Hebrews 11:1 tell us;
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
I have always loved that verse, I mean really who doesn't? When I looked at it today though something jumped off the page at me, in the margins of my Bible it tells what each highlighted word means, well in this passage substance and evidence are those highlighted words. Out of curiosity I took a little bit of time to look at each word and saw something I have never seen!
When I looked at the meaning of substance it means, realization, and evidence means conviction, so the verse could read this way;
Now faith is the realization of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. In the dictionary the word substance means, the actual matter of a thing as opposed to the appearance or shadow, reality. The word evidence means; something that makes plain or clear: an indication or sign. I know this stuff is a bit boring, but I promise we are going somewhere with this! Basically we need to have a "light bulb" moment where faith is concerned, we need to realize the reality of the things we are wanting to come to pass...speaking of lights, I feel like it is an indictment on me when I have more faith in a light bulb working than I do in a move of God! We don't worry or wonder about electricity, yet we will bite off all of our nails or get an ulcer wondering if God will.....
A conviction, is a cause of sorts, people who have a conviction regarding something do not fall over and play dead when someone challenges them, they stand strong on the proverbial "soap box." We need to stand that way on those hopes, and dreams, the lost family or friends, or that promotion...whatever it is!
When we lived in Florida there were military members there who jumped out of airplanes regularly, well on one such day a young soldier jumped out of a plane to find out his parachute was not going to open! After falling 13,000 feet he landed in a field flat on his back, shattering every single bone in his body! The crazy thing is, he survived that fall with not one single compound fracture, the doctors said the reason he was able to survive was because his muscle mass was so strong it acted as a cushion to his fall, and kept his bones from coming out of the skin! That same man a year later was jumping out of planes again! There are going to be times in your walk with God that you will free fall not knowing whether your "parachute" will open, and honestly there will be times that it won't and you will land flat on your back, at these times though your faith will be the muscle that cushions your fall, you may lose your stability, but those muscles will be there for support, and when the time is right you will be back doing what God has ordained you to do! Use your faith, come to the realization that the evidence is all there the things you have been asking for are already done, and when challenged use positive words and attitudes to stand on the conviction of those answered prayers! I want to leave you with one last thing, going back to the word substance, it means reality, it isn't a shadow or a false front , it is your reality, the reality is God said "Whatsoever you ask in my name, that will I do!" That means to me, God won't or isn't holding a carrot in front of us only to let us down, faith in God is never wasted...
And that my friend, Is Reality!
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