Skip to main content

Faith

             And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)

 

The first of the characteristics listed in 2 Peter 1:5-7 is faith. I’m debating with an atheist and at the moment, the issue revolves around the terms belief and  faith. Her question this morning was why one had to have faith in order to believe in a god. In the Bible, the word they translate as belief is transliterated pistis. The word they translate as faith is transliterated pistis. Or, if I have the form of the word wrong, it is derived from that root word. Effectively, belief equals faith. The dictionary tries to differentiate between them by describing faith as “complete” belief but what do we then do with Jesus’ driving out a demon from the son of a father who said, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)? What do we do about Jesus’ claim that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we can do great things?

Part of the problem is that having complete belief every second of every day is impossible. It’s like trying to hold a ten-pound weight over your head for the rest of your life. What are you going to do when you sleep? What are you going to do when your arm falls asleep because you’ve had it elevated for so long? It’s a great thing to be able to lift a ten-pound weight over your head. But that doesn’t mean you have to do it 24/7. Equally, it’s good thing to be able to have complete faith, but to have complete, conscious, and active faith all the time would be exhausting. In this moment your complete faith may be a resting faith. It’s there. It can be awakened to ten-pound faith, or (if we’ve been practicing) one hundred-pound faith if the need arises.

I’m not saying there are times when we don’t need to have faith in the general sense. But different circumstances require different activity levels of faith. You don’t need the same level of faith to cross a street that has one car on it as you do to cross one with five hundred cars on it. But you absolutely must have at least some level of faith in God in order to seek and maintain a relationship with Him, which is the only way to please Him.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saved?

  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23) Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” (Romans 3:4)   What conclusion do you draw when someone who was raised in a Christian family and church, perhaps even playing a significant role in a chur...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen To Him

              The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him . (Deuteronomy 18:15)           Today, we switch from Jesus’ claims of “I am” to prophecies made about Him. My Bible platform is starting in Deuteronomy. I’d start in Genesis, where we would learn that the one who would save us would be a descendant of Eve (Genesis 3:15), of Noah (by default), Abram and Sara(Genesis 12:1-3). Isaac (Genesis 17:19), Jacob (Genesis 25:23), Judah (Genesis 29:8), and David (II Samuel 7:12-16). There were also references to a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-32). In addition, there were prophecies about when and where the prophet/Messiah would be born and what would happen to him.           Of course, naysayers will claim that Jesus’ life was retrofitted or reverse enginee...
Post a Comment
Read more