If you search the Bible for the word faith you may be surprised to see how often it is paired with the word now. Hebrews 10:35-38 says “Now the just shall live by faith.” We aren’t supposed to live by what we have already experienced, or by what we hope to experience in the future. We are to live in the here and now, in the present moment, by faith. But, few of us spend time in the now.
How many of your thoughts deal with things from your past? Do you regret things that you have done? Do you find yourself wishing that you could go back and make different choices? Or, perhaps you are pleased with your past and feel as though things were better then than they are now. Either way, you are living in the past and the past is dead and gone.
How many of your thoughts are focused on the future? Do you worry about how things will turn out? Do you worry about your children? Or how you are going to pay the bills? Jesus told us to “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.” (Matthew 6:30) He said that our Father knows what we need, and that instead of worrying about tomorrow, we should seek the kingdom of God — or God’s way of doing things — and everything else would come.
The kingdom of God operates in the present. I love the story of Lazarus in John 11:1-44. There are so many amazing teachings packed into these few verses. I won’t go into all of them, but mainly want to focus on how carefully Jesus chose his words when speaking to his disciples and the family of Lazarus. When he was told that Lazarus was sick, he stated in verse 4 that the end result of his sickness would not be death, but would result in the glory of God. In verse 11, he told his disciples that Lazarus was sleeping, and that he was going to go and awaken him. His disciples misunderstood and thought that Jesus meant Lazarus was resting. In verse 14, Jesus told his disciples that Lazarus had died. Now, if you read this verse in the King James Version, it translates the word “apeqanen” as dead – present tense. However, the interlinear study bible, NAS version, translates “apeqanen” as died – past tense.
When Jesus arrived in Bethany, Lazarus’ sister Martha approached him and said that if he had been there, Lazarus wouldn’t have died. Jesus tells her in verse 23, “Thy brother shall rise again.” Martha thinks he is talking about the resurrection, so Jesus explains that he is the resurrection, and the life (verse 25). They take Jesus to the grave of Lazarus, where the stone is rolled away, and Jesus commands Lazarus to come forth.
Jesus kept his focus, and his speech, in the now. Usually when we want to receive something from God, we ask for it to be given to us at some point in the future. The problem is if we are expecting to receive something in the future, we continue to push the thing off into the future.
Remember that in Mark 11:24, Jesus told us that “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” He didn’t say to believe that you would receive them at some point in the future. We have to believe we have received them in order to receive them. Abram saw himself as childless until God changed his name to Abraham “father of many nations” and he began calling himself the father of many nations. Hebrews 11:1 tells us “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” It doesn’t say faith will be.
The image you hold inside of you right now is the seed, the substance, of your tomorrow.
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