Facing Life With Faith Posting Date: 09/22/2012 By Pastor Bill Stevenson Recently it seems there's been a crisis of confidence in our country, the economy's been going down, unemployment's been going up. A lot of people I've talked to lately are very uneasy, on edge about the future: "Am I going to have a job six months from now? How do I live with confidence?" Recently I saw a graph on today’s consumer confidence. It didn’t look good; in fact it was bad news. How do you handle that kind of situation? Over the next four weeks we're going to look at facing life with faith. How does faith make a difference when you're going through tough times like many of you are going through? Why is it important to have faith? The Bible says "Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him." Now it says that without faith, it is impossible to please God which indicates how important it is. You see the Christian life is really pretty simple. Sum it up in two words: love and faith. Love God with all your heart. Love your neighbor as yourself. And have faith. That's it. Faith is something you can't describe in one sentence. Because faith is like a diamond, it’s multifaceted. It has lots of aspects to it. This Sunday we will look at the first one “faith is believing when I don't see it”. Hebrews 11:1 says “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." This may sound like a contradiction, but the Bible teaches that faith is visualizing the future in the present. It's being sure of what you don't see. It is seeing it in advance. Man says: "Seeing is believing." God says the opposite "Believing is seeing." And some things in life, you have to believe them before you can see them. In 1960, JFK stood up and said: "Let's put a man on the moon by the end of the decade." When he said that, the technology had not even been invented to put a man on the moon. But some things have to be believed before you can see them. Faith is trusting God to turn dreams into reality. Because nothing happens 'til somebody believes it's possible. And we're going to look at this in the weeks ahead. Some of you are trying to face a full-time problem on part-time faith and that won't work. You need a full-time, head-on, full-born faith to handle the problems you're going to have in 2012 and beyond, no matter who wins the election. So why don’t you come and visit us to hear the full message this Sunday? Morning services are at 8:00 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. Also at 6:00 p.m. we have an hour=long discussion of the days sermon for more in-depth study and understanding. We are located at 700 Hardy Way, next door to the new Police Station. For more information, transportation or to request prayer call 346-7061 or visit our website at fbcmesquite.com.