| Author | Message | ||
| Plain Patti |
There has always been much discussion in Christendom about faith, but often little agreement upon just exactly what "faith" entails. There are very few Christians who would deny that faith plays a major role in our salvation. I was curious as to what, exactly, the New Testament teaches about faith. It seems to me that precious little time is spent on this vital Christian attribute. I began with the Gospels, with the words of Christ Himself on faith. I found 28 occurrences of the word "faith" in the Gospels. Only three of these were not involved in words directly from Jesus' mouth, but they were in conjunction with His words. Interestingly, the book of John does not have one occurrence of the word "faith." I found a very interesting dichotomy in the words of Christ in which He mentioned faith. Every time Jesus uses the word "faith," it is in one of two ways, interestingly enough, they are divided evenly, 14 times each: 1. To chastise His disciples on their lack of faith; or 2. To praise the Gentiles on their great faith. At no time recorded in the Bible did He commend His disciples on their great faith or chastise the Gentiles for their lack of it. That in itself is cause for reflection, because do we not claim to be His disciples also? When he is speaking of the abundance of faith to a Gentile, it is always in the context of a physical healing and/or forgiveness of sin. Here is a list of these occurrences: Matthew 8:10 The story of the Roman centurion who implored Jesus to heal his servant. He asked Jesus not to come to his house, just to say the word, because he was unworthy that Jesus should enter under his roof--Healing. Matthew 9:2 The healing of the paralytic. Interesting, here, that Jesus rewards the faith of those bearing the paralytic on the stretcher by healing him and not the specific faith of the paralyzed man himself--Healing/forgiveness of sin. Matthew 9:22 This is the story of the woman who touched the edge of his robe and was healed--Healing. Mattthew 9:29 The blind man follows Jesus shouting, Have mercy on me. Jesus says, Your faith has made you well--Healing. Matthew 15:28 This verse tells of His conversation with the Canaanite woman who asked Him to cure her daughter. Jesus asked her did she not know that the Son of Man came to the Israelites only. The woman responded that even the dogs are allowed crumbs from under their master's table--Healing. Mark 2:5 The story of the paralytic, Cf Matthew 9:2.--Healing/forgiveness of sin. Mark 5:34 The woman who touched the edge of Jesus's robe. Cf Matthew 9:22--Healing. Mark 10:52 The blind man healed, Cf Matthew 9:29--Healing. Luke 5:20 The healing of the paralyzed man, Cf Matthew 9:2--Healing/forgiveness of sin. Luke 7:9 The story of the Roman centurion, Cf Matthew 8:10.--Healing. Luke 7:50 The washing of Jesus' feet with expensive perfume--Forgiveness of sin. Luke 8:48 The woman who touched the edge of Jesus's robe, Cf Matthew 9:22--Healing. Luke 17:19 The healing of the 10 lepers--Healing. Luke 18:42 The blind man healed, Cf Matthew 9:29, Mark 10: 52--Healing. There is another common thread in all of the passages in which Christ commends a person on their faith. In every one of these passages, there are two distinct elements: 1) helplessness and 2) unworthiness. These people approached Jesus because they were unable to help themselves; Jesus was their only Hope. The people to whom Jesus refers to having faith greater than in all Israel made direct statements about their unworthiness, the Canaanite woman who referred to herself as a dog under the master's table, and the centurion who said that he was not worthy for Jesus even to enter his house. Although it was not directly stated, this humility is implied in the story of the woman who touched the edge of Jesus' robe--why touch the hem of his robe only; why not just approach Him directly?--and in the story of the paralytic man. The blind men and lepers who were healed called after Jesus, Son of David have mercy on us. I believe that the element of helplessness and of humility, of unworthiness, are two fundamental aspects of true faith, and that "keeping the faith" means that we continually acknowledge our dependence upon the mercy of God. Let us now take this definition of faith, from the words of our Lord, and fit it into the schema of salvation by faith alone. Whenever this doctrine is put forward, those who stand with the RCC view of justification, that our works are included in the faith that saves us, immediately put forth the text that states even the demons believe and tremble. This indicates a definite lack of understanding about true faith. I am going to eliminate the word "true," because I feel that "true faith" is a redundancy. Believing that something exists does not mean one has faith in it. It does not take faith to believe that Jesus lived and died any more than it takes faith to believe that Mohammed lived and died. The faith that Jesus pointed out to His disciples had two vital elements: 1. A statement of need; and 2. An admission of unworthiness. Without these two elements, faith becomes neutralized to an intellectual acknowledgement of the existence of something. Need: If we are saved through faith, then we must acknowledge our need. Self-justification never leads to God's justification. This is not a one-time admission. This is a perpetual confession on the part of the believer. We acknowledge our utter helplessness