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ChurchSurfer @ Rock Point Community Church: A Very Special Guest

Church Experience #30 – August 7, 2011

Rock Point Community Church – Chattanooga, TN

Faith Changes Things

(Warning, philosophy ahead – please read this first paragraph slowly)  It is a strange thing how faith changes your life.  When you think about it, how could it not change your life?  Hebrews 11:1 gives us a definition of faith when it tells us, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  When you have evidence of something that you have not seen, it makes it possible to believe it exists.  Without evidence, that thing is just an idea or concept, but with enough evidence it becomes established as real, or as truth, even without physically seeing it.  This initial belief in the existence of something by faith then results in a change of your understanding of the things that are related to that thing.  If this thing is significant enough, then over time, the way you act, feel, and think about everything else will change, as it is now filtered through this newly established truth.  One day the world is believed to be flat, then there is evidence to prove it is round, and everything changes.  For those who are disciples of Christ, the evidence of the claims He made is revealed to us in a real way that cannot be denied.  This evidence (which comes from Jesus Himself and the Holy Spirit) gives us the ability to believe, and as the rest of our lives are then filtered through this new truth…we change.  The more we are willing to act, feel, and think through the filter of our faith in Jesus, the greater our faith becomes (given, of course, because of God’s grace) and the more we as an individual change.  The strange thing (that I alluded to in the very first sentence) is that this changed person of great faith is who you were really created to be…so basically you are becoming your real self.  I told you it was strange (or maybe just my strange way of explaining and phrasing things).  The point of this feeble attempt at a philosophy lesson was to prelude some significant events that happened around this week’s church visit.  Now that I think about it, that message does not actually do a good job of leading into this story at all, but it was on my heart to share for some reason, so there you go…faith.  Now on to the next paragraph.