Great Faith, Great Gain

Realizing it Jesus said: Why discorreis among you of little faith, about having no bread? Not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand men ...? St. Mat 16: 8. To 9.

John McNeil, pastor in the British Isles, reports that once pastored a church that had heavy debts. This worried him, and he prayed much about it. One day a stranger came to his office, said he had knowledge of the church debt and offered help. Then, leaving a blank check on the desk of the pastor, told him to fill the value in the amount necessary, promising return later to sign the check.

The pastor could not believe what he had just heard. After the unknown broke, he began to rationalize: "This can not be true Does this man understand that our debt reaches thousands of pounds doubt he should pay all, if you knew the total But he told me to put the full value.?. . No, that would be unfair, would want to take advantage I only put half the value. ". And that's what he did.

When the stranger returned, signed the check without hesitation. Obviously was serious. The benefactor of the church was a well-known philanthropist. When the pastor understood that the man was able to fully cover the debt, wished he had written the amount that the church should.

See the Invisible

What is faith? It is the sure conviction that something we want will happen. It is for sure that what we hope is waiting for us, even though we may not see before us. Heb. 11: 1 (The Living Bible).

Even before there was powerful enough telescopes to see the planet Pluto, Percival Lowell, American astronomer, believed in the existence of this planet in our solar system. He came to this conclusion more than 15 years before the planet was discovered by Clyde W. Tombaugh, on February 18, 1930.

Lowell The belief was no guessing or guess 0casual.

He came to this conclusion through systematic observations and careful calculations of Neptune and Uranus orbits. Disturbances that he observed in these orbits convinced that there must be a planet beyond Neptune. Lowell was so confident in his existence, which gave the first two letters of the planet name to yet discovered the initials of its name - eg l. Also predicted that the planet would be found near the Delta of the Gemini constellation. The belief Lowell was confirmed after his death, when Tombaugh photographed and studied the outer region of Gemini and discovered the predicted planet.

Faith in the reality of heaven, as well as Lowell's belief in the existence of Pluto, is not a random guess. Rests always on "sure" the underlying evidence. Hypostasis, the Greek word translated as "certainty" in our text, is used in ancient papyrus to mean a legal document by which a person proved to be the owner of a well. In other words, a property deed.

Exercising faith, you and I can already consider ourselves in possession of the wonderful things that God has promised. This enables us not only to claim blessings promised for the future, but to receive them and enjoy them now. Thus, what the natural eye can not perceive (I Cor. 2:14), is visible to the eyes of faith.