in our ablility to save ourselves. Not even our faith actually saves us; it merely grasps onto the hope of salvation in Christ. We cling to Christ for salvation because we are lost without Him. Unworthiness: If we have faith in Christ, then we continuously recognize His great mercy. We know that any reward God might give to us is only a result of His great work for us and nothing inside ourselves. We can never feel like we have "arrived" as a Christian; we are always and ever dependent upon the grace of God that accepts us, just as we are, ragged and filthy, because of His Son. Never should the Christian confuse God's regard to His Son (In Whom He is well-pleased) with His regard for our righteousness (filthy rags). There is no place for recognizing growth in personal righteousness in saving faith; nor does faith see itself as being meritorious in any way. Faith always sees the believer as needy and unworthy. There is an EGW quotation that I believe is one of her best (I wonder where she got it). I paraphrase: "The closer we come to Christ, the more sinful we will appear in our own eyes." This statement denies perfectionism. Faith does not look inward toward the believer's spiritual growth; faith looks always, ever, only, to the Fount of all salvation, the Author and Finisher of our faith. | ||
| George |
Patti, I just found your post. I have been thinking about how people seem to make having faith such hard thing, a thing that is almost imposible to get, a thing that is worked so hard for with no hope of getting or having enough, something you need to have to believe. One thing I wanted to point out is that we will never have faith enough to believe. If faith is believing in the unseen you must believe before you can have faith. As you showed in your post above those that were rewarded were the ones that believed so much they acted. But they believed first. I thought I knew where I was going with this when I started writing, I thought I knew what faith was, but now I am not sure unless it is acting on our beliefs. Maybe faith is someting we DO and not something we HAVE. What do you think----George | ||
| Jude the Obscure |
George, My faith has sprung from my experience with God. For me the order was (1) experience God, (2) believe in the God of my experience, (3) submit myself to God in a totally natural response to God's grace. Jude | ||
| Maryann |
Hi Y'all, This faith thing is really an interesting subject. Jude you said: "My faith has sprung from my experience with God. For me the order was (1) experience God, (2) believe in the God of my experience, (3) submit myself to God in a totally natural response to God's grace." That really seems to be a reasonable concept of steps. I had the most amazing thing happen to me Monday in FAFland. I'll probably share with you guys at a later date. It was such an un-believable set of circumstances; mind boggling and the odd's of this incident were out of this world! Believe me! Those thing fall under No. 1 and No. 2. As God performs these miracles, you experience God. Then you just HAVE to believe in the God of those miracles. No. 3 is my weak point, or, the point I haven't grown to yet. In talking to a FAF member the other day, it was mentioned that faith is something that some people have a hard time with. They pray and pray for faith. Then as they falter, they start all over praying for faith. It's like their faith is based in THEIR faith!? This individual said that faith wasn't his problem. Faith was a piece of cake for him. In thinking about it, faith doesn't seem to be my problem either. (I have a TON of other things that makes up for it). It's like George says so simply, JUST BELIEVE! I have had so many thing happen, large and small, that belief is easy and faith is just a natural response for me. Confidence in my salvation is very easy for me. I figure that, not because of the amazing things that have happened lately, but those things added to the concept of believing has made my faith strong. Something happened today that was amazing and a particularly big tickle to me;-) We got a cat from the humane society last year that had leukemia. All of our cats got it! We have our cat cemetary in the back yard with my daughter's 3 black and white cats and my son's tiger cat. My son has a white cat that we have had for 10 years that is now VERY sick and I figure he'll take his trip to the vet to be put to sleep in the next few days. My cat seems to be doing fine. Knowing that the time was getting closer, I got the newspaper this morning looking for a dog that would take the cats place. Small dogs are really hard to find. The last free add had two dogs; a small and a medium. We went to see the dogs. They were great. Dummy here, agreed to take both as they were buddies. We got all kinds of toys, dishes, dogfood and a container. So now it's time to know the dog's names and here's the real tickler;-)))) Some years ago we had a really cool German Shepard and his name was Max. Get this, not only is the little dog's name Max, BUT SO IS the medium one!? LOL, no, ROTFL! Lost a Max and got two in return! I guess Max is a good dog name! Or every good dog ought to be named Max! ;-))))) These people named their dog Max when he was a puppy. Then a friend had the other dog and his name was Max too, so when they gave him to them, they just thought is was funny and kept the names! So in light of the above, God really watches out for the little things doesn't he? Who can resist a God like that? Maryann | ||
