Faith and Faith

Faith is so vital to life. Everything we know (or think we know) we know on faith. Faith in our senses, faith in others who have done more research than we have, faith in a system, country, faith that our vote counts, faith that our vote is counted. The human creature operates (it would appear) fully on faith. Those who would claim to be faithless, seem to need the most faith of all! Those who have no faith in God must revert to believing in themselves as the only thing on which they can rely. It seems everyone is given a measure of faith, and where they put it becomes the eternal issue. Clearly the demand of scripture is for humans to put their faith in Jesus Christ and all that He represents about the God that wants a relationship with His creations. But what comes after that?

Having been freed from the incorrect image of a tyrannical, accountant-God who was measuring our steps to see if we were good enough to merit something; we are freed to behold the Father God of love that was always longing for His people to understand His great love and mercy that is presented in the Old Testament and New, chiefly and most clearly in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is God's message of love to the world. But how to continue on?

Even after the most emotional conversion experience it can be a matter of hours before a new believer says, "I know I am saved by believing in Jesus. He did for me what I couldn't do for myself. Now, I'm ready to start following His rules!" And in a moment life shifts from a quick taste of God's love and grace quickly replaced by our own dirty rags of legalism. The relationship goes out the window and we simply feel better about what was behind and life does not change substantially. That is not the grace and the love that I see in the Bible, that the Spirit whispers to my soul, that is not the grace that I see the need of in my life.

If it was about relationship at the beginning, it is about relationship at the end. It was about daring to believe that God loved us enough to give up His only begotten Son for us, daring to believe that Christ's perfect sacrifice was enough to take away the sin of the world (my personal sin as well as my sinful condition), then it will always be about who He is and what He has done. It will always be about the love relationship. It is not as if coming to Christ turns the angry accountant-God into a happy accountant-God, it is realizing that God is not the God we deserve, but the God we need. The Old Testament as well as the new shows this good. Read the book of Hosea, read Genesis and Exodus, we are blind to not see the God of Love there as well (Paul uses the idea that there is a veil). This was always who God was, will always be who God is. He is righteous and Holy, and that is why Christ had to come and die: to pay the penalty that we incurred (Is. 53).

But how to continue on? If it doesn't become about keeping a different set of rules, or a better set of rules, or getting a fresh start at the same set of rules what is it all about? We must continue in faith, continue in Christ. The exhortation is to believe that what He has said is true. The price has been paid, we have been crucified with Christ, we no longer have to obey the wretched slave master of our Sin Nature (Romans 6 clearly lays this out). We continue believing that we no longer have to sin again because Christ's life is working in us. We must simply abide in Him and what he as done (John 15) and let Him conform us to the image of Jesus Christ. That's a goal that I can walk towards. I want to know the One who loved me enough to save me at His own expense. I want to know and live out that love.