Believe in order to see. Obey in order to know!

They believed his promises; they sang praises to him. They quickly forgot what he had done; they did not wait for his instructions. In the wilderness they had an insatiable craving for meat; they challenged God in the desert... — Psalm 106:12-15 NET

We read of Moses, that “he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.” Exactly the opposite was true of the children of Israel in this record. They endured only when the circumstances were favorable; they were largely governed by the things that appealed to their senses, in place of resting in the invisible and eternal God.

In the present day there are those who live intermittent Christian lives because they have become occupied with the outward, and center in circumstances, in place of centering in God. God wants us more and more to see Him in everything, and to call nothing small if it bears us His message.

Here we read of the children of Israel, “Then they believed his words.” They did not believe till after they saw—when they saw Him work, then they believed. They really doubted God when they came to the Red Sea; but when God opened the way and led them across and they saw Pharaoh and his host drowned—“then they believed.”

They led an up and down life because of this kind of faith; it was a faith that depended upon circumstances. This is not the kind of faith God wants us to have.

The world says “seeing is believing,” but God wants us to believe in order to see. The Psalmist said, “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

Do you believe God only when the circumstances are favorable, or do you believe no matter what the circumstances may be?

— C. H. P. [quoted in Streams in the Desert]

Faith is to believe what we do not see, and the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.

— Augustine

Selah.

If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from Myself.

— JESUS, in John 7:17

Jesus said, ‘If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from Myself.’ There is a certain level of knowledge in the truth that we can only find if we are willing to obey it.

He does not say that we need the ABILITY to obey, but rather the WILL to obey. It is not in perfection of obedience, but in humility of will, that Jesus promises us this fulfillment. It is in simply willing and following that God provides the revelation, the unfolded way, the knowledge of the truth. This is itself a confession of truth enacted in the human life, which God honors with greater revelation. "The secret of the Lord is with those who fear [follow] Him, and He will show them His covenant."

— George MacDonald [paraphrase]

Alleluia!

Selah.