Jesus Christ, The Author and Finisher of My Faith

"Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. " Hebrews 12:2 - Amplified Version

This is the place to start - with Jesus Christ. This challenge to walk by faith, to please God, because without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6) - must begin the Jesus Christ. 

This life is filled with distractions that compete for my attention. Since 2003 I have been a single mom, raising three amazing children. I think you might agree that this task of parenting and proving alone without a husband is a best a challenge. Don't get me wrong, I'm not whining so that you'll feel sorry for me. These last eleven years have taught me that God is faithful. I write this with a smile on my face and joy in my heart. God has been so good to me and my children. 

The distractions. They seem to be legit. Providing for my children has seemed to be an all consuming task. I'm in sales and, in my opinion, I'm good at it as long as I believe in the product. But after the divorce something changed in side. The pain and grief of the marriage and love that came to an end was brick wall distraction. It would have been easy to put my eyes on my pain or the seemingly insurmountable task of providing for my children. 

The distractions. My children had their own emotions to deal with after their family fell apart. How could we do this to them? Whose side should they be on? There had to be someone right and someone wrong. They were angry at me and their dad. They were angry at the rest of the world for not understanding the pain that they were in. They acted out. Each one in a different way.

Distractions and reasons to lose faith, right? This is just my story. It's not unlike many other women and children. There are other stories. What's yours? 

Here is what I can tell you about looking away from these distractions - not ignoring them in denial, but not allowing them to consume me - and instead, looking to Jesus as the source of my faith. I can tell you that we - my children and I - have successfully come through this hard time with the most amazing outcome.

During my darkest hours I reminded myself of all the times that Jesus had rescued me. I reminded myself that my oldest son, who almost died at birth because of a hole in his lung, was miraculously healed and came home from the hospital 8 days after he was born. This month my son who almost died will be 21 years old. I reminded myself of the many times that Jesus provided financial miracles to pay the rent, the utilities, buy food and clothes. 

I made a conscious choice to take my eyes off of the distractions and put my the eyes of my inner person on the facts of how big and mighty the God that I serve - this God who promised "I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)! [Assuredly not!]" (Hebrews 13:5). 

My life is not without distractions even now, but I see a beautiful outcome. My children are young adults. They are strong and kind because of all that they came through. They've learned compassion for others that are struggling. They've learned that God never left us. Whenever they face a challenge they come to me and ask me to agree with them in prayer.  (Matthew 18:19–20)

This week I am starting a new Bible Study by Marilyn Hickey called, "Seeing Jesus: Bible Encounter Study Guide". This study takes the student through all the books of the Bible to find references, symbols, and prophesies of Jesus Christ, our redeemer - The Author and Finisher of My Faith. 

What distractions are competing for your attention? What will you choose to do to cause you to "fix your attention" on Jesus Christ?

Walk by faith my dear friend. You will not be disappointed!

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30 Meditations on Jesus - eBook By Marilyn Hickey / Whitaker House

God...With Us...Priceless

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:  “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel” (which means “God with us”) (Matthew 1:23 NIV)

This was the first miracle of Jesus Christ. He came from heaven and entered the earthly realm as one of us by virgin birth. He began by doing the "impossible" so that we could become like him. 

The human race, sometimes smart, but many times downright evil. Maybe not you but there have been plenty of atrocities committed by mankind that it's no wonder that God himself wanted to wash the earth and start all over again as in the days of Noah.

When the time was right, just as was planned in advance, God, packaged in human flesh came to dwell with us.  Not only did God choose to live with us, he became "The Way", the access to live with Him. 

I don't think we can fully appreciate this unless we attempt to understand the contrast of how evil humanity is and how good God is. 

Any good in man is our attempt to pattern ourselves after God's standards of right. Most people across all cultures have some standard of "good." From birth we know or are taught it's important to honor and obey our parents, tell the truth, not to kill, not to covet or steal...this standard can be found in the Ten Commandments. These standards were not merely written in stone for Moses and the Hebrew people - they are coded into our DNA and can be found in some form in every culture.

God's standard for right which is coded into our DNA should make us "good" right? (Romans 3:10 NIV) Unfortunately there is another nature also coded into our DNA - like a computer virus - For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing (Romans 7:19 NIV)!

Look with me at the evil that humanity has written on the tablets of history. Contemporary names that might be familiar are Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein...just to name a few. In fact I found a list of the Top 10 Most Evil Men, whose author starts his list by saying, 

"The most unfortunate aspect to researching this list was the realization that that I could do a top 100 most evil men and still have a multitude of people for a second list!"

This evil is not an anomaly. One has only to look inside a prison to find the worst offenders of humanity.

Why in the world would a good God want to have anything to do with humanity?

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16 NIV).

This was the first miracle of Jesus Christ. He came from heaven and entered the earthly realm as one of us by virgin birth. He began by doing the "impossible" so that we could become like him. God so loved us that he dwelt among us.

God...with us...precious.