| Jude the Obscure |
Well said, Maryann, I think we all have a hard time letting God be God. We pray for faith imagining God to be some sort of giant vending machine in the sky. (Iíll call this pseudo-God ìSky Idol.î) And the green bills we stuff into it are our prayers. And when ìSky Idolî fails to dispense the yearned for "faith," then we become discouraged or even disgusted with God ñ rather than Sky Idol -- and become angry or discouraged, or even "go agnostic" in spite. Poor weak fleshly children that we are! We try to make God into just as much an idol as anything carved out of wood or stone ever was! Isnít it funny how all modern idols are invisible ones? Solution: I need to let God be God! Which means SOVEREIGN! To let God be in charge of my life! My faith lies in the crucifixion of my flesh. Flesh crucifixion is no ascetic thing, as our friends the Adventists would have us believe. For they require burdensome Sabbath-keeping, vegetarianism if not veganism, tithe extraction, dress-and-makeup-and-hair-and-jewelry codes, no wine with dinner, etc. I need to hear Jesus, our God-on-Earth (Luke 7:31-35 NIV): ^^^^^^^^^^^ ìTo what, then, can I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling out to each other: ìíWe played the flute to you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not cry.í ìFor John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ëHe has a demon.í The Son of Man came eating and drinking; and you say, ëHere is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and ìsinners.îí But wisdom is proved right by all her children.î ^^^^^^^^^^^ Our generation is little different. We try the ìAdventist routeî of ìneither eating bread nor drinking wine.î And that doesnít produce faith. So then we try the ìex-Adventist routeî of ìeating and drinking.î And that doesnít produce faith either. Trouble is, we miss real faith because our god is not God. Rather, it is Sky Idol. And when this false god doesnít ìcome throughî for us we, as was said before, become angry or discouraged, or even "go agnostic" in spite. Instead of worshipping Sky Idol we need to worship the God who ALWAYS IS AND DOES EXIST = I AM WHO I AM = Yahweh = Jesus Christ as God-on-Earth = Holy Spirit. Hear Paul (Galatians 5:16-26 NIV): ^^^^^^^^^^^ So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. THOSE WHO BELONG TO CHRIST JESUS HAVE CRUCIFIED THE SINFUL NATURE WITH ITS PASSIONS AND DESIRES. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. ^^^^^^^^^^^ For it is this, I submit to your careful consideration, that is the issue rather than problems trying to ìforceî belief and faith. Still not under law, Jude | ||
| Maryann |
Hey Jude, You said: "We pray for faith imagining God to be some sort of giant vending machine in the sky. (Iíll call this pseudo-God ìSky Idol.î) And the green bills we stuff into it are our prayers." What a dynamite word picture! Where do you come up with these. This is what it is all about, making it easy for the average street person to understand truth and error by using such wonderful examples. Onward and upward.......Maryann | ||
| Colleentinker |
Jude, I love your differentiation between God and "Sky Idol". That's such a perfect description! | ||
| Plain Patti |
George, Have you ever heard this: Romans 10:13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." 14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" 16 But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our message?" 17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. Faith comes of hearing. Not just hearing someone witness to our great salvation in Jesus Christ, but true hearing--the revelation of the Gospel by the Holy Spirit. And what are we hearing that brings us faith? The word of Christ. When we hear the Gospel we either respond or not. The "not" response could be either no reaction at all, or we may react strongly against it. Either way, we have not "heard" the Gospel. When we "hear" the Gospel, when the Holy Spirit impresses upon us the significance of the saving act of our Lord in our behalf, then the Holy Spirit also gives us the faith we need to reach out and make that first connection. A little faith will support a little action. As our faith grows, as we become more and more convinced that: 1) there is absolutely nothing we can do to relieve ourselves of our sinful condition, and 2) Jesus Christ paid the full price for our sin and offers us His life of righteousness which covers our lives completely, we will take larger steps. We will begin to tell others of our amazing discovery. You see it is a cycle: We hear the Gospel, We believe, We witness to the doing and dying of Jesus, Others hear the Gospel, They believe .... And so our testimony is vital to the Gospel cycle. Faith comes of hearing. If we don't tell anyone, we are depriving them of a chance to reach out and take hold of His marvelous salvation. Some people will not be at all happy to hear your testimony. In fact, many will say that you are of the devil, but just remember, they have not "heard" yet. Do you know how long John 3:16 was in the Bible before I realized it was there? Do you realize how long I knew it was there before I realized it meant exactly what it said, no if's, and's, or but's?? But God's timing is not our timing. We cannot force people to hear; we can only keep telling. It is God's work to impress the hearts of the listeners so that they, too, "hear." If God "needs" us for anything, it is to complete this cycle. We "hear," we believe, we tell, so that others can "hear," believe and tell. Pretty neat, huh? :) | ||
