Habakkuk 1 3 The Embrace Of Faith

  Pressure Creates Prayer v.1-17 

    The Disregard Of God v.3

Is God ignoring our prayers?  Do we feel snubbed by God?  Is He insulting our expressions by allowing things to take place around us that are wounding and emotionally abusive?

When we read or hear advice on prayer it always appears like a play on the fact that we don’t pray enough.  Unfortunately that is typically the circumstance.

Prayer is not really a duty, nor is it an obligation.  Prayer is a pleasure and an indicator of our dependence. My feeling is we’re praying all the time, we’re communicating our feelings and thoughts regularly but maybe we’re not trusting God with them.  Maybe we’re praying and depending on something or someone else for our needs.

With those thoughts as the background of our scenery, its not that God is disregarding and ignoring us, but that we’re snubbing and banishing Him by praying to everything but Him for our needs.

When we feel forgotten by God or as if we’ve been neglected or overlooked by Him it may be that He is allowing our circumstances to demonstrate that we are really the one’s who have pushed Him aside to some degree, or even abandoned Him.

We have all these desires and needs and we yearn and thirst after them.  But the very things we crave in life are only found in our connection with God. He is our source of love, joy, and peace. He is the only spring of patience endurance.  The Lord is our fount of gentleness and tender kindness.  We won’t find our thirst for love and acceptance met anywhere else but in Him.

In a deluge of demands, we’re surrounded with a God who is meek and doesn’t press us with intolerable ultimatums.  If we look anywhere else with our needs, we won’t find His humble gentleness, but instead stipulations, requirements and jeering taunts of inner insults.

In a world that is spinning out of control He fills us with self-control and disciplined moderation.  We desire good things and He gratifies us with His goodness and generates confident faith and trust in us.  The reason, we fail to pray, is we are digging for our needs, and filling the vacuum in our hearts with other things.  It’s not that we’re not praying.  It’s that we’re praying at the altar of other things, which have become our idols.  We’re constantly praying, would be my conjecture, but just not to the real and only God.

God won’t force Himself on us, but in mercy He’ll allow us to realize the end result of our fabricated dependence we’ve permitted to develop in false gods.

His Complacency in the Face Of: 

Crookedness     Why do You show me iniquity,  

When evil floods in from every angle we cry for your healing touch & merciful words to lift up a standard

When life spins out of control it’s not because God is complacent.  To accuse Him of not caring is the exact opposite to the truth.  He opens the curtain of evil to lift us to Himself.  It’s not an opportunity to accuse Him of ignoring us, but a demonstration to deepen our trust in Him.  He’s allowing us to see what takes place when He is ignored and rejected.  To come away with the feeling that we’re being slighted or spurned is to accuse the Lord of our own lack of faith.  We have to let Him show us what we’re really depending on for our needs, to learn to depend on Him.

Paul quoted in his writings from Habakkuk three times.

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Rom. 1:17

This is God’s plan for revealing righteousness to us, a process begun and continued by our faith. To understand that God does the right thing every time, and has placed His righteousness to our credit, and in our lives, is entered into by faith.

Again Paul writes: But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, the just shall live by faith.” Gal. 3:11

Righteousness of character is not by our performance before God, it’s by trusting in what He has accomplished and what He is doing by His Spirit in us and around us.

Then Paul warns: Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. Heb. 10:38

The context of this section of Hebrews is started in Heb. 10:32, where these people He’s writing too are cautioned not to ever forget Jesus and the joy of knowing Him.  His light has revealed everything so perfectly.  So when there comes a massively painful struggle.  Or when people are harsh and we endure insensitive accosting words and difficult experiences.  It’s really that Jesus is still under attack.

Jesus said in the world we’ll have tribulation, but He challenges us to be positive about this, because He has overcome the world.  Jesus has won despite the obstacles and in Christ we can conquer as we represent Him.  He purposes to win through us.

These accusing words of our doubts, uncertainties and hesitations, may feel like our inner thoughts but could be the voice of the evil accuser, Satan.  When we committed our lives to Christ, we signed on to battle that never lets up.

We sympathize with those, all who believe in Jesus, and are suffering for Him. Paul says in Hebrews, we’re cheerful when our own goods are confiscated, for we know we have a much more solid and lasting treasure in Heaven. We can’t throw away our trust as it carries with it a rich reward in the world to come.

Patient endurance is what we need, for after doing God’s will, we are to receive what he has promised.  For yet a little while, and he who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; but if we draw back, we disappoint our Lord.

We are not to be those who cower back and act like we’re lost, but we’re to maintain and continue strong in our faith until the salvation of their souls is complete!

We also find a quotation from Habakkuk in the book of Acts, “Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish: for I work a work in your days, a work which you shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you,” Acts 13:41.

Habakkuk warned of the looming Babylonian invasion Hab. 1:5. Isaiah warned of the imminent

Assyrian invasion Isa. 28:21; 29:14. Here in Acts, Paul warns the Jews of a Roman invasion that was only a decade or so away.  He does it by bouncing off these quotations, taking them from their historical contexts, and applying them to current events of his day.  Paul, by the Spirit, was not thinking only of the Roman invasion foretold by Jesus. He was alluding of the eternal horrors that await all Christ-rejecter.

The warning is to all to behold, and look well to our decisions. Any who reject Christ could expect

certain and awful judgment. They would perish in their sin, having added to all their other guilt the sin of rejecting God’s Son.

Crushing          and cause me to behold grievance?

As pressure & agonizing stress assault at each turn, lift us to closeness in you & your nearness in us

The Lord is showing us that the things that crush us are the bashings that open up the aroma of His fragrant beauty upon us as we allow His life in us through all agonizing difficulty.

We have an opportunity to share Christ with others, who may have rejected Jesus, as we allow Him to live by His Spirit through all He allows in our lives.

Corruption        for spoiling

As life appears to teeter into the realms of insanity, grip us with your stabilizing tenderness of sensitivity. When all around my soul give way I rest on his unchanging grace

What appears to be the decaying and decomposing of our stability and security is the joining of our attachments to Christ’s alleviating and unchanging grace and love.

Crime           and violence are before me:

Show us how the wrath of man will praise you the remainder of wrath you’ll restrain

That God would use the rage of others, even the furious frenzy of every refuge we trust in, allowing them to fall away into oblivion, and reverse it into His praise, is one of the most compelling paradoxes of all ironies.

Complaint     there are that raise up strife

Train us to respond to all strife in the wisdom of Christ

The power of God unto salvation is the torture, crucifixion, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Paul said he was not ashamed of it.  God’s ways shouldn’t mortify or embarrass us.  We need to enter into the glory of His purposes.

The rejection of Jesus was the ultimate strife of the universe.  The wisdom of Christ was not to call the armies of heaven to defeat the rage of Satan and the world.  Jesus defeated sin, death, demonic insanity and the world’s liars by humbling Himself to God’s will and design.

Contention     and contention

Enable us to redirect contention into blessing

Our call is to reroute controversy into God glory and praise as we allow His blessings to pour out in our lives and through our lives, by placing our confidence in the Lord.