Faith on My Frequency
From Genesis 15 – 1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward."
2 But Abram said, "Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless and the heir of my house is the Eliezer of Damascus?" Then Abram said, "Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!"
4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, "This one shall not be your air, but one who will come from your own body shall be your air." 5 then He brought him outside and said, "Look now toward Heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them." And He said to him, "so shall your descendents be."
6 And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
7 Then He said to him, I am the Lord, who brought you out of her of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.
8 And he said, "Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it?"
A.W. Tozer in The Attributes of God gives the reader an interesting vantage point on those attributes by measuring a man's progression in His Presence. Contemporaries relate, says Tozer, that hearing Martin Luther pray was "an experience in theology". They said the reformer, "began praying with such humility that he could be pitied, only to proceed with such boldness before God that the human hearer would fear for him.”
I pick up on that last uneasiness in the conversation, one might even say confrontation, between God and Abram in Genesis 15. I've already remarked that in the five verses which precede the landmark declaration of the Holy Spirit that Abram's faith was attributed to him as righteousness, we don't see faith coming.
We do not see a steady progression in faith's direction, much as the counselor and reader in me would like to. God declares Himself sufficient as Abram's protection and reward. Abram's response, moments away from being declared faithful and righteous for the ages, is to complain. He of incipient faith takes the tone of a lawsuit against God in Whom he believes.
OK, so the "before" is nebulous. Surely the "after" of Abram being declared faithful will be clearer and more instructive. Surely the forefather of our faith will walk taller and have a deeper voice as a result of his conversion from walking by sight to walking by faith. Abram, please pick up the script in Genesis 15:8 and show your progeny in the faith what faith looks like.
Abram: God, how will I know You will live up to another grand pronouncement?
If we didn't know something, brothers and sisters in Christ, about the favor the New Testament lavishes on Abram and on this moment, we might expect the earth to swallow him up. Zacharias, the future father of John the Baptist, comes out with a, "Prove it," attitude, and at the very least, he is stricken silent until what is predicted has come to pass.
Yet, by God's grace, Abram's challenge IS showing us what faith looks and sounds like. Eugene Peterson hits on the dynamic insistently when he defines in Tell It Slant," Faith is not a generalized abstraction but a way of life that is expressed in persistent prayer."
Tim Keller in Songs of Jesus addresses this realization directly to the Divine when he admits, "Lord, believing in the promise of your presence in my suffering takes time, and grows slowly, through stages in prayer. So I will pray until my heart rejoices in you."
As Peterson and Keller are testifying as Abram's descendents in faith, the patriarch removes the religious composed artificiality that has developed around, obscures and distorts the concept of faith. Faith means, at least here, believing in the presence of God, the receptivity of God, to some extent the reality of the give-and-take relationship with God, although this by grace and never between equals.
Abram, declared faithful in the eyes of God for five seconds and 5000 years, speaks from that standing. There is, in fact, some humility in his questioning confession. Read the interchange again. There is a tug-of-war between friends. God declares, I am timeless and My plans are huge. Abram consistently responds with reverent reminders that he exists in time, that he is made of stuff that grows weary, and impatient, and that he needs reminders of God's character in the here and now.
Jesus Culture turns this sort of attitude back to worship in "Father of Lights." They declare to the same God before whom Abram stood by grace in Genesis 15, "Your love is alive, filling my eyes." In this narrow spectrum in which I can see, Lord, in this dot on the eternal timeline in which I walk by faith, I believe You can translate Your glory even on these terms.
Yes, the promises of God which take eons to unfold are true, and we rejoice in them, but affirmations of that character also come in smaller denominations. They fill the eyes and address the doubts the individual humans who need to sense His assurance NOW. In this duality, Tyler McKenzie reflects, "Doubt's not a bad thing. It's an opportunity."
Let us, then, brothers and sisters, fully engage in faith's opportunity for testimony as two-part harmony. By the righteousness of Christ, we are positioned to come into the Father's Presence boldly, to ask, and to keep asking. We are to ask for His Kingdom to come, yes, but we are also by the model of His own Son to ask for bread, to insist on clothing, and to rejoice in these as the working out of theology.
