August 11th, 2024

11 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. 4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. 5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. 7 By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. 8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. 11 By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. 13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

39 And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

To have faith is the key to our righteousness. It is an extremely important part of Christianity and it shows through all the major people from the old testament to now, that God worked through these people and were given grace because of our faith. Our faith is the assurance of what we hope for, based on our foreknowledge of the bible and the plan that God has set out from the beginning. We as humans are so insanely limited to our dimension and our limited mind of inherent immorality, in our free will, the only way to salvation is to trust Him with all your heart, mind and soul, an opportunity given to you by God. It is insanely important as a true christian to realise how impossibly powerful God is, how he can take nothing and turn it into this impossibly complicated world. Us trying to question that is similar to a being living in the second dimension trying to live as if there is 3 or more dimension. We must have humility in our powerlessness, and give our lives up to God. God is everywhere, God knows everything, nothing is more powerful than God, God is infinity.
Nobody had perfect faith, not even the apostles, in the same way that noone is without sin (except Jesus). All aspects of good in this world are only existing because of God's existence, and all evil is a rejection of that, in the same way that darkness is the lack of light, or cold is the lack of heat, evil is the lack of God. Our faith allows to be enriched in the infinite goodness of God, and allows us to make miraculous changes in our life. I really like the part of the scripture above that talks about the things in this world that were made and how they were made out of things that we cannot see, this is why our faith is so important. It is an acceptance of our limited capabilities, physically, morally and intellectually. It is giving the invisible power we think we have in this life back to God (even though he has always had it). Throughout my life, the idea that God is all powerful and the importance of faith in Him has been spitted and trampled on. I was not always a believer, and even when I was, my actions and ways of living did not change. It was only through my faith that was given to me by God that I have been able to reimagine what my life means. Everything is always infinitely complex and we know that more and more because of our search for knowledge. We know how a human is alive, because the heart is beating and the blood is pumping, but God answers the 'how' and fills our life with meaning. The faith that has been given to us is the type of commitment that is the most sacred to humans. In the same way that I have faith that the sun will not explode in the next 10 seconds, I have faith that God will carry out His plan with an ultimate grace that is beyond our comprehension. God is perfect, and we are not, that is why Jesus was put on this earth to live through our struggle while showing God's perfect grace, and dying for a humanity that is corrupted by evil, so that we may get the opportunity to witness and try to live as God intended us to. In the end, God will fulfill all his promises he made with us, and it is our limited capability of observation that is an attack on our faith. As humans, we can admire people, think they are good or honorable people, we our limited by our observation of the present. God, on the other hand, is everywhere and all knowing in the past, present and future, and is infinitely intelligent enough to see the every action and thought that any person ever made in their whole life all at once, and without that faith, no matter the person, all he would see is sin. If we put our faith in God as christians, no matter what we may see as good or bad happening to us in this physical life on earth, God always has an overall plan for that.

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)

I am no better than anyone else, I have an inherrent evil in my heart and I cannot trust myself for morality, which is why I have to put my trust and faith in God's. I sin, I am not a good person, that only thing that makes me good is Jesus, which is why I want everyone, including my enemies, to trust in Him, so that we may find a common peace in the Lord. It is so hard to have faith in today's world, thousands of years of sin has only further limited our opportunities to actively seek God. We drown in a culture that constantly tells us to live like God, to do what we want when we want to do it, without thinking of what we are really saying about who is really in power through our actions. These past two weeks have been a rough patch for me in this journey, but no matter how severly I am challenged, I always want to try and recover and keep my faith in God. No human is perfect, we are little ants.