How Faith Works #2 – Take
A grandmother promised her 10-year-old grandson a stamp album for Christmas. Christmas came, but no stamp album, and no word from grandmother.
When his playmates came to see his Christmas presents, he added that he had also received “a stamp album from grandmother.”
His mother asked him about it. “But, George, you did not get an album from your grandmother. Why do you say so?”
He said, “Well, mamma, grandma said, so it is the same as.” He learned later why the delay and received what was promised.
That’s how faith works. Put faith on a time line.
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for” (Hebrews 11:1). Our “confidence” is in the present. Our “hope” is in the future. And our “faith” pulls our future hopes into the present as though we already have what we ask. As we move forward in time, we step into it.
Once we were not saved. Then one day our faith reached out to Jesus to save us from our sins. “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). We received, we took the gift of salvation by faith.
Faith doesn’t merely wish, hope, or desire. Faith takes. Faith receives.
We lay hold of something in prayer – an anticipated blessing, a health need, a material provision, a requested answer. We reach out to God, spreading out our situation and need before him, and then by faith we take it.
We don’t have it yet, but we know it’s on the way. We hold onto it with the hands of faith. We treat the future as present now.
Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24).
With faith we affirm: “I believe the answer’s on the way. I believe the Lord has heard me pray. For God has said, ‘Do not throw away your confidence’” (Hebrews 10:35).
With faith we declare: “Now by faith in Christ alone I stand. Firmly held by God’s almighty hand. Fully trusting in his promise, I rejoice, ‘Praise the Lord!’”
Faith takes.
~ Pastor Dave
