Divine Guarantees

SCRIPTURE:  Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality—faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses]. Hebrews 11:1 AMP

THOUGHT: When hope gets explained like this, it takes on a whole new dimension – like, an otherworldly one. We have to stretch our minds and imaginations beyond that thing we’ve been “hoping for,” on this side – more or better somethings, that big break, an easier life, or even something noble like world peace or healing. We have to wrestle with trading our soul for whatever gain can be gotten here. Or we have to hope in the divine guarantee of heaven, which opens all kinds of possibilities, including world peace (promised in Revelations).

There are things that are divinely guaranteed, and to read chapter 11 of Hebrews is to explore those things. One of them, the first one, actually, is that God really did make the universe – out of nothing. I don’t know how often you challenge yourself to think deeply about creation, but it’s a worthy exercise.

We live in a culture that doesn’t believe in things divinely guaranteed, and to speak of the evidence of things not seen, to comprehend as fact what cannot be experienced or proven by science, is to invite contempt. To believe there is revealed truth is to invite derision. AI is perhaps more worshiped than God, while at the same time a hearty dismissal of biology is on all sides.

This world that God has made is on a collision course with its maker – and all because the God who planned it all, made it all, says it all belongs to him, and stepped into it to die for it has asked us to have a faith that is stronger than human reason, human logic, or human meaning. To believe what we cannot see.

PRAYER: Oh God, I sometimes wonder why you don’t show up in all your glory and just amaze the disbeliever and the half-hearted cynic. And then, as soon as I wonder that, I remember that you did show up, and you do show up in every sunrise and sunset and starry night, and people just go on ignoring you. I’m sorry for all the times I’ve ignored you too. Forgive me and help me trust you with a fierce faith like all the saints in Hebrews 11.