The Seen Versus the Unseen

UV 676/10,000 The Seen versus the Unseen “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews 11 v 1 Faith is seeing the unseen with such clarity that the things that are seen either loose their significance in our eyes or acquire a new meaning and significance in the light of it. It is the power of conviction. It is choosing to live on an eternal plane and not on a temporal one. There are two kinds of people: people of faith and people of fate- the latter rely only on what they can see and touch while the former rely only on what they cannot see and physically touch. Fate is self-limiting while faith is always expanding and growing. First, we start with a little faith even as small as a mustard seed but since our faith is organic or living, it begins to grow with each experience of God’s grace. God created the entire universe out of what is unseen. Faith is therefore both the founding principle of the universe and the ruling principle of history. We cannot gain the approval of God without faith. All the patriarchs of faith like Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Joseph gained the approval of God through their faith. But, the capstone of faith is Jesus Christ who manifested Himself in human history. When we believe in His Name, His words, His acts of grace, our faith is complete and perfected. Our divine destiny is fulfilled, our earthly purpose is met. There is nothing more we need in heaven or earth. All the promises of God are fulfilled in and through Him. True, there are uncertainties but we can combat a legion of uncertainties with the one certainty that Christ died for us and rose again and is alive in us by faith. Our belief is the driving force of life. The first part of the word “ belief” is ‘be’ and it means all that we are, all that we do and all that we stand for. It determines our hope, our joy or our positive emotions, our strength, our ability to endure hardship. It gives us an eternal perspective to see all things in the light of a truth we believe in. If that truth was amenable to proof, it would not be faith. But, the truth can be experienced. We cannot experiment with the truth but we can experience the truth. Faith presupposes character as we need to wait with patience for our hope to be realized. Faith includes seven types of assurances: assurance of salvation that we will live for eternity, assurance of answered prayer that God, the Unseen Creator hears and answers our prayers, the assurance of provision that He provides for our need, the assurance of protection that He cares for us, the assurance of victory that He will help us overcome the obstacles and difficulties that come our way to test our faith, the assurance of guidance that He will guide us step by step as we rely on Him and His Word. Faith expresses itself initially in reverence or fear of God. It then expresses itself in obedience. Faith when full grown expresses itself in love for God, love for man- the two axes on which God measures our faith. Prateep V Philip Pic of a Miracle Cross a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE-3yMUDlwwKIYbDPGDjjJmXUV6keUixjbzbTjL_U-rCuF_fhaTazc4TWvLav0q9onvXr-A5iaL2S6SVq-etn9Lb6NgEUYUYf2zz5pOIgZRrtL8MiTam3xh4m1YP2oxZzcwtafI_TeGKE/s1600/IMG-20120921-00086+(1).JPG" imageanchor="1" >