my first book, "Take Off" (this is rough draft, still), introduction and first chapter

INTRODUCTION

I love to fly. I have ridden in cars almost all the time when going places, ridden on trains a few times, boats very little, and planes only but a few times. If I had to choose a mode of transportation and could only choose one, it would be a no-brainer to pick flying. It is exciting, amazing, fast, high, and quite fascinating. Of all the things that are part of flying, though, the one thing I find most interesting is the take-off. It is at this point where the whole journey begins. It is at this point where the g-forces are working overtime against you as the large, lumbering aircraft propels itself down the runway and eventually into the sky. It is in take-off where a large world becomes so small in just a matter of minutes. Flying is really cool, and landing is yet another feat where interest piques, but taking-off is much similar to the anticipated first drop on a roller coaster.
So similar to this take-off is the spiritual take-off we must make to “fly high” as a believer, which enables us to see life as God sees it and to experience the true, deep joy of knowing Him and being a part of His world. Nobody gets airborne as a believer without a proper take-off, though. Nobody gets far without having the proper enabling to do so. It is a novel idea to be a believer that really lives a changed life, but such notions are often left as nothing more than spiritual day-dreams for people who can only describe second-hand what it means to really live.
My point in all of this is that God wants you to be excelling as a believer; He wants you to really, really enjoy life; He wants you to get the most out of it. The problem often is that people link that notion with selfish, self-centered ideas of what a truly enjoyable life looks like. What goes hand-in-hand with these ideas often is a proper sense that God isn't in such a business. Well, I agree, He is not looking to make selfish dreams come to pass, but He is looking to make life great if we would simply understand what makes life great.
Jesus says in John 10:10 , “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” Too many people are settling for life—but what of the life of abundance? To note in this verse, both of the “haves” are in Greek what we call subjunctives. This is a type of verb that suggests possibility, stressing intention/purpose but not stating as a guaranteed fact. Jesus came that we might have life-this doesn't guarantee we will. Spiritual life comes through trusting in Christ as your personal Savior. On top of that, abundant life was His offer and purpose, which for His part we have total reason to believe was accomplished—you can have abundant life. Still, this is no guarantee based upon our part. It is a secured ability and a promise to us, but we must pursue it.
Here's where I'm going, and here's what we'll be looking at in the next three chapters. What would really help you take off as a believer? What could enable abundant living if you would put into practice such knowledge? The Bible is my simple answer. More specifically, though, I want to hone in on 1 Corinthians 13:13 and to simply give fresh understanding to the three nouns listed, “faith,” “hope,” and “love.” These crucial elements to the Christian life are often misunderstood, perhaps because in many ways they are simply left without personal application. I cannot stress how important it is that we don't simply know things, especially spiritual things, and to simply leave it at that. It is absolutely foolish to know how to live our lives but to never live our lives the way we know to live them. It would be like jumping out of an airplane with a parachute on but never pulling the string. We know what would be beneficial and we're fully aware of how to end our fatal plummet to earth, but if we leave it at that it stands useless. Such is all knowledge that would change our lives when left unused. How foolish and yet how common it is. Abundant living takes truth, wrestles with it, embraces it, loves it and lives it out. The lie that humans so often buy into is that life would be at its best with or without God, and within such reasoning, life without God would probably equate to the better life. Apathy, laziness, selfishness, and so many more human flaws from our sin nature keep us (even as believers in Jesus Christ) from a life that really has great depth and spiritual purpose.
Therefore, it is imperative that we recognize this:
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13) Grasp what faith really is and how important it is to have it. Understand where hope really needs to be and put it there. Know what love is really like and show it as much as you possibly can. We know what the human view of faith, hope, and love often translate into, and quite frankly our views are boring, weak, and certainly not life-changing. God has better for you and for me. Oh that we would relish such a notion that He has the best life in store for us if we would only seek it on His terms with His emotions using His thoughts. It's time to take off.


