Kingdom Perspectives: The Journey of Faith

In by Roger Staub0 Comments

“These all died in faith, not having received the promises… ”  – Hebrews 11:13

 American Christians are vulnerable!  Living in a culture which has significantly morphed into a self-serving, ‘never-mind-the-future’ mentality, we are easily drawn into a spiritual mind-set which reflects the prevailing ethos around us.  As our political and civic leaders ‘kick the can down the road’ again, procrastinating the hard choices needed to avert a national economic and social crisis, in a similar fashion, many Christian leaders also continue to sell faith as a ‘cause and effect’ principle which can get you what you want, with little regard for the greater generational implications of belief in God.  However, part of a kingdom understanding is learning to value some lives and events that we may never live to see.  The ancient saints better understood the impact of their faith as it moves ‘along the time-line.’

On the face of it, this scripture (Heb. 11:3) sounds like a serious contradiction in terms.  The idea of dying without receiving what was promised sounds like anything but the results of faith!  The fact is, the historical impact of faith in God is much more significant than any immediate, measurable result.  For example, “I had a Grandmother that prayed for me” is a generational connection as tangible as sharing the same pew in the church house.  The mere stories of healing, miracles, and deliverance passed through the generations transmits a genuine momentum that urges us toward holy purposes!

Our faith is not all about us!  It is also about the constellation of people around us, taking cues from us, learning from us.  What these observers find most compelling is not what tangible things our faith can produce, but how it strengthens, straightens, sustains, and steadies us in the challenging environment we occupy.  Sure, faith can seize for us the things we need, even things we simply want.  God is good.  But that is only a small aspect of faith.  Far more significant is the necessity for faith in worship, witness, testimony, example, stability, and warfare.  Faith pleases God, seizes the best in the situation (or person), changes the environment, and elevates one’s character.

It is hard for a ‘have it now’ generation to appreciate their place along the time-line.  Indeed, life is short, but it’s faith that ensures our significance in our time.  It provides a powerful spiritual inertia for those who walk with us and follow after us.  Our faith is much more substantive that simply a series of good outcomes on our journey.  Faith is seriously infectious; its carriers transmit a life-changing grasp on reality.

Hebrews 11:13 again; “. . but having seen them afar off, embraced them . .”  Jesus told us our union with the Spirit of God will sometimes bring a revelation of future things (John 16:13) which we may mistakenly assume is part of our future.  We often see further down the time-line than we can live.  Our faith may be holding firm to something which will become someone else’s experience.  That’s part of being a ‘living stone’ in God’s spiritual house. (1 Peter 2:4-10)

In reality we aren’t really ‘owners’ of our visions; stewards is a better word.  Some visions which we incubate a lifetime, praying and believing for their fulfillment, may turn out to be part of a much larger construct, requiring the persevering faith of two or three successive generations before its breakthrough onto the time-line.  “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever. . .” (Deut. 29:29)   Our family has nurtured many visions and revelations, beginning with Otto and Bonnie Highfill in the 1920’s.   My Mom was shown things by the Spirit of God.  Jeanie’s Dad, who died at 49, deposited hopes, dreams, and insights into our lives which he didn’t live to see fulfilled.  We inherited a perspective of holy anticipation.

Jeanie and I, and our sons, Steve and Michael, continue to hold within us years of discussion, planning, and prayer about things we believe God wants to do.  We have vision for things which we have experienced only in a limited way, but we continue to cherish and pray those visions.  Why?  Because if we take the revelations of God seriously then our children, grandchildren, or some other of our spiritual descendants will run straight into that promise.  You can go to the bank on that!

 Hebrews 11:13 continues, “ . . and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.”  There’s a curious thing about a life that has caught glimpses of things further down the time-line.  This vision produces in us, sooner or later, a sense that our brief journey on earth is simply the road home! (vs. 14-16)  If “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1), then it turns out, in the end, that the ancient saints got it right.  The journey is real, valuable, and often beautiful, but the promised ‘homeland’ is the fulfillment of our soul’s lifelong hunger.

Be comforted friends; your faith isn’t necessarily revealed by your present situation!  Hebrews 11 celebrates godly individuals who believed God to great victories, amazing experiences, and stunning miracles.  But we cannot read this passage selectively.  Many other believing saints endured hard trials, refused deliverance, experienced persecution, deprivation, imprisonment, even torture.  But the Hebrews writer emphasizes, “All these . . . obtained a good testimony through faith.”

Finally, Hebrews 11:16; “ . . Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God . .”  There is little we can add to such a statement, except to simply pray, “May it somehow, by the grace of God, also be true of us!”

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