From Faith to Faith

"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is."
~1 John 3:1-2

When I was seven years old, I was staying with my grandmother, who was a minister. My room had this old iron framed bed with a very soft mattress. The quilts were all made by my grandmother and felt as if they weighed fifty pounds each. When I climbed into bed, I had to lay in the position I wanted because once those quilts were pulled over me, I couldn't move again. Early one morning, before dawn, a bright light shining in my face woke me up. I had to shield my eyes with my hand the light was so bright. There in my room, coming out of the ceiling were what I thought was clouds surrounding a staircase. There was a man dressed in white standing barefoot on the steps. I couldn't see all of him because he was so tall. I pulled the covers over my head, and when I peeked out, the room was back to normal. I heard my grandmother in the kitchen, so I jumped out of bed and ran to tell her. She never batted an eye, and told me how special I was to have seen the Lord. To her, nothing could have been more normal. However, when my parents came to pick me up and I told them, they laughed and said I had been dreaming. 

My grandmother has been with the Lord since 1981, and my parents have long forgotten the incident. I never have. There was a reason that the Lord showed himself to a little girl, and, in retrospect, I know if He hadn't, I wouldn't be here today. We are all given what we need when we need it, even if it's not clear to us at the time.

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith' (Romans 1:16-17)."

We live from faith to faith in Christ. Sometimes that faith can get shaky, sometimes it's difficult to hold on to promises we can't see but when we falter, the Lord gives us that boost of faith we need to get to the next place in life. There are scriptures that boost my faith like the one from 1 John 3. The thought of seeing Jesus Christ as He is makes my heart flutter. There are other ways Christ boosts our faith; a particular worship song, a word from a friend at just the right time, an encouraging greeting card arrives in the mail. All of those have happened to me. Faith is given to us by God. We don't have to worry about maintaining any particular level of faith because He does it for us as we need it (Romans 12:3).

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:1-2)."

Read 1 Samuel 14 & 1 Chronicles 8-9
Weekend Reading 1 Samuel 15-18; Psalm 110; Psalm 144

A Year of Blessings by Marie McGaha ©2018