Growing – Faith

2 Peter 1:5-8, “Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are your and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus.”

My third book to be published, Lord willing, is called Growing in Christ and is based on this passage. I have been working on the book for probably 10 years now. One might wonder what takes so long to write a book, but the truth is that I have had to live this truth in order to better understand it and to articulate that understanding. So reality is the delay is divine in that if I had to assess my own spiritual maturity I would probably place myself in the beginning stages of godliness. That is 30 years after first giving my life to Christ, a few years of ministry school, countless readings of the bible cover to cover, and sitting through well over 3000 messages. So with that as a background let me proceed.

Faith is the foundation of our spiritual nature. It is the base on which everything else depends. This is why faith “supplies” moral excellence, etc. Without faith, faith in Christ, then we have nothing to build from in our relationship to God. And it is faith that life returns us to time and time again.

But before we look at life’s interaction with faith, what is faith? Scripture says “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Heb 11:1) So faith as an assurance is not some kind of willing things, events, and actions into existence. Faith is not wanting something hard enough that it appears. Faith is not imposing our will upon the will of God so that He will act on our behalf. But rather faith, as a “conviction of things not seen” is a reliance on God. Faith is simply trusting God. 

We see in certain Christian circles “faith healers.” As such I personally do not believe they have “more” faith or trust in God than any other Christian. Corinthians clearly defines healing as a gift, though faith is sometimes involved. Faith is that simple trust in God. Remember the story of the disciples waking Jesus on the boat in the midst of a storm. What was Jesus’ response? “Where is your faith?” (Luke 8:25) Why did Jesus question their faith? Didn’t they trust Him enough to wake Him? Was He questioning their faith because they didn’t calm the storm? No… He questioned their faith because they saw Him sleeping and they didn’t trust God that all was well. They panicked in the storm and as such showed where their foundation of faith was week.

This is what life is. It is a storm crashing against our foundation of faith. Life on earth, because of the curse (Gen 3:17), because of its contamination by Satan and sin life brings crisis after crisis to test the foundation of our faith. Crisis’s of health, wealth, or relationships come upon everyone to see if the foundation is laid in Christ and only Christ.

So many religious people rely on the doctrines of their faith. And yet the prosperity message still finds the poor or broke seeking and searching it. The faith healing doctrine finds the cancer stricken and disease ridding dying in it. The “love” churches attract people filled with enmity.

How can this be?

It can be because the foundation is not Christ. The faith is in a hope that the person imposes their will upon God. The hope is riches and so the follower of riches tries to convince God of the message of prosperity. The hope is in health at any costs of lifestyle and so this person subscribes to healing over Christ. The hope is in being loved by others and so this person subscribes to a religion whose doctrine preaches roles, values, and positions over Christ.

The crisis comes to show us all that our foundation of faith is based on something other than the Perfection of Faith Jesus Christ.

This is faith: To trust God in everything, to have Christ as the very center of your life and existence. Faith is to sleep when Christ sleeps, to walk when Christ walks, to speak what Christ speaks… all of which is only found in relationship. A relationship with a pinnacle of love, but which in the coming days we will see has many definable points.

I will close with something I read from Oswald Chambers as God confirmed this is what He wanted to write. He says, “The Lord does not put us in glass houses to grow us, to be His trees; the Lord does not protect us from the storms, the adversities; He exposes us to the bitter winds and the scorching suns of adversity and trial. The Lord is working in us that which is according to His own Nature – eternity, the enduring, the everlasting God – that which will not be easily or hardly carried away. He is putting substance in you.” That substance is Christ.