Have You Had An Affair?

Today, we live in a world where increasingly, morality is on the skids. Soap operas, fiction, and fact spell out again and again the “affairs” that are going on. “Affairs” with a secretary, “affairs” with another man’s wife, “affairs” in the Senate chambers, “affairs” in suburban communities, and the list goes on and on.

But, in fairness, we also need to add those “affairs” of righteousness. So many, in fact, that they might almost offset today’s scandal sheets. In the letter to the Hebrew Christians, the author draws a panoramic screen showing that great line of Godly people, from Abel, through Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham and down to the martyrs of the Christian faith. People who had an “affair” with God...one so real, and so compelling, that it became more desirous for them than life itself.

Sometimes today, we only meet the very minimum requirements of faith. But for the early Church fathers, this was not the case. For them, God was no fiction of the mind, no figment of the imagination. They believed that through Jesus Christ, God had dealt with them, and was continuing to deal with them. They had come to grips with God, and they believed that the incredible could happen...and it did!

For the early Church fathers, “faith was as real as potatoes.” (From the prayer of Dr. Peter Marshall). It was “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Heb. 11:1). It was real. With this kind of faith, they “moved mountains, they conquered Kingdoms, stopped the mouths of lions, won strength out of weakness.” (Heb. 11:33,34)

Faith is an “affair” of the heart, of the hands, of the feet, and of the head. It is a matter of coming to know that God exists and is real. Join the scandal sheet of the Church. Have an “affair” with the Lord of the Universe. You’ll be glad you did.