Walls

He who builds a wall of protection about himself often creates a prison cell occupied by those things he has held onto from the past. A sanctuary created not by walls of mortar and stone, nor walls created by bars of steel, yet walls none the less cemented into place by scars and memories. Once enclosed in this 'sanctuary' the builder may find himself tormented by those things from which he sought to protect himself.
We humans have been conditioned over the ages to defend ourselves from those things which cause pain. We want to live safely, peacefully, painlessly. In a perfect world this would be possible; however, we no longer live in a perfect world. The perfect world existed 'in the beginning' and then was lost through disobedience. Our only hope for a perfect world lies in a journey to the cross.
Our journey to the cross begins when we leave the safety of our walls, walls which can only be erased by the blood of the Lamb. At the cross we find His Sanctuary, His Joy, His Peace and there we begin our journey to His Perfect World.

One More Thought on Faith

Job 13:15-16
15 Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him; but I will maintain my ways before Him.
16 He also shall be my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not come before Him.

True Faith…
Job desired to ‘reason with God’. He desired that God would ‘explain’ things to him. When God visited Job in the “whirlwind” He required answers of Job – a lot of questions and in those questions Job found his ‘explanation of the unreasonable’. Job’s faith in God was not one of reason; rather, Job believed in the goodness and righteousness of God in spite of what was happening in his life, in his flesh. Faith is not reasonable – faith is believing in spite of all reasoning. Faith believes the unbelievable.
Peter walked on water until he realized he was doing the impossible. Peter took his eyes off of Faith and looked at his fleshly feet sinking beneath the waves. Peter was sinking because he could not believe the impossible, the unreasonable, the unbelievable.
Our walk with God defies the ‘reasoning of men’; our faith in Him – in His word – cannot be explained; it is not a matter of reasoning. It is a matter of faith – ‘Now Faith’; ‘By Faith’, ‘Through Faith’ and ‘True Faith’.

Thoughts on Faith

Hebrews 11:3
3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

Through Faith…

"Things are not as they appear." I remember how often my mom told me this truth, that things aren't alway as they seem and we just need to wait for the truth to be made known. Somehow as a young person that was not so comforting, since I was dealing with the here and now and how things appeared at the time. As I have grown older and wiser, I have realized that mom was simply paraphrasing Hebrews 11:3. Waiting for the truth to be made known is "through faith" simply moving forward and trusting God. Our finances, our children, all those things we see with our own eyes in the here and now are test of our "through faith". We wonder how we will ever see our prayers answered when we just can't see it coming to pass. We need to ask God to give us 'faith vision'- eyes that look beyond what is happening right now and see what God sees just a few miles on down the road.

“Through Faith” is the vehicle that carries us forward when the road we travel becomes a trail and the trail seems to disappear. “Through Faith” carries us on realizing that because God is leading us we can follow the path He is cutting ahead of us. “Through Faith” simply follows the trail markers. “Through Faith” is the all terrain vehicle that moves forward, over and through the obstacles to our progress toward God-set goals and destinations. "Through faith" allows us to see beyond those things that appear to be and view the truth of what God has set in motion and believe that what He has promised will come to pass.