| sherry |
I was most encouraged by your post, Patti! Straight from the Word and concise. That was really neat insight about faith, and the Gentiles v Disciples. That makes so much sense too - humility and unworthiness. Times in my life when I've experienced His presence have definitely been when I knew I deserved death alright, and I just pleaded for His mercy, recognizing Him as my Only Hope, and God's love seem to surround me like never before. God is so good and worthy of all my praise!! Thank you Jesus for your grace and mercy. | ||
| George |
Patti, I quickly read through your post as I don't have much time. It seemed that you thought I equate faith with works. This is not the case. What I am trying to do is sepereate the faith process into its different parts. Faith comes throuth hearing. In all the cases where Christ commended people for faith you will see that they first heard about Him. The next thing they did was to believe in Him. The next thing they did was to act on their belief. They believed so much that they acted. When it is layed out like that, which part is faith? Did they have so much faith that they acted, or did they believe so much that they acted. I believe it is the latter. The more you act on your beliefs the more faith you have. So then, what is faith? Faith is the ability to act on your belief. I guess we should ask not for "faith" but the ability to act on our belief-----which IS faith. If we ask for the ability to act, we are asking for somethng that we know about, not some mysterious thing we can't quite see or understand. It is then with in our grasp. What do you think----George | ||
| bethany |
Just a couple comments on what I have learned about faith: When I first came to Jesus, I had zero for faith, nor did I have the ability to do much about that. All I could do was pray that God would work through me because Jesus had faith that it would happen. I leaned heavily on the Faith of Jesus, I borrowed His faith. With each step in my Journey of Grace I began to believe that Jesus was very real, because He was holding onto me and giving me such courage to act on all the new teachings that I was learning. Faith has grown, belief has grown, the ability to witness has grown---and still, I lean on the faith Jesus readily hands out to me. | ||
| Plain Patti |
Thank you, Bethany. I feel much the same way. George, you are a worrier, right? You also like things well organized and put in their correct place, right? That's OK, God loves you anyway! :) (just kidding) (Just kidding about the "anyway" part of it--not the part that God loves you!) (Let me get my foot out of my mouth and I will start again!) Faith is the noun form of the verb "believe." It not a difficult thing to believe. Remember Jesus tells us that unless we become like little children we will not see the kingdom of God? Does a normal healthy child worry about whether his parents will take care of him? Does he worry about being placed up for adoption, disinherited or abandoned on a back alley if he fails to meet their expectations? No, of course not. Having faith in God is just like being a child with loving parents. We live as His children, knowing that His grace is sufficient, that He will never leave us nor forsake us. It is like believing that the sun will come up in the morning. We can make plans on it being light tomorrow morning. It is like believing in the law of gravity. Not believing in gravity does not lessen the inevitability of the effects of its presence. Believing in it does not make it any more effective than it is, but it allows us to live accordingly. It is like taking an antibiotic for a disease. We cannot see the disease, we cannot see the effects of the drug in our system. But we know that it will make us well. Jesus is the cure for the sin problem. We may or may not see a few results of His work in us right now, but someday we know we will be cured. Those are not the best analogies, but just a few thoughts to try to make the concept a bit clearer. I hope I haven't just muddied up the waters even more.... | ||
| Bruce H |
George and Patti I like both of your definitions of faith. George, somtimes you have a great way of saying things. | ||
| George |
Patti, I would not say that I am a worrier (most of the time). I do however like things to fall into the right places. Many, many things life ARE black an white, they either are or they are not. Black and white, up and down, live or dead, day or night and so on. Then there are those things that fall into the gray area, things that are not either one or the other. If you look at something that is black or white and see gray you are never going to get it figured out. It AIN'T going to happen. It can't. Because you don't see what is there. How does this apply to faith? If you decide that you want faith and you look around and see that every one has a problem with it, they are always saying " if I just had enough of it I could believe", If I had more of it I could move mountains etc. Now faith looks like something you want, so you go about trying to get it. You pray for faith. You pray for faith to believe, you pray for faith for a lot of things But you never get any. You know that you haven't gotten any because you don't believe, and you can't move mountains. Something