At any given moment, there are people all over the world reacting to unseen situations. Even though there is nothing visible, they still believe—based on just a warning—that something life-threatening is about to occur. Having faith in God and His Son and believing in the unseen is much like these scenarios people encounter every day.
The Sound of a Fire Alarm Fills the Room
Picture yourself seated in a large auditorium with the lights dimmed slightly. The scheduled show will begin shortly, and the seats around you are steadily filling up. You begin settling down from the frenzied rush of traffic you had to navigate through to get here. Suddenly, the loud buzzing of the fire alarm fills the air. People all around you get up and begin fleeing to the nearest exit. Moments later, ushers appear announcing that everyone must leave the room immediately due to a small electrical fire in another part of the complex.
Everyone Evacuates Believing in the Unseen Danger
So what do you do? Continue to remain seated and wait to see if some smoke and flames materialize? Get up and head over to where the fire is believed to be located and investigate? Very likely, you will follow everyone else and quickly get out of the auditorium. Even though you have not yet seen any billowing flames, great plumes of smoke, or other telltale signs of a blaze, you believe what you were told.
…you continue on believing in the unseen threat to your life as well as those around you.
After evacuating the premises, you continue to move to a designated place far enough away from the danger. You could have stayed right outside the door you exited from, or traveled to the other side of the building near the problem area. Instead, you continue on believing in the unseen threat to your life as well as those around you.
Believing the Unseen Fire But Not the Unseen God
Many feel that, since they can’t see or touch God, they can’t possibly believe in Him. Yet they have no problem fleeing the scene when someone hollers ‘fire,’ even though they can’t see or feel any smoke or flames.
Our Belief in Jesus Must be by Faith
The Bible says, “…believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved…” (Acts 16:31). God wants us to believe on His Son even though we can’t physically see Him. If we believe only after we have waited to see massive flames whenever someone announces a fire, then there would be much more destruction, injuries and death—with the possibility of one of those deaths being us! That is why we must believe in Jesus by faith. The Bible also says that, “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 emphasis added).
If our trust is primarily based on sight, then we are dependent on our imperfect mortal bodies to maintain that relationship…
Sight Removes Any Hope
If we only believe because we see Him, then we will need to continue to see Him in order to maintain our belief in Him. Of course, if we are continually seeing Him, there is nothing to hope for. Therefore, we could easily take Him for granted. If our trust is primarily based on sight, then we are dependent on our imperfect mortal bodies to maintain that relationship (not to mention the thought of how someone would believe if he or she was physically blind).
Easy to Trust in That Which We Can See
It is easy to put our trust in something we can see, but God desires for us to go above and beyond that mindset. He told us to “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). Don’t analyze or try to make something exist—just keep believing in the unseen. It is not hard for us to accept the fact that there might be a potential inferno, even though we have only heard the fire alarm sounding. Why should it be more difficult to put our faith and trust in Jesus?
You can’t save yourself from your eternal destiny in the flames of Hell, but He can—if you will just believe in Him.
Our Faith Must be in Christ’s Finished Work on the Cross
He is able to deliver us from being cast into an eternal fire in a place called Hell, due to our continual rejection of God. Put your trust in the finished work Jesus accomplished on the cross and let His sacrifice work on your behalf. You can’t save yourself from your eternal destiny in the flames of Hell, but He can—if you will just believe in Him. “…believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved…”
For more information on believing in the unseen God, please visit our page on The Way to God.
[Additional image credits: Opening compilation (L to R) photo by Alex Gilks on Freeimages.com, photo by Adam Fast on Freeimages.com, photo by David Mark on Pixabay]
