on the Creation Museum can be found at https://answersingenesis.org/