HUMILITY

As we prepare to rejoin a book we all read years ago, I hope we can open its pages with new eyes, and fresh revelation.  I certainly had my thinking challenged as I read deeper into the book over the holiday. What challenged me wasn't finding a new revelation, or even finding something I'd missed in our earlier reading. What I found was an even deeper appreciation of the unknowable God we serve, and I truly mean SERVE. 

My brother and I were talking about world issues, and as you can guess, we were doing a pretty good job of solving them. During the conversation we were trying to estimate how many billions of people are on the earth at present, and that led me to ask Google how many people are estimated to have lived on this earth since creation.  When the answer came, I wasn't prepared for it.  A global population research organization believes that there have been between 107 to 118 billion people born throughout the history of our planet.  What is even more amazing is that eight billion people are on the earth today. Of that number, I am just one. Yet, in my finite brain, I am the core of my existence. I am all I will ever know at an intimate level, that even my wife couldn't know. More amazing than that, is the knowledge that this moment, this instant in time, is unique to me. No one else will see the world from my eyes, hear the sounds I hear, or experience the world as I am doing at this moment. Later tonight, if it is clear, I can look up into an infinite universe, and be confronted by just how finite I am.  My physical eyes can only see an infinitesimal amount of the universe. I can only see this universe with eyes that are made to see white light only.  

BUT, lets bring it back to reality!  On my way home on this trip, I decided to pull into to the scenic viewing area just as you go into Marshall. In all of my time of going back and forth from Harrison, I've never done it before.  I was shocked at just how far I could see.  Yet, even what I could see was just a paltry part of the state of Arkansas, and even it is just a small postage stamp size cut of the land mass of our world.  

By now, you might be wondering what this has to do with the book we're going to read?  Everything!! It is all too easy for all of us, myself included, to take the sum of our learning and say; "That's all there is."  We have formulas for how to be saved, how to move God, how to build churches, how to reach the lost, or how to sing, or how to even how to KNOW God.  The reality is; we don't have the slightest clue how big God is, or even the universe He breathed into existence.  Every star we see is but a speck of sand in the hand of God.  YET,...

Here we are contemplating the unknowable, and reaching for the unreachable.  We are clothed in the glorious light of God's Holy Spirit, and at the same time we trudge through the swamps of mankind.  We live a 100 years and we smugly believe we've accomplished something. We map the DNA of our bodies, and yet we die of the same diseases as our ancestors did. Often times, we think we've found the cures for everything that ails us without the slightest bit of humility.

So, with all of that said, I want to prepare you for our first three conversations outside of the book. We've had these conversations in the past, but I feel very strongly that we need to look at them from a perspective of humility. Before we can launch out in our study I think we have to look at Faith, Grace, and the purpose of our salvation. If we don't, I believe we will be wasting our time. I don't have much of that to waste anymore.  

With that said, I want to ask you to dig deep and find out what faith is aside from Hebrews 11:1 .  What is the difference between faith, belief, hope, and trust?  Please bring any and all scriptures, as well as revelation from Holy Spirit.  The book we're going to be studying relies on us all having a foundational understanding of faith, so let's lay that foundation.