When Your Faith Is Weak...Fix Your Eyes On Jesus!

"No one is so empty as the one who has stopped walking with God and doesn't know it."  -Jerry White, past International President of The Navigators.

Do you feel like you just don't have it spiritually, lately? Do you feel like your faith is running on fumes? Maybe you've been skipping out on church for a while? Or, saying you'll get around to your daily Bible study, but you never do. Feeling guilty? This is not that uncommon. And, you’re definitely not alone. Every Christian experiences times of weakness.

How can we resuscitate our motivation, and enthusiasm? I suppose to get a better understanding of faith, it might be a good idea to take a few steps back and examine how faith is explained, exemplified, and encouraged. A great place to seek this understanding is Hebrews 11.

First, we'll look at how faith is explained. Right off the bat, the writer of Hebrews opens this magnificent chapter with his definition of faith (Hebrews 11:1). The objects of faith are things hoped for , or future events, and things unseen, also known as spiritual things.

So, if these hoped for, unseen things are not accessible by normal means, how do we find out about them? Fortunately, the writer gives an example in Hebrews 11:3. "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible."

How can you and I believe in this? We believe it because of the word of God. Christian faith is never blind. Christian faith is generated and guided by the word of God. Faith is taking, trusting and testing: taking God's word; trusting what it says; and testing how it works in practice.

Faith perceives God's promises, which are unseen, but it makes us just as confident about them as if we had seen them. This is what the Apostle Paul means when he says, "We live by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7). People can choose to live by sight, which is a sense that only perceives the things around us, or they can choose to live by faith, a sense that perceives God's eternal promises.

There's nothing blind about Christian faith; there's nothing irrational about Christian faith. It simply perceives God's word in a way that the non-Christian never can (Hebrews 11:1). I hope that I've given you a basic view of how faith is explained. With this in our pocket, let's see how faith is exemplified.

Again, looking at Hebrews 11:4-16, we can pick out three things that exemplify faith. First, we learn that faith enables us to please God, Hebrews 11:4-6. But, with these verses comes a strong warning (Hebrews 11:6).

Certainly, there are many, many people in the world who are better than I am. They are kinder, more generous, and more self-sacrificing. Some of them go to church. But the tragedy is that, because their actions do not spring from faith, they cannot please God. Their starting point is wrong: without faith they do not start with the word of God!

Next, Hebrews 11:7, announces that faith enables us to be saved. Noah exercised faith. He took God's word, trusted and tested: Noah did everything just as God commanded him (Genesis 6:22). And, the result was that he and his family were all saved. So, he becomes a model for how you and I can be saved.

Third, faith enables us to live differently, Hebrews 11:8-12. In these verses the writer focuses in on Abraham, the father of the faithful. In these verses the writer focuses in on Abraham, the father of the faithful. Confident of his future with God, Abraham was able not to invest his life in this world, but to live for the world to come. Thus, when he was called to leave his country of birth, he obeyed and went. He lived in the promised land as a stranger.

When faith makes us confident in the future with God, we can live differently from those around us. We needn't cling on to this world any longer, we can invest in godliness. We are enabled to do as Jesus commanded us: Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,... But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven (Matthew 6:19-20).

Of course, there is so much more to say, but these brief examples show that faith enables us to please God, faith enables us to be saved, and faith enables us to live differently.

We've seen how Hebrews 11 gives us faith explained and faith exemplified. Now I want to finish with faith encouraged. The purpose of this whole chapter of Hebrews 11, and really the whole book of Hebrews, is to encourage faith.

The Christians to whom the letter was written were facing great persecution, and they were losing confidence. Some of them were even giving up on Jesus and turning back. So, the writer sends this letter to build their faith in Jesus and to encourage them to press on, because faith is the opposite of fear. Look at the last verse of chapter 10 (Hebrew 10:39), "But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved."

You and I are not, on the whole, facing persecution. But, I suspect that some of us feel that our faith is weak. How can we strengthen it? How does the letter of Hebrews encourage our faith?

First, we need to stimulate faith by exposing it to God's word. If we lived life with our eyes closed, it would be very difficult, and much poorer, wouldn't it? So it is with faith. As the eye is stimulated by light, so faith is stimulated by God's word. We need to open our eyes of faith, and that means fixing them on God's word.

Second, faith needs exercise. Faith is taking God's word and trusting it. And then as we test it and find it true, our faith grows stronger. If Abel and Noah and Abraham and the couple of dozen other people listed in this chapter had not acted on their faith, it would have done them no good at all. It is as we practice trusting in God rather than in the things of this world that our faith will grow.

Third, and finally, we must consider Jesus. At the end of this gallery of the faithful, Hebrews 12 verse 2 says this, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith,... Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." (Hebrews 12:2-3)

Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith. It is in him that everything comes together, in him that all God's promises are fulfilled.

Hebrews 11:13 reminds us that all of the heroes of faith in chapter 11 had far less to go on than we do. They never saw the true fulfillment of God's promises, they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. (Hebrews 11:13). Yet, they still lived with extraordinary faith.

We, however, have seen the fulfillment of all God's promises in Jesus. How much more should we be able to live by faith? When your faith is weak, the best remedy of all is to fix your eyes on Jesus... Consider him.

Scripture: John 3:33; John 6:29; Romans 3:20; Matthew 24:10;  Luke 8:13; 2 Peter 3:17; Jeremiah 17:5

Prayer: Dear Lord, sometimes I feel as if I am surrounded in darkness, never to see the light. Please help me find your light even in the darkest corner. Amen

-specials thanks to Ben Edgington

May God bless you always,

Claudia