Manna -Exodus 16

Exodus 16
Manna is the daily bread in the journey to the promised land.It's not the real thing. But it's the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Manna is the faith, hope, strength along the journey while God's promise hasn't been fulfilled.God provided manna every day before they got to the promised land. The Lord gives us our daily bread as our daily need of faith, hope, strength...We need God's supernatural provision every day. If we try to live on yesterday's faith, we'll find that "it bred worms and became foul"(16:20). God will give us enough strength for each day. But if we stop seeking and gathering, we'll find the leftovers are not good enough for the challenges of the new days. Faith needs to be renewed and refreshed every day. For the Israelites, even after witnessing the greatest miracle of the red sea, only after three days of hunger and thirst they lost their faith. We can have great faith at the beginning when we felt God's calling, but on the journey if we don't look out for God's manna, His reassurance and provision on a regular basis, we'll lose our vision, and our faith will be corrupted by doubts and fears.The proverb verse today says "Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise, and apply your mind to my knowledge...so that your trust may be in the Lord...to make you know the certainty of the words of truth..."

Faith, hope and love -- Hebrews 11

Hebrews 11:1-2 "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval." 39-40 "And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect."

Faith is a journey. In practical Christian lives, probably there's more failed faith than successful faith. That means, probably there're a lot of prayers go unanswered. If all faith works, then everybody will be healed, and everybody will be saved, there won't be any tragedies or disappointments...

To me, God is like a fisherman, and faith is like the bait that He's using. And we are the fish. God gives us a promise(bait), and we want to bite that bait. We want it so much that in the process of getting that promise we change. We die to ourselves. We give ourselves as a living sacrifice to God. And this dying and giving ourselves totally to God is the "approval" that He's seeking to have in us. In the end, whether we get to enjoy the bait or not is not His primary concern, "because God has provided something better for us"(v40) He wants to give Himself to us, which is far better than His promise. And more so, He wants to have us, "so that apart from us they would not be made perfect."(v40)

"But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love." (1Cor13:13)
"Love never fails. " (1Cor13:8)
"God is love." (1John4:8)

Faith can fail, hope can fail. But through faith and hope, we can get the approval of love, and love can never fail.