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.

In Honor of Jim - Colluding with circumstances

Matthew 14:27,"But immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, "Take courage it is I; do not be afraid."

I have this faith coach I often mention in my post. His name is Jim Spivey, and our relationship at this point has evolved into as much friendship as anything. Oh when we are together it is teacher/student. But the vast majority of the time it is just a daily friendship. Yesterday, was a day that I very much needed that friendship. I needed Jim to be a reflection of Christ to me, and boy was he.

It is funny how God works. You may have an experience and learn some godly truth. Or you may learn some godly truth, thinking you will avoid the experience, and never the less the experience overtakes you. This is how it happened to me.

Jim says, "We collude with circumstances that force us to confront our false self and let it go."

Wow... that statement still gives me a headache, and I still wrestle with understanding it. But to explain it I would say that we uncounsously participate in, and find, circumstances and events that will inevitably makes us face the lies of our ego, only to let them go for the image of what God has made us to truly be. We will continue to collude uncounsciously until we become conscious of this fact. This is the truth I know... but it is also the truth that God was going to have me experience with full force yesterday.

Every morning Jim sends me a text around 5:30am. It is a snipit of his blog post that I read later in the day. Yesterday the text said, "'The winds sure are a blowin', while out on the water we be goin'!'" Here's to hearing the invitation and walking on the water." In that message was a restatement of what I am experiencing. God says to me that not only will He provide a house payment, but that He is going to pay my house off. And yet I for all practicle purposes do not have a job. God says to me that I am going to preach, but I do not have a pulpit. It all is God saying to me, this is your Peter moment. Get out of the boat and walk on water.

And yet, in the boat with me is my family and wife. My wife is paddling her ass off. Doing everything and beyond to be a support, to pay more than her share, to encourage another 10 applications for a job. She doesn't see that I am trying to get out of the boat and walk on water. She only sees that I need to get my butt paddling harder, and bailing water at the same time. She is absolutely frustrated, scared, and rightfully so. Our journey to Jesus started out together on the same boat. For me to get off the boat looks like an abandonment, but it really is the ultimate in calming of the seas. So do I embrace her feelings?

Oh heck no. I colluded with her fear to confront my false self. I began a whole reasoning that said, no I can't walk on water. This is too hard. I am going to fail. I am going to loose my wife if I keep going. I have to stop. My wife is going to make me fail. She is right. I must not be hearing God.... on and on and on all my thoughts took her very valid aprehension and twisted them into she does not love me. I twisted them into she does not appreciate what I am going through or my efforts. Why?

Because I am believing a lie that I am going to fail, that God is not telling the truth. I am believing a lie that I am unworthy and a failure. I am taking her very valid frustration, and allowing a lie to use it in collusion to attempt to validate the lie. I ignore the truth, and rather than fully give myself to my wife in love, I withdrawal, even confront her because I believe I am a failure. But I am not a failure. I am not the lie of my ego inflated soul. I am something much different.

Sad thing is I didn't get this until after venting my frustration in complete ugliness. But I had a choice. Continue in self pity, or walk in love. I could continue to believe the lie that I am a failure, or walk in the truth that I am a child of the Most High, and I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me. My false self had to be confronted. My wife had to express her anxiety for that to happen. I could choose to collude with the circumstances and continue in the lie, or recognize the lie in myself creating the tension, allow it to die, so that I could walk in love.


I choose love. I love my wife, and she is free to vent, without opposition, all her fears and apprehensions to me. That is why we are partnered together. And I will do better next time.

I will close with a text I just got from Jim. CS Lewis was referring to a Lion. A type and shadow of Jesus. He said, "(Jesus) is not safe to be around, but He's good."

Surrender yet?

Matthew 5:3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

I have come to realize that no matter how much I try to articulate the experience most people are just not going to get it, unless that have already shared the experience before. I am finding this exceptionally true with all my post on surrender. Surrender being dying to self, bearing the cross, and a host of other euphemisms.

But the point in sharing it is not that you would understand per se. But at this point I share simply because it is what I feel compelled to do by God. I hope with all sincerity that even in the lack of empathy or understanding that somewhere in these words is inspiration to pursue God yourself.

The coming week, if the Lord wills, will be a different week in posts. I presently have the intention for a review of sorts of The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee. It, for me, is a complete confirmation of the past 4 or 5 months, and certainly a complete confirmation of the past 67 days.

