To Encourage You

Hebrews 11:15 “If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.”

One of the most consequential words in all the Bible is the word “opportunity.”  It means “an occasion; a set or proper time.”  We find it in the verse above.  Sometimes the Greek word that is translated in this verse as “opportunity” is elsewhere translated in the Scriptures as “convenient or due season,” or “due time.”  The word can also be defined as “a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something.”  It’s an idea that appears many places in the Bible with the recognition that God’s sovereignty underlies it all. 

There are seasons or times in our lives where situations present themselves like they otherwise never would.  And it is at those moments that our life is affected, and sometimes defined, like at no other time.  In the verse above from what is often referred to as “the faith chapter,” we see opportunity expressed in a negative sense.  It’s talking about the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They had all been promised wonderful things by God. God had promised them a land (that’s why it’s called “the Promised Land”).  He had promised them that through their seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed.  In this was the great promise of the Messiah.  But as they lived their lives, they were given opportunities to go back to what they had known before the promises were given.  All these patriarchs faced hardships as they went out “not knowing where (they) were going” (Hebrews 11:8).  All they had to go on was what God had said.  They were living life based on His promises, but their faith in those promises was tested time after time.  So, what did they do? They persevered, and it is that perseverance that is the mark of true faith.

In the parable of the soils in Matthew 13 Jesus teaches us about this same thing.  He tells us that when the seed of the Word of God is sown, it finds four types of soil, each representing a type of the hearts of man.  There’s the soil along the path, the rocky ground, the soil among the thorns, and the good soil.  Of the four, only the good ground produces any fruit. Only the good soil represents true, persevering faith. In all the others, as situations (opportunities) arise that test faith (e.g., hardships, temptations, other interests) the soil proves unfruitful and that “believer” turns around and walks away.  And that’s one of the reasons these tests come. They prove the genuineness of a person’s faith.  Many people show some initial signs of belief upon hearing the gospel, but they believe only for a time because their faith isn’t the real thing.  Conversely, the believer sees the trials and other circumstances in which they find themselves as opportunities to serve the Lord. 

We are commanded to “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise,making the best use of the time (it’s the same word translated as ‘opportunity” in Hebrews 11 above), because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16).  Paul did this all the time.  We see it throughout the book of Acts. As a result of his times in prison he had opportunity to lead the Philippian jailer to Christ (Acts 16), and to preach the gospel to Felix, the governor of Caesarea (Acts 24), as well as to King Agrippa (Acts 26). 

In Proverbs 3:27-28 we are given this command regarding the opportunities that come our way to help one another: “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,when it is in your power to do it. Do not say to your neighbor, ‘Go, and come again, tomorrow I will give it’—when you (now) have it with you.” Jesus teaches this same thing in the parable of the good Samaritan, where it was only the Samaritan that turned from what he was doing to help a man who had fallen into the hands of thieves.  Meanwhile, the much more “religious” priest and Levite, when presented with this same opportunity to help, passed by on the other side of the road.  James speaks to this with these words: “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food,and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:14-17). 

So, what about you and what about me?  Is our faith a living and breathing thing that makes the most of the opportunities the Lord places in our path, or is it faith in word only, as the opportunities to serve Christ come and go with no action on our part in response.  May God help us to have our eyes open to the opportunities He gives us. May He help us to see the situations, trials, and people that come into our lives as opportunities to serve the Lord, rather than the opposite, i.e., opportunities to turn our back on Him and return to the way we once were.