Faith: Part 4 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

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Transcript

Good morning. All this week we’re talking on the theme of faith, and the Hebrew word for faith that’s translated into our English Bible has four things contained in that simple word that’s translated faith.

We have often simplified ideas of what faith is, but the richness of what the Bible means by faith contains four aspects, and faith is incomplete without any one of these.

First of all, it means to rely on God, to depend on Him. Secondly, it means to trust God. That is, you’re trusting His character, His goodness, His intentions towards you.

Third, it means obeying God. And if you feel like you have faith but you’re not obeying God, then it wasn’t faith to start with, because faith is incomplete unless it expresses itself in obeying God. And now we come to this fourth one which is cling to God, and I just wonder, as you think about your own life, if you can identify a time in your life that was the darkest time in your life, the most difficult days you’ve been through in your life, well, this is when we cling to God.

Clinging to God

In Deuteronomy chapter 13, starting in verse 1, Moses says to the people of Israel, If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us serve them.

You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear Him and keep His commandments and obey His voice, and you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him.

Well, there’s that idea of clinging to God. Hold fast to Him, no matter what anyone says, no matter how persuasive they are, cling to God. It’s the same Hebrew word as where it says for a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, cling to his wife, that’s the same word as hold fast to God.

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It’s a strong word, and literally if you are translating it literally, it means to be glued to God.

It’s a word for adhering two things together with something. And metaphorically it’s used to mean you hold on to God with all that you’ve got.

In Deuteronomy chapter 30, Moses says, Therefore choose life that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice and holding fast to Him. For he is your life and length of days that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob to give them.

Clinging to God.

This is Mary clinging to Jesus just after His resurrection when she encountered Him at the tomb and Him having to say to her, stop clinging to me. I have not yet ascended to the Father.

This is Jesus clinging to God the Father in the garden of Gethsemane on the darkest day of his life.

This is the apostle Paul when he writes his final letter when he knows he’s about to be put to death, and he writes to his dear disciple Timothy, and he says, when I stood up to be tried, no one stood with me. Everyone deserted me, and then he says, but the Lord stood with me.

This is you on the darkest day of your life clinging to God because there’s no other light in the darkness. This is part of faith, and faith is incomplete without it. You know, there’s a point in your Christian journey when you realize that your faith is not just a religious commitment.

It’s a deeply personal relationship with God where God becomes more important to you than anything or anyone else in your life, and you learn to cling to Him in the good times and the desperate times, and God enters into every aspect of your life, your priorities, your conversations, your work, your entertainment, your friendships, your family, everything.

You cling to Him like glue.

I’m John North.

To go deeper in your faith, visit AFCI.com.au.

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