Holding Tightly to the Faith

Friday, June 16, 2023

Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.  Hebrews 10:23

One of the reasons true Kingdom Families hold together better is that we were designed to be people of faith.  The how of holding tightly to our hope is that little phrase:  without wavering.  It is certainly easy to get sidetracked these days.  I see it every year when we attempt to enlist people to serve.  Holding fast to God’s faith has more to do than just being convinced in your mind that Jesus saves.  It has to do with serving consistently. 

 Every believer who draws near to God’s house should hold tightly to the faith with his service.  The why of this is found in what Paul said about the promises of Jesus, they’re faithful; they always come true.  Jesus promised rewards to His followers who serve Him faithfully, and it is a true promise!  The issue of holding tightly to the faith is important for making an impact on this world…at the very least, the small space we occupy in that larger world. 

I am only vaguely aware of how God fits everything together.  But looking back we see more clearly.  I was searching through some old papers and came across a note from Sarah Hollis.  Sarah was our daughter’s friend; they were both age 10 when we moved to Jacksonville, Florida.  She rode our van to church each week; her parents never came.  I had the privilege of baptizing Sarah.  One Sunday she came to me with a two-fold request.  She wanted me to pray for her uncle and his wife, and also go see them to “baptize their baby”.  When I met Sarah’s uncle and his wife it was clear they had very little church background.  What they had was worried hearts over a very sick, premature baby in an incubator. 

They wanted me to baptize their baby; the doctors said he was going to die within a day or so.  My heart went out to them.  As a Baptist pastor I couldn’t baptize this infant, but I would pray for him with everything I had.  I was fearful of the trust that couple placed in me as they asked me to talk to God for their son.  I told them the little kitten-sized child was in God’s hand.  I held their hands and we prayed.  That was in 1990.  Five years later Sarah wrote me this note:

…I still remember the day you prayed for Scott (my cousin) and gave his parents faith and helped them believe.  On the 28^th of this month he turns 5 year[s] old.  Today is his party.  Thank you for giving me the faith and hope.  Thank you, Sarah

Sarah remembered that day as a time when her pastor gave her faith.  At the time my main thought was frustration over Sarah putting me in an awkward situation about baptizing a baby.  I’d never even laid eyes on his parents.  I went, because I was her pastor.  But I went, mostly because I couldn’t deny Sarah’s pleading eyes. 

Looking back, I know, and she also probably knows, it was God who gave her faith.  In the end, God used a pastor doing his job to build faith in a little girl.  And God used a 10 year-old kid’s faith to spur a forty-something, Christian pastor into good works.  Sarah impacted my life with her faith, and my faith was strengthened because of her impact[1]. 

For You Today 

God keeps his promises…if you forget everything you hear today, but you learn to trust in that one fact…and hold tightly to it…your faith will be rock-solid in the only One who holds the keys of Heaven, hell, and eternity.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:   Root System  and  Living Into the Seed of Promise  and  Holding Tightly This Promise                                        

 

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

---

[1] See Isaiah 11:6 …a little child will lead them all.  Also Hebrews 13:2 …entertained angels without realizing it.

What's a Frog Doing in a Christmas Story?

[1]

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together;
    the leopard will lie down with the baby goat.
The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion,
    and a little child will lead them all.  Isaiah 11:6^(NLT)

Just getting over my throat difficulties, I am not yet able to preach and lead worship.  So the lay leaders at both of our churches are using some creativity to do some different kinds of worship without a preacher.  They’re pretty good at it!  This past Sunday we had a singing service with favorite hymns suggested by the congregation.

After the service I stood with a group of 40-somethings as we reminisced about why this or that hymn was a favorite.  Jamie shared his memory about Joy to the World, Isaac Watts’ well-known hymn, most often sung during Advent and Christmas.  It seems when this group’s age was still in single digits a visiting musician with a guitar was performing locally.  He was taking requests and one lady, an aunt of Jamie and Jeff’s, requested Joy to the World.  So, the musician immediately defaulted to the only version he knew; he started belting-out Three-Dog Night’s 1970 rock ‘n roll hit:

Jeremiah was a bullfrog; was a good friend of mine.

Never understood a single word he said, but I helped him a-drink his wine;

and he always had some mighty fine wine!

Singin’ Joy to the world, all the boys and girls now,

Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me[2]

Well, the song was named Joy to the World, but it wasn’t the one Isaac Watts wrote, and it wasn’t anywhere near the one Jeff knew; he immediately shouted out to the musician and most of Randolph County, Hey…that ain’t the way it goes!

Leave it to a child to lead them.

Thinking more deeply throughout Sunday afternoon about this story, and where we are in the world these days in the human relations department, reaffirmed to me the conclusion that we need a lot more children raised on Isaac Watts’ kind of take about the way the lyrics are supposed to go. 

Here’s what I mean:

·       Joy to the world will not come with blazing guns, bigger walls, bigger budgets, or more creative personal digital devices. 

·       Joy to the world will not arrive on Capitol Hill, Pennsylvania Avenue, or Wall Street.

·       Joy to the world won’t be found in a new scheme of world governments pressuring each other into written agreements that have no chance of changing the human heart.

Here, Jeff, the little child of 30+ years ago, reminded a 70’s something throwback crowd, that the lion, lamb, goat and leopard will only lie down together in peace when they take a deep breath and listen to the heartbeat of their Creator.

Isaac Watts put it thus:

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!  Let earth receive her King;

To receive a king is to obey the king, adopt the king’s way of life, and ultimately see the king honored in everything we do.

That, as Jeff reminded the guitar picker, is how there is real joy to the world.

For You Today

There’s no getting around it – if you want peace you’ve got to let go of the war in your heart!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

---

[1] Title Image: Courtesy:  Pixabay.com

[2] Joy to the World, Sung by Three Dog Night, words & music: Peters, Fox & Walsh, Universal Music Group, released 1970