Skip to main content

Confidence

             So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.  (Hebrews 10:35-36)

          Someone posted something on social media this morning asking about our young folks having lost their faith. I answered that I don’t think the young have lost their faith. Either they never had any or they’ve moved their faith to something else. Sadly, when we “lose” faith, we may not realize what we are shifting our faith to. It could be the government, teachers, or even some vague “lack of belief” that ultimately is faith in oneself if in no other sense than that one believes one is capable of discerning when and if one encounters something in which one can have faith.

          Keep in mind that faith can be either positive or negative. You can have complete faith that someone who has murdered several times will murder again. You can have faith that the government will take care of you and solve your problems, or that it won’t. I recommend the latter.

          In today’s passage, we aren’t told to not lose our faith. We’re told not to throw away our confidence. Throwing something away isn’t losing something. Losing something means you can look for it and find it again. If you throw something away, you know precisely where it is. You put it there deliberately. It’s an act of the will.

          The problem with having faith or confidence in anything is that confidence that lasts for 0.125 seconds isn’t worth much. Neither is a faith of 3 seconds or only 3 minutes. Oh, there may be times when we put a fire under our faith, but there’s not much sense in putting a fire under an empty pan unless we plan to put something in it soon, unless your goal is to ruin the pan. It’s only when there is faith in the “pan” that it does any good to light said fire under it.

          In a sense, this passage might be paraphrased as “Don’t throw the contents (the faith/confidence) of the pan (the thing in which you have confidence/faith) down the drain and put the pot back on the fire (your life.)” Equally, don’t throw the contents into a plastic bag and put it back on the fire.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Virgin?

           Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)           This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18)           But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”            “How will this be,” Mary asked the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Saved?

  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23) Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” (Romans 3:4)   What conclusion do you draw when someone who was raised in a Christian family and church, perhaps even playing a significant role in a chur...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more