2 But Abram said, "Lord God, what will You give me, seeing I go childless and the heir of my house is the Eliezer of Damascus?" Then Abram said, "Look, You have given me no offspring; indeed one born in my house is my heir!"
4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, "This one shall not be your air, but one who will come from your own body shall be your air." 5 then He brought him outside and said, "Look now toward Heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them." And He said to him, "so shall your descendents be."
6 And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
7 Then He said to him, I am the Lord, who brought you out of her of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it.
8 And he said, "Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it?"
A.W. Tozer in The Attributes of God gives the reader an interesting vantage point on those attributes by measuring a man's progression in His Presence. Contemporaries relate, says Tozer, that hearing Martin Luther pray was "an experience in theology". They said the reformer, "began praying with such humility that he could be pitied, only to proceed with such boldness before God that the human hearer would fear for him.”
I pick up on that last uneasiness in the conversation, one might even say confrontation, between God and Abram in Genesis 15. I've already remarked that in the five verses which precede the landmark declaration of the Holy Spirit that Abram's faith was attributed to him as righteousness, we don't see faith coming.
We do not see a steady progression in faith's direction, much as the counselor and reader in me would like to. God declares Himself sufficient as Abram's protection and reward. Abram's response, moments away from being declared faithful and righteous for the ages, is to complain. He of incipient faith takes the tone of a lawsuit against God in Whom he believes.
OK, so the "before" is nebulous. Surely the "after" of Abram being declared faithful will be clearer and more instructive. Surely the forefather of our faith will walk taller and have a deeper voice as a result of his conversion from walking by sight to walking by faith. Abram, please pick up the script in Genesis 15:8 and show your progeny in the faith what faith looks like.
Abram: God, how will I know You will live up to another grand pronouncement?
If we didn't know something, brothers and sisters in Christ, about the favor the New Testament lavishes on Abram and on this moment, we might expect the earth to swallow him up. Zacharias, the future father of John the Baptist, comes out with a, "Prove it," attitude, and at the very least, he is stricken silent until what is predicted has come to pass.
Yet, by God's grace, Abram's challenge IS showing us what faith looks and sounds like. Eugene Peterson hits on the dynamic insistently when he defines in Tell It Slant," Faith is not a generalized abstraction but a way of life that is expressed in persistent prayer."
Tim Keller in Songs of Jesus addresses this realization directly to the Divine when he admits, "Lord, believing in the promise of your presence in my suffering takes time, and grows slowly, through stages in prayer. So I will pray until my heart rejoices in you."
As Peterson and Keller are testifying as Abram's descendents in faith, the patriarch removes the religious composed artificiality that has developed around, obscures and distorts the concept of faith. Faith means, at least here, believing in the presence of God, the receptivity of God, to some extent the reality of the give-and-take relationship with God, although this by grace and never between equals.
Abram, declared faithful in the eyes of God for five seconds and 5000 years, speaks from that standing. There is, in fact, some humility in his questioning confession. Read the interchange again. There is a tug-of-war between friends. God declares, I am timeless and My plans are huge. Abram consistently responds with reverent reminders that he exists in time, that he is made of stuff that grows weary, and impatient, and that he needs reminders of God's character in the here and now.
Jesus Culture turns this sort of attitude back to worship in "Father of Lights." They declare to the same God before whom Abram stood by grace in Genesis 15, "Your love is alive, filling my eyes." In this narrow spectrum in which I can see, Lord, in this dot on the eternal timeline in which I walk by faith, I believe You can translate Your glory even on these terms.
Yes, the promises of God which take eons to unfold are true, and we rejoice in them, but affirmations of that character also come in smaller denominations. They fill the eyes and address the doubts the individual humans who need to sense His assurance NOW. In this duality, Tyler McKenzie reflects, "Doubt's not a bad thing. It's an opportunity."
Let us, then, brothers and sisters, fully engage in faith's opportunity for testimony as two-part harmony. By the righteousness of Christ, we are positioned to come into the Father's Presence boldly, to ask, and to keep asking. We are to ask for His Kingdom to come, yes, but we are also by the model of His own Son to ask for bread, to insist on clothing, and to rejoice in these as the working out of theology.
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