I was pondering the reality that is faith. This key element in any man’s walk with God eventually reveals itself as the key guideline of God in the relationship between Creator and His created.
I would call myself and intellectual Christian in that I am aware that God exists because of the obvious given data He has revealed to us. What I mean is that I have my belief in God proven academically through research, trial and error and a passion to find a detour around God’s control over me.
This sounds negative and in very true since I am disappointed in myself that I am not absolutely encapsulated in God’s majesty. I am very intrigued and excited no doubt to meet this universe Creator. I am also very much relieved and joyed at the coming promises and endless joy that God will give to us believers in His upcoming prophetic promises.
I guess in my walk with God I eventually began to analyze the actual singular component of faith in the man and God personal relationship scenario we currently are in.
Years past I would have said faith is me believing in Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. Now I think to a very small degree that is what faith is, although I think faith is way much deeper than believing in Jesus.
What is faith? Faith cannot be seen, faith has no smell or flavor you can tangibly perceive. Faith itself is invisible to the naked eye and can’t be collected into the searching soul’s hands as a bible can be studied with its actual real time existence for the created. Faith has no texture and it has no absolute location to travel to that man has the ability to bargain its quality traits in the physical.
Faith in my humble opinion is an idea, furthermore this idea begins as a small seed that requires mental workload capacity to manifest itself as an actual tool for the Christian himself to utilize. Faith itself is metaphorically like a muscle, as it must be exercised for it to be able to gain any real relevance in a Christian’s tool belt of life.
Faith itself if used per God’s purpose would allow the mind of saved souls to release all of its problems and stresses onto God’s shoulders. Through this mental training of releasing worry onto the idea of God’s promise of never leaving or forsaking us relieves the burden of daily life stressors.
God very much requires faith by His followers, moreover He demands it through His silence because all God leaves you with eventually is your faith in Him. You will eventually die of stress and anxiety walking with God if you possess no faith or you will turn away from God.
Faith is developed out of necessity when the mind of the believer finally concludes prayers and circumstances will not be addressed in a timely manner. Then the mental capacity to hold sanity in the tsunami of pain that is man’s reality in the days of time forces the assumption of trust or destruction.
Successful and strengthened Christians of faith met at the crossroads of self-mental dialogue where the individual concluded for sanity’s sake that trusting God in the circumstance was the only viable option. As God had exhausted all other means of resource for the person to use as a crutch.
Faith isn’t fun to the inexperienced Christian because it requires true meditation on God’s promises. God is not gathering council from His created beings in His decision process of how He will develop the faith of His children.
Faith begins to reveal itself and the clouds begin to clear in the mind as the person begins to not lean on their own understanding but acknowledges God through trusting Him with very limited information of His purposes during the storm.
Faith is an idea in the mind that must be planted, and then cultivated and then fed continuously so its roots can become strong enough to hold the weight of not only itself but the person who will be relying on its power.
God made the decision long ago before time began to create a scenario, or allow a situation to manifest itself through free will choices where your only reaction would be to faithfully trust in God’s promises.
Eventually if you care enough you will immerse yourself in God’s word. You will gorge yourself on philosophical debates of God, apologetics, prophetic proofing through history, science, and logic.
The end product will be an undeniable reality that Jesus is God to the student. The data itself only allows an academic currency value. What happens after the analytical stage of discovery in God is life itself begins to require personal strength. The major under toe of belief in Christ is that He will give you the mental position to understand His existence, but He will then demand you develop a trust in Him because man’s strength alone is not enough to survive.
To us in the last days in Gods story of man He has opened up the flood gates of Truth. We the believers have walked through the door and God’s hidden obviousness towers over its existence. The gospel itself is the information for salvation so after consumption of this critical eternal ticket you can be saved. However once saved through information awareness this doesn’t expedite the believer to heaven.
God will most likely require patience, perseverance, and struggle. Jesus will mandate trust in Him because where He has gone we cannot come until the appointed time.
So at the conceptual conclusion of it all in our own mental struggles in this finite life before our eternity future we must mentally choose to trust God. We must realize that God himself is fantastically obvious through personal education. Additionally concluding that because His Truth is amazingly evident through study we can ride on the coat tails of logic and data. So our minds can place the idea of faith into our consciousness because of our studies in the absolute truth of Jesus Christ. Life itself will allow plenty of situations for you to go crazy or grow your faith through trusting God. So at the point of personal failure in strength place the idea of faith through meditation on God’s promises in thought discourse.
The end product will be a believer who not only intellectually knows God exists and has collected the gift of salvation, but has a strengthened faith to weather this storm of life. We first understand mentally and intellectually God exists, then we build our trust in God out of necessity and then we have the ability to think in the madness of life itself to spread the Gospel of Jesus to the lost.
The informational data is what allows us to be saved, but faith is what allows us the strength capability to eventually stand before the transfigured and shining Christ our God.
Don McReynolds