The Righteous Live By Faith

But My righteous one will live by faith; and if he draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him. [Heb 10:38]


Faith is a funny thing. Some day you have huge faith and other days you struggle. Some days you soar over trials as you trust God and other days you get weighed down. Now here is the truth. It takes faith (confidence and assurance) to trust Christ for salvation. We trust when we are repentant and believe Jesus for forgiveness through grace. We get what we believed for.

If we can trust Jesus with something as important as our souls and eternity; why do we find it hard to trust in the everyday mundane affairs of life. Things like paying for college, buying cars, making mortgage payments, and buying school clothes and school supplies. At times it seems the money is going out faster than families can bring it in. When this happens how many people begin to doubt not trusting God.

Satan gets involved in this as well. He relentlessly releases fiery darts of doubt and dark thoughts in the middle of our crisis. These fiery darks can only be extinguished with the shield of faith. [Eph 6:16] We must keep trusting God all day and every day. That is easier said than done when your whole world is being rocked. When doubt clamps down on your mind like a vice grip prayer becomes harder to do especially, when it comes to praying fervently.

If we can trust Christ to give us clemency from our sin irregardless of our guilt and worthiness of punishment, why should we doubt when it comes everyday life. I can trust God for whatever is in front of me. So can you. We are not of the type that shrinks back in doubt and unbelief. We are the kind of followers of Christ who have enduring faith.

My family endured in prayer along with many of you for two years that our house in Seminole would sell and that God would provide us a house here. He did both. There were days when I thought neither would happen. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. My faith felt like a roller coaster. In the end God came through. That does not mean faith stops there. It is always living by faith for the child of God.

When we went to our closing for this house the lady who did our paper work showed us the payment schedule and how long it would take to pay the house off. She said the house will be paid off in and then she named a year. I told her that was not true. By faith I firmly stated the house will be paid off much earlier than that. From the day we secured this house my prayer has been, "God, I ask you to pay down the debt and pay this off." That is impossible with me. I do not have those kind of financial resources. God does. I trust him to pay this off entirely. It could come through a book I write, a generous donation,  a series of outside preaching engagements, or any other number of ways. I pray this for one simple reason. I hate debt. The rich rules over the poor and a borrower is slave to the lender. [Prov 22:7] I want my money freed up to do more for God's kingdom. Seek you first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. [Matt 6:33] So I ask God to pay the house off early so I can do more kingdom minded things. Faith does not stop there. This does not mean that I do not use my money now to build the kingdom because the house is not paid off. It is by faith that we give obediently as God directs.

As a pastor I wonder how I will pay for my children to go to school. A wise friend told me months ago that God will make a way just as God did for his four children. My friend has never owned a house or made great sums of money. Today all four of his children are out of college without having to have gone into debt. God can do the same for all of our children.

We are called to live by faith everyday. If we can trust Christ with the salvation of our souls, we can also trust him with whatever we are facing today. He has this. It reminds me of the sign someone gave me for my office years ago. It read, "Matt, trust me. I have everything under control. Jesus"