is wrong here, what is it. So you pray for more faith and still nothing happens, now what? You talk to people and they say you have to pray for faith, but you still don't get any. Now what, You just give up because you see that you will never get any. What is the problem there? Could it be that you have gotten the steps out of order? Lets look at it. You here about Christ, you believe in Him, then you do something, after you do something Christ tells you that you have faith. (Like the woman that touched His hem). Look at the steps; Hearing, belief, action, = you are told you have faith. If you try to get faith before belief you have a problem and you will never have faith because things are out of order, the order that was establishd in all the examples that you gave above. Now, if I believe enough to act, then I have faith. Problen solved. (I don't believe enough to move mountains yet, but when I do-----?) George | ||
| Plain Patti |
George, I am having a bit of a problem following you because I see no difference between "faith" and "belief." Perhaps you could make the distinction as you see it? | ||
| Maryann |
Hi Patti, Maybe the difference between belief and faith is like the difference between an embryo and a child. All the attributes of that child are there in that embryo, just not developed. Would saying that belief is the "embryo stage" of faith be correct? It makes sense to me. I said in an earlier post: "Confidence in my salvation is very easy for me. I figure that, not because of the amazing things that have happened lately, but those things added to the concept of believing has made my faith strong." What do you think? BTW, keep up the insightful post's. No one can agree with everything everybody says or we all would be robots. But when so many thoughts and ideas are presented, one can sure gleen a lot of truth and support as long as it falls "within" the pale of orthodoxy. Thanks a bunch, Maryann | ||
| CAS |
I just wanted to drop in to let you guys in on an awesome audio message from the home page of Focus on the Family. You can click right on it for today anyway. It is about the conversion of a Jewish man and his family to the Lord. Don't miss it. www.family.org his name is Stan Telchin | ||
| George |
Patti, Most of my life I have heard, this or that is done by faith. It seemed that great things were done by faith. Well, I couldn't do any of these great things, I couldn't even do any of the small things. I just couldn't do anything. So what was the problem? I was one of the few people in the SDA church that believed all along that all you had to do is believe that Christ died for you to be saved. Here we go with the "steps", I heard about it ,I believed it, but by my actions it was very obvious that I was not saved. By this you can see that belief alone was not and is not enough. So now what. You must not "really" believe they said, have faith and you will. What is faith and how do you get it? Faith comes by hearing (which they said was reading) so read the Bible and you will have faith, they said. Well, now we have a REAL big problem. No matter how much I wanted to read the Bible I could not do it. I would start to read and my mind would wonder and wonder again and again and so far that it was very aparent it was never going to work, I just could not read it. Now, as I saw it I would never have faith, so I will never "really" believe or be able to do any of the great things that were talked about so what's the point. By this you can see that believing alone is not faith, otherwise I wouldn't have had to go through all this trouble to try get it, as I had already believed. All the above is in the past, lets get to the here and now. A few months ago we got started on the once saved always saves thing. From something Lori said, it bacame obvious that unbelief was the only sin left to deal with, I didn't have to worry about ALL THOSE OTHER "SINS" I just had to believe. Salvation was for the first time really with in my grasp. But here again just believing didn't seem to be enough, how would I KNOW when or even if I was saved. One day while talking to Colleen about how, (I think it was you said) most of the time when it says confess in the Bible it means to "admit' that God is who He says He is, and not confess sins, she said that we confess "to God" that He is great, not to others, but to God, and then it hit me, It is when we believe enough that we can tell GOD that we believe, that we "know" we are saved. So you see, there is hearing, believing, and not just believing, but believing enough to act. The above shows that belief alone does not give you faith and they can not be the same thing and faith can't come before belief. I hope this makes clear my thoughts on faith. The reason I have said so much on the subject is that if we don't know what faith really is how can we KNOW how to get it or if we have it or anything about it. If you want a diamond how will you ever be able to get one in you don't know what it is? What do you think-----George | ||
| George |
Bruce, Thanks for the complement. What do you think about the last two letters I posted on faith? Do you see that there are three steps---hearing, believing and doing? George | ||
| Bethany |
George, Does it seem complicated to you? I am having a bit of trouble following you. Maybe faith comes in many different "orders", depending on the person needing it and asking for it. How did Jesus get faith? Bethany |