Please hear me on this... I am certain that I have discovered something in God that few find. All are called to it. All experience its beginnings, but few take it this far. I know, because at present there are only a handful of people I know who get it. I am also certain that there is much, much, much more. I am certain that I am nothing special, with no special gifts. And I am certain that God loves you every bit as much as He loves me. This thing is surrender. Complete and total surrender. (Stay with me)

At this moment I perceive myself to be in complete surrender to God. (Not true... but my perception. I am not conscious of anything else to surrender.)  I know that this complete surrender is purely a momentary place. God is going to have be walk out in this place before bringing me even deeper into it. But that is not the important part.

The important part is that the backside of surrender transcends faith. Post surrender there is no need for faith, as there is only obedience. (Jesus was not a man of faith, He was led by obedience.) Post surrender things become visible like never before. At that place were you honestly know that NOTHING in you is good. That EVERYTHING must be laid down. EVERYTHING!!!!! And that there is only Christ and His expression of Himself through you. This is surrender. I am nothing and I will do nothing save for Christ. This is a heart condition... this is soul condition.

Remember we are spirit, soul, and body. Surrender occurs at the soul level. At salvation we are confronted with the evils of our flesh and its animal tendencies. The blood of Jesus covers our sins past, present, and future. But from here the cross must be picked up. Why? It is picked up to bear onto our soul, the home of our character, the place of our ego. The cross weighs onto the soul illuminating its evil and proving it has no value apart from the Spirit.

We will cover this later, but Nee shows that original sin inflated the soul. The soul must be deflated so that the spirit of God can increase. I must decrease so that God can increase. This is not a statement of flesh. This is a statement of the soul.

I will close with this story. I have a friend who God told, "If you will live like a pauper I will make you rich." The man is already a multi-multi millionaire. His response to this compulsion was to sell his $3MM house and a bunch of toys and move to a $1MM house without the toys. Compulsion not satisfied he has now sold the $1MM house and moving to a much smaller home, but still not one of a pauper. The spiritual truth is this... He could have stayed in the $3MM home for all God cared. The command to live like a pauper is a command of his soul. Surrender God says. Be poor in your soul. Take no value in what you have or can do. Take no stock in your education, your savings, surrender it to me and I will make you rich. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God... We know our spirit is poor when we recognize are soul is too large and has driven it into poverty. Surrender to God and discover the riches of His Kingdom.

Increase my faith

Luke 17:5, "The apostles said to the Lord, 'Increase our faith!'"

Based on the feedback my blog has apparently done it's job and conveyed quite well the spiritual struggle that I am in... to discover God as Provider and Provision. I compared my experience to Abraham taking Isaac to be sacrificed. But I am certainly no Abraham. And this is sad to me. The saddest thing to me is that I believed Abraham took Isaac to the alter expecting God to provide, but willing to kill his own son if God did not provide an alternative sacrifice. Abraham raised the knife on his own son. I am not even close to being in that place of faith. I say with my lips that my house is on the altar, and the equity it represents, but if I am honest my heart is far from it. I march this march purely in obedience, in the hope (not faith) that God is true to His word.  - - even as I write this God just shared with me an incredible revelation. Abraham did not have the faith for God to provide until the very point he raised the knife in obedience. All the talk to Isaac that God is Jehovah Jira was lip service. God knows our heart, He has no need to “test” our faith. He knows our exact level of faith. He was not testing Abraham’s faith. He was increasing it.That increase came at the point he raised the knife. Think about it. God could have provided the lamb at any point, but waited until the last second increasing Abraham's faith.

Likewise God is not testing my faith, patience, perseverance, self control... He is increasing them all. Or at least that's the hope.

The apostles asked to have their faith increased. Jesus explains the results of faith and goes into a parable about how the slave comes in from the field not to sit down and eat, but to get cleaned up and serve the master only to eat afterwards. He answers their request for increased faith with, "So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, 'We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.'" The apostles say, increase our faith. Jesus says then obey me and be humble when the results come. If faith is the meal at the end of the day, then it comes after exhaustion of everything we are. At the end of us faith moves.

What does all this look like in the real world? I have no idea. It could be me continuing to grind out a living in the mortgage business. It could be God telling me next week to get a job. It could be a winning lottery ticket. It could be a call to preach and a love offering that meets my needs. It could be someone wanting one of my books. It could be anything. But regardless, I have to be obedient to what I fell God is communicating to me. Not only communicating, but confirming. That obedience is a death experience. Something inside me does not want to obey, and that something must die, it must be brought into submission so that I can obey.

In the midst of it all is support from my trusted friends. They laugh hysterically at me. They have been through this very thing. They laugh because they know how good it is on the other side. I ask, how do I get there? They say, universally... keep going. The only thing to do is keep going.

At this point I wish Donald would put "Live what I believe" on  You Tube, but he has not, so enjoy this selection.