Saturday, December 9th, 2017.
Why don’t men have faith?
It is easy to blame the hearer. “They don’t understand.” “They are ignorant.” “They are sinners.” “They are selfish.” “They are blind.”
But these statements could all just as easily describe believers.
Men do not have faith because Christ is not their hope.
Hope is the good expected to come from something or someone. If people think nothing good will come they are hopeless.
Hopelessness can be summed up by the question, “what good will come of it?”
To identify the hope of a person, ask: “Where do you expect the most good to come in the future?”, or “How do you expect the problems of the world to be solved?”
Do you now see the problem? Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Men don’t have faith in Christ, because their hope is not in Christ.
This is why Christianity is often found among the poor, unpopular, and desparate of men. The world has given them no hope. Christ does.
Hope that will not make ashamed is found in the Lord (Rom 5:5; Rom 8:18; Col 1:27).
It is harder to think about giving someone faith – you can’t – but you can give someone hope. The word of God engenders faith, because the word of God provides hope to a dying world that needs it.
Preach hope in Christ from the Bible rightly divided. When men find hope in Christ, they will have faith.
“…be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven…” – Col 1:23
For the Hope of Glory,
Justin “hopeful” Johnson