Since he himself has gone through suffering and testing, he is able to help us when we are being tested. (Hebrews 2:18 NLT)
This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. (Hebrews 4:15 NLT)
Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. (Hebrews 11:1 NLT)
When I went back to school the first time this summer I noticed many people doing maintenance on our new building and it got me to thinking how essential maintenance is to even a new structure.
Maintenance is something that is necessary to keep things at a high level or to get them to a higher level. All man-made things must be maintained or they begin to break down, or become more random. Science refers to this degree of randomness in a system as entropy.
There was a show on television called "Life After People" that hypothesizes how the entropy in our world would increase and things would break down if people were suddenly gone. It was surprising how fast things we consider strong and everlasting were reduced to rubble!
We are constantly painting, oiling, replacing parts, working out, dieting, and changing everything around us. Why is it then that some people see faith differently? Why is faith seen as simply a place we seek or a place we have reached?
It is neither, in fact faith requires maintenance just like all other things in our lives. When something breaks down in our faith we work extra hard to bring it back up so that we can endure the challenge that caused this momentary lapse. As we have heard the past few weeks, we grow through our experiences.
Becoming faithful is simply the beginning and we must continue to build our relationship with God. We do these things through reading and meditating on his word. Regularly praying and giving thanks for His love, most importantly understanding that no matter how long we live, that this structure we are building with God will never be completed while we are alive. It requires maintenance.
I know I often get busy and preoccupied and forget to maintain my own faith as I should. When I do I feel a gap grow in my relationship with God. After providing the maintenance through things like prayer and meditating on scripture though that gap is narrowed. We can see others in their walk with God at a place that we may have already passed ourselves at one point or another. Maintenance helped us move from that point forward.
My question to you this morning is are you seeking to make your faith better through your maintenance of your relationship with God? It is something we can all make better.
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