Two weeks ago Andy Abramson, elementum’s national director, and I got to spend an evening with Thrive, one of elementum’s partner ministries located in Gig Harbor WA. Andy preached on Hebrews 11, a section of scripture that I’d read only a couple days before in my Bible read through. The intersection of those two things provided a stark reminder of what faith does – and doesn’t – do.
Too often we imaging faith as a sort of transaction with God. I have faith, and in response God does nice things for me. If I live by faith then my life should be a good one. In his book With, Skye Jethani describes this mindset as “life under God,” a mindset that if we live by faith and in obedience to God’s rules God is then obligated to do what we want him to.
Hebrews 11 presents a stark challenge to that mindset. For the people of faith who are mentioned in Hebrews 11 some have lives of victory and miracles and peace. For others their faith leads to pain, destruction, and loss. All have faith, but each have radically different life experiences.
Here’s the beautiful and hard reality that we must wrestle with: faith in God doesn’t mean you’re going to have a nice life. It means you have eternal life.
A nice life
If you’re looking for a nice life then Jesus is the last person you want to be associated with. A nice life is marked by comfort, plenty of entertainment, and a priority on pleasure. It’s what we see pictured in the endless advertisements on our devices and on the billboards we pass on our way to work with the smiling faces and satisfied laughter.
On some level we all long for a nice life. We all long for the ideal family where we sit down to dinner to talk, laugh, and have absolutely no conflict. We all long for the job that fulfills our dreams and fills our bank account so we have no financial worries. We all long for the romantic relationship that eliminates the loneliness inherent in our hearts.
Faith doesn’t guarantee you any of those things. You may find moments of them as a person of faith, or you might not. What you will receive in a life of faith is eternal, unshakable life.
A nice life ends. You’ll get glimpses and tastes of the joy, pleasure, and satisfaction you long for, but in this world it will never last. And, as C.S. Lewis’ wrote, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
An eternal life
Eternal life is far more than living for a really really ridiculously long time. Jesus declares to his disciples that, “this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3). In the biblical conception, eternal life isn’t merely about the length of time you life; it’s about a quality of life that is shaped by and aligned with God’s living. To have eternal life is to live beyond death, yes, but it is also to have a life that is full with the endless love, joy, peace, and intimacy that is found in the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To have eternal life is to be free from the smallness of “nice life” living and have perspective that goes far beyond this moment or this world.
As a result, comfort, entertainment, pleasure are optional add-ons. If we have a nice life then great, but if our life is instead marked by challenges and what this world would term disappointments, we are free to still live with satisfaction and joy because we know that we aren’t limited to the here and now.
Which are you living?
The gravity of this world is incredibly strong. It’s so easy to find ourselves trapped in a nice-life perspective, frustrated that we’re not where we think we should be and don’t have what we want. But, my friends, that is not a life of faith.
The life of faith joins with Abraham, looking not to the things of this world but instead, “looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10). To have an eternal life is to “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (v.16).
Do you feel stuck in a nice-life perspective? Do what the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews 12 and,
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
As you do so the faith that is the gift of God to you in Christ will open your eyes to see the beauty and goodness of what God has prepared for us.
May it be so.
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