#DailyDevotion The Daily Drudgery Of Life Is Lived By Faith In God’s Promises
Habakkuk 2 I will stand as a watchman. I will stand on the wall and watch to see what He says to me and what answer I will get to my complaint. The Lord: 2He answered me and said: “Write the vision, inscribe it clearly on tablets so that a runner may read it. 3The vision is waiting for the time set when it is to be carried out. It longs for fulfillment and can’t fail to come true. If it seems slow, just wait for it because it will certainly happen and not be late. 4Look at the proud fellow whose soul is not right within him..But the righteous person will live by his faith.
So Habakkuk closes out his complaint from chapter one, he does so as one who believes the Lord will answer him. We may also lay our complaints before the Lord but because we are not prophets we most likely not get a response like Habakkuk. Our complaints are given answer in the written word if there an answer to them at all. But Habakkuk is a prophet and indeed the Lord does answer him. In fact, the Lord’s answer to Habakkuk is his answer to us.
The first thing the Lord does is assure him that his word is true. He wants Habakkuk to write it down and to write it clearly so that those who he sends and those who follow after him may clearly read it. Our Lord has not left us in the dark. He has left us the sure, certain, and steadfast prophetic word in the Old and New Testaments.
While we may get impatient for the Lord God to do something, we have his word here, there is going to be a time for it to be fulfilled. What the Lord has said, it will come to pass, but everything in its own time. We know from Peter’s epistles that the Lord is being patient not wanting any to perish but for all to come to repentance and receive eternal life. Our desire too should be not for the wicked to be wiped out for eternity but rather they die in the waters of baptism and arise to be new people. Never the less, the Lord’s justice will come. He promises, “just wait for it because it will certainly happen and not be late.”
In the meanwhile we have this sure and certain promise, “But the righteous person will live by his faith.” On the one hand we receive eternal life from the Lord by our faith in Jesus Christ. Our faith in what Jesus had done for us on the cross and in the grave receives the benefit thereof. On the other hand we actually live, today, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute by faith in the promises of God in Christ Jesus.
Yes, we are called to walk daily, looking at the world among us and looking at ourselves by faith. We do not see the promises of God being filled among us. We only have the promise our sins are forgiven us, that Jesus’ death on the cross has made atonement for them. We walk having the promise, “All things work for good for those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.” We live by faith in the promise God has answered the problem of evil, sin, disease and death on the cross of Jesus Christ. We live in the promise the Lord does not give us more to handle than is common to man and he gives us the strength in Christ Jesus to bear up under it. We live by faith daily in our struggles against sin, the devil and our own flesh Jesus’ death and resurrection has overcome them. Finally we live by faith, that whatever happens to us in this life, we walk daily by faith that we will be rewarded in the life to come if we persist in that faith with a world and life better than the one we live in now.
Heavenly Father, always give us your Holy Spirit that we may live now, in this life by faith, that we may receive what you have promised us in the world to come. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.