Ask yourself, “Do I want everything that God wants and has for me in this life?”
Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV) says, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” Faith comes from hope being realized in substance according to the evidence. We don’t see gravity but we experience gravity all the time. Even considering the argument that gravity can be measured (more evidence) it is still unseen, requiring a certain measure of belief and faith before attempting to defy it. Faith can also be measured by evidence, allowing for acceptance and certainty. We know the truth about gravity and come to trust it even though we do not see it. It could be said that we have a relationship with gravity. Our lives are touched by gravity everyday.
So, what is it to truly trust God? What is it to experience the substance and the evidence that leads to knowledge of what is true?
We don’t trust in what we don’t know. We trust in what we know, even when we cannot see what we know by experience to be true. We experience what we don’t see all the time; therefore we know it’s real. While we learn to trust in what we do not see, we put our faith in what we know by experience to be true. When we don’t trust God it’s because we don’t really know God. Therefore, we cannot know that God really does love us with the intent to manifest His love in our lives.
You know, we don’t see wind either but we see and experience evidence of it. The howling of the wind that we hear is not actually the wind but the obstruction that is resistant to the wind. If we moved in harmony with the wind we would not hear it. God in a way is like the wind wanting to have impact on our lives by experience. When we resist the wind that is God we will hear the howling of our resistance in our circumstances that prove so dissatisfying. When we’re moving with God, we will hear God but the circumstances of our lives won’t be so loud. The more we know God the more we’ll trust Him, and the more confidence we’ll have when we communicate with Him—and the less we will resist His influence in our life experiences. Then we will experience the wonderful life benefits of our faith.
NLX 101 explores with participants the evidence of God’s involvement in the details of their lives in recovery from addiction to selfishness that inevitably leads to the bleeding in life that stains them, stifling the potential of what they are created to be.
This lesson examines the relationship with the woman who had the problem of constant bleeding for 12 years. We’re not privileged with the origin of her problem. She was perceived in the social culture of her day as someone of shame. Her clothes may have been permanently stained without the ability 2000 years ago to remove them. She may have engaged in shameful behavior that led to her problem; we don’t know. What we know is that she sought Jesus out by faith, clipped his robe as he passed by, and was healed immediately. We know that then Jesus sought her out to engage in relationship with her. Participants will identify the things that have left a seemingly permanent stain on their life and in faith seek to touch the power of God in relationship with Christ in order to experience the power of God in their recovery through the removal of those stains as the evidence that this relationship is real.