To Faith or Not To Faith

Faith is a fascinating concept to me. Why can I have strong faith about some things and absolutely no faith about other things. Another thing about faith that causes me to be fascinated is how some people who really shouldn't be peolple of faith are. Let me cite an example. I am studying through the book of Joshua. A few days ago I read chapter 2 which is one of my favorite passages in Scripture because God uses a prostitute from Jericho to accompish His purpose. And if that is not cool enough this prostitute has a huge amonut of faith.

In Joshua 2:4-6, Rhab, that's the prostitute, hides two Israelite spies and then tells the king of Jericho that they had gone. She risked her life believing that these two men represented the true God. Faith will require that we risk. Yes, at time even our very lives.

Then in Joshua 2:9 she tells the spies that she knows God has given Israel the land. Now, Rahab's family could had been occupying that land for hundreds of years. She has faith that God had already given it to Israel. Faith is trusting God will do something before He does it.

Then in Joshua 2:10 Rahab tells the spies that they, Jericho,  had heard how the Lord had dried up the Red Sea and that God had helped Israel defeat King Sihon and King Og (love that name). Rahab had not personally witnesses that or even talked to anybody who had, but what she heard that God had done, she believed. Faith is trusting God even when you have not personally witnessed something.

Then in Joshua 2:11 Rahab identifies God as the God in heaven above and on the earth below. This concept of God being a God over all (heaven and earth) is beyond anything that Rahab could have ever been taught by her culture. Her culture like all the cultures of that time saw God as over certain areas or things, but not as a God over all. It take a gracious revelation from God to help her understand, but she did. This again is a huge faith.

Finally in Joshua 2:12-13 she makes the spies swear that Israel will spare her and her family when they conquer Jericho. They agree and tell her what she has to do and in the rest chapter two we see Rahab follow God's commands that allow her and her family to be the only people in Jericho to survive.

God Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls from our lives and from His church will take a Rahab type of faith. A faith that helps us believe the Word of God without reservation, a faith that allows us to in spite of our fears to risk everything for God, a faith that will enable us to trust what we can't see and help us leap beyond our own experiences or feelings about God and trust Him as He really is.

So what I am saying is I want the kind of faith in God that a prostitute from Jericho had.

Joe