By Dr. Tony Evans
Hebrews 11:6 makes it crystal clear that without faith you won’t see God. This is because without faith, you do not please Him. The absence of faith results in the absence of the manifest presence of God. In other words, you may know He exists, but you won’t necessarily experience His existence in your day-to-day life. That’s why God urges us so often in Scripture to live our lives by faith.
He wants us to experience Him.
He desires to intervene in our situations.
He wants to reveal His power in our circumstances.
But it requires our faith to participate in the process of His providential hand. Remember, faith is acting like it is so even when it’s not so in order that it might be so simply because God said so. Faith is verifiable. You never have to guess if you have faith because it shows up in your walk, not just your talk. Faith is made real when you choose to obey God even when you cannot see the reality or rationale of your obedience from a human perspective.
What’s more: faith must always precede sight. Once you have sight, it is no longer faith. That’s why Hebrews 11:1 declares, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” If you have to see it first, you have cancelled faith. Faith is prior to, and apart from, sight. In fact, faith leads to sight. But, even so, most people first decide what they are going to do by what they see. As a result, they regularly cancel out the supernatural from taking place in their lives. Don’t make that mistake, for God wants you to experience more of Him.
Tony Evans
Dr. Tony Evans is the founder and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, founder and president of The Urban Alternative and author of over 100 books, booklets and Bible studies. The first African American to earn a doctorate of theology from Dallas Theological Seminary, he has been named one of the 12 Most Effective Preachers in the English-Speaking World by Baylor University. Dr. Evans holds the honor of writing and publishing the first full-Bible commentary and study Bible by an African American. His radio broadcast, The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, can be heard on over 1,400 radio outlets daily and in more than 130 countries. Dr. Evans’ sermons are also streamed and downloaded over 20,000,000 times annually.