CHAPTER ONE: FAITH
I was stuck sitting between an increasingly drunk American girl and a French guy that for all I could tell could speak no English. I was probably half-way back in the coach section of the jumbo jet en route to Paris, France. I was too shy to get up whatsoever on that all-night flight, keeping my focus primarily on the small screen in front of me that showed my location over the Atlantic Ocean for much of the flight. I would have loved to look out the window! I would have loved to not be in the middle of the plane, but no matter, that was where I was.
On that flight, I can wholeheartedly say that I had no control whatsoever over the safety of my passage, I couldn't even get to the aisle without some constraint. In the whole process of the flight, I was simply a passenger—not the pilot; not the co-pilot. I did not have any say in what we did once I was on that plane. I was only a passenger.
I believe this is greatly the reason so many people never set foot into the realm of faith that truly deepens. It becomes hard to trust in a God that you can't see, can't hear, can't get an e-mail from, etc. etc. We have to learn how to trust, and that's not an easy thing to do when we're accustomed to being the pilot of our own lives. We fight for the controls; we try to rip them out of God's hands whenever we think that He's going to make us crash or lead us astray. We fidget and squirm and take the controls so much, and still we claim that we have a strong faith. I would greatly disagree.
There is something important to understand about faith. Faith is not about trusting in trust, as one of my seminary teachers put it. Faith is about where you place your trust. Belief in God is not faith. James 2:19 says, “19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe--and shudder!” It is clearly spelled out in this verse that simply believing in God is not the act of faith. Faith is not having confidence in our abilities and passively living the Christian life. You can't passively live the Christian life! I strongly suggest to you that one way to understand faith is not believing in God, but believing God. It is taking God at His word, all of His word, and saying, “Yes, this is true. What God says is true because it comes from God.” I am relating the message to the source here, just as faith should be related to God and not God to faith. God isn't trustworthy because I choose to trust Him in those moments where I can't do anything but trust Him; God is trustworthy because He's God and I've got to get my act together to trust Him always!
What is faith? Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction (evidence, NKJV) of things not seen.” Let's just look at those words and get a good idea of what each word means. Assurance means to be absolutely certain. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that something is definite, not just a “maybe.” Secondly, hope is the act of longing for something. It is to desire something to come to pass. So the first part of the definition of faith is that it is to be certain of the fulfillment of those things for which we long to come to pass. I desire heaven; faith tells me that heaven is most certainly coming, though it is only a spiritual hope for the time being. I have faith in Jesus Christ as my personal Savior—this, too, means that I am thoroughly convinced that He did save me from my sins on the cross and that my personal trust in Him will bring definite eternal life.
Additionally, faith is the “conviction of things not seen.” The word “conviction” (or “evidence) gives the idea of the unshakable foundations of belief. I may budge on many other things, but when it comes to a issues within my convictions, in the deepest parts of my soul I will not move on these whatsoever. “Things not seen” are anything not visible at this point in time; we may look at the spiritual world, something a mystery to us by way of sight; we may also look at promises yet to be fulfilled; heaven and hell; the fact of eternity; the effects of our prayers; etc.
It is important to understand what faith is, because we find only a few verses later in Hebrews 11 in verse 6 that, “without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” You must believe two things in regards to faith: 1) that God really does exist, and 2) that He really does reward people that consistently seek Him. The word for seek (at the end of the verse) is a present active participle, so it would be translated as “seeking” with the idea of doing this as a matter of habit. Do you seek God daily? Do you seek Him presently? The person who is always presently seeking God is finding the reward of their faith. The person who haphazardly seeks God or waffles on if He even exists finds no substance to their faith—it is just a meaningless word, one that means nothing to their life in practice.
James says, “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” (James 2:17) Hopefully you can see what this means as you think about the whole concept of faith. Faith without works is dead—this means that faith without works isn't faith at all! The works are the acts of faith, which is to live by faith, the outworking of the belief that God is worthy of our trust. Our faith or lack thereof often manifests itself when it comes to our possessions, our future, our fears, our time, our plans, really anything involving us.
I'd like you to think of a scenario with me. What if God were to ask you to abandon the plans of your life up to this point? What if He asked you to follow Him into another path, not making it crystal clear as to the resources being provided, the time involved, the sacrifices to be made, etc.? What would you say? What would you do? How tightly would you hold on to your plans? How about your money? How about your idea of what success is? What if no other human gives you honor with the path to which God calls you? These are questions we must think about and be prepared to give an answer to with how we live our lives. God may not call most of us to ever go overseas into Africa to be missionaries to a primitive tribe, but I think most assuredly that He does want to instill a strong trust factor in each of His children that would give them certainty in their God.
You will find immense benefits alone from a life that is lived in submissiveness to God through the avenue of faith. Faith will be the rope that God secures you with to pass over the flames of adversity in life. It is the material by which you will break through barriers that disbelief would never overcome all while maintaining a concentrated focus on God and not the barriers. Your faith must be a constant choice to firmly believe that God is worthy of your absolute trust, giving Him nothing less than everything you have with a knowledge that He will only lead you into paths that will forever change you in ways no human ever could do.
So, are you settling for a life that only conceives of the idea of faith or are you living a life that takes strong steps of trust in the person of God? It is God who will get us through; it is God who will not leave us hanging; it is God who will graciously bring Him to Himself in the end. Hard times may come, difficult decisions may abound, and multiple opinions of various people may vie for your attention—but if you look to God, look at Him, listen to Him, seek Him with all your heart, in faith you can rest assured that He will not leave you confused, bewildered, frustrated, or hopeless. “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”
(Colossians 3:1-2)