Anchored in Faith

Is your faith anchored in a greater persuasion and opinion than your present afflictions, sufferings, and/or struggles? That's the "64" dollar question! Even though it sometimes feels like we are trapped in this flesh-suit and its crazy senses; our greater reality is quite the opposite. But that "greater reality" must be seen through the eyes of faith.

Our faith heroes received the testimony of their hope in faith. It was faith that made their hopes tangible. And faith alone explains what is not apparent to the natural eye. Only faith in the finished work of Jesus will carry us all the way home. In the meantime we have some potholes in the road to navigate.

"We are fully engaged in an exceeding superior reality; the extent and weight of this glory makes any degree of suffering vanish into insignificance! The suffering is fleeting and ever so slight by comparison to the weight and enduring effect of this glory we participate in for all eternity.

We are not keeping any score of what seems so obvious to the senses in the natural realm, it is fleeting and irrelevant; it is the unseen eternal realm within us that has our full attention and captivates our gaze! In this present age; “Christ in you,” must have your full attention and captivate your gaze!

Our skin bodies have a "sell by" date; our spirit bodies are eternal. The same God who fashioned these skin bodies in our mother's womb, engineered our spirit bodies to be our permanent dwelling. 

Facing pressure times the way we often do, makes us sigh with longing to exchange the skin-suit with the permanent splendor of the heavenly suit. 

In the meantime, whatever challenges we are facing in this meat-box, we know that we shall never be found naked; since we are already fully clothed with our heavenly identity in Christ in our inner person...God wired us this way; His Spirit already confirms within us the present evidence of eternity. We are eternal beings by design.

We are (therefore) cheerfully courageous; knowing (beyond a shadow of doubt) that our immediate address in our earthly bodies cannot distance us from the Lord, since we originate from Him.

Faith is to our spirit what our senses are to our bodies; while the one engages with the fading and the fragile, the other celebrates (completion) perfection! Our confidence stems from knowing that even though it might feel at times that we are merely reduced to flesh; our greater reality is that we are entwined in the Lord. He is our permanent abode!" (Adapted from 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 and 5:1-8.)

"When we step into eternity and look back on our earthly afflictions, we will view them as “light” and “momentary.” For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory (2 Cor. 4:17). 

When we are finally standing in the glory of eternity, we will realize that the degree of the glory in that age is disproportionate to the severity of the sufferings we endured in this age.

We will wonder", “How could such a small amount of temporary suffering produce such a huge amount of everlasting glory?” We know we will view it that way once we’re in eternity. The thing is, we want this eternal perspective now." (Jim Clanton and Bob Sorge) We have a sufficient down-payment of  grace to carry us all the way through to the Glorious Age to come!

Living with the eyes of faith, Ron