Keepin' the faith in all the crazy!

Hebrews 11:1 – Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Just this past Easter Sunday there was another terrorist bombing; this time in Pakistan.  It seems like every time I open up Yahoo to check my email, there’s a headline proclaiming another heinous act.  What kind of world are we living in?  And has it always been this way, and we just weren’t so aware of it before technology brought it right into our homes in living color?

I’m rather a naïve person, and my first instinct is to shut out all the bad news and basically pretend it isn’t happening.  (If I close my eyes, you can’t see me, right?)  I don’t want to think about these things.  I want everything to be right and beautiful.  I want people to stop dying and killing each other.  I want all the hate to go away.  I’d like to have grandchildren brought into a world where kindness and grace and truth and purity exists.

But I still have faith.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.

The literal meaning of assurance comes from “a standing under.”  It is that which stands, or is set under, a foundation.  It is the quality of confidence which leads one to stand under, endure, or undertake anything. (Vines)

2 Corinthians 9:4 – For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end.

Our faith is our foundation.

Our faith is what assures us of what we hope for.

Our faith is what proves that we belong to Christ.

There’s another use for this same word, hypostasis, which is translated “assurance.”  It’s in Hebrews 1:3, and it speaks of Christ as the “very image” of God’s “substance.” 

Hebrews 1:3a – And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.

The same Greek word hypostasis is translated in the following ways in Hebrews 1:3: being, nature, essence, person, substance.   According to Vines, here it speaks of the Divine essence of God, existent and expressed in the revelation of His Son.

Jesus is our assurance.

Jesus is who stands under us.

Jesus is our foundation.

Jesus is the One who gives “substance” to what we hope for.

He is our hope.

Faith might seem to be a rather vague “ideology” at times.  Sometimes when we look around at the world our faith feels fragile.  Life is fragile.

But Jesus is real.

Jesus is tangible.

Jesus really came.

Jesus really died.

Jesus really lives.

I’m so thankful that although sometimes my feelings of faith might waver, the foundation that my faith rests on—Jesus—is rock solid.  Even in the face of all the craziness.

It makes me love Him even more, cling to Him even tighter, and desire to see Him sooner.