This Week In Recovery Lesson
Evidence That Demands a Verdict
FREEdom From MEdom Project is a venture in faith. Here’s a secret about faith: faith is an experience rooted in substance and evidence. Like gravity and oxygen, you may not see the subject of your faith, but there is evidence that it’s real by experience. Oxygen keeps you alive and gravity keeps you grounded. 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.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV)
You know, we don’t see wind either but we see and experience evidence of it everyday. The howling of the wind that we hear is not actually the wind sounding off but the obstruction that is resistant to the wind. The howling noise is the sound of resistance. If we move in harmony with the wind, instead of holding us back, the powerful force of the wind propels us. God is like the wind wanting to impact our lives by experience—everyday. When we resist God we hear the howling of our resistance in our circumstances that prove so dissatisfying. When we’re moving with God, He propels us, and our troubles aren’t so loud.
He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Romans 8:32 (NKJV)
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 lives. When we come to believe and trust in the evidence, the verdict is that we will then experience the wonderful life benefits of our faith.
- Besides oxygen, gravity, and wind mentioned here, what are other examples of things you experience that are not seen with our eyes?
- What would you say it means that faith is the substance of things hoped for in Hebrews 11:1? What is meant by the words ‘substance’ and ‘hope’ in the context of this passage?
- What would you say the writer is referring to when writing about evidence? What is the evidence of faith?
- Read again Romans 8:32. What does it mean to you that if God did not spare His Son, and allowed him to go to the cross and die for you, how would it be that He would withhold blessing from you?
- Olympic sprinters have broken world records only to have it disqualified because it was wind aided. At Wrigley Field in Chicago, balls hit high into the outfield get caught up in the jet stream and leave the yard for home runs. How would you describe the difference between running against the wind versus running with the wind?
- What would you say is the difference between putting your faith in faith and putting your faith in the One who can and will bless you when you let go of your stuff and let Him?
- What does it mean to you to fully trust God?
- Why wouldn’t you trust God?
- What is it that you know about God that would get in the way of you trusting Him?
- What is it that you would like to know more about God that would help you to trust Him—really trust Him?
Please click on TWRAC 027 to go a little deeper into this challenge.
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