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I trust you are aware of an important theme running through the first six chapters: living by faith is not the result of acquiring a specific body of knowledge. Living by faith is trusting Jesus.
Biblical knowledge contributes to living by faith. However, the essence of faith is the daily practice of trusting Jesus with every circumstance of our lives. At times, this will require that we trust Jesus with specific—and sometimes very difficult—tasks.
In this chapter you will see specific applications that will help you live by faith.
Living by faith is a personal and unique experience
Living by faith will be your personal response to God's direction in your life. You cannot pursue faith by mimicking someone else's life. If you want to live by faith, you must learn to communicate directly with the God you want to trust. This does not mean, however, that others cannot encourage you, or even that your response in faith may not be as a part of a larger body of believers.[1]
[1] Faith can certainly be both an individual and a corporate response. By no means is faith the exclusive right of solitary individuals. Faith is very appropriately expressed corporately. Many of the great movements of faith in history were group responses.
But you are not alone. Jesus made a costly investment so that He could "author" and "perfect" your faith. He will faithfully lead you through every part of your lifetime journey.
Consider everything that has been said so far in this book as being merely my opinion. I will make just two suggestions:
There is an important truth that should be obvious but is often violated. Once we have received Jesus' free gift of salvation, the driving force in our Christian life must be a growing and deep love for Him. There is no other motivation that can properly cause the believer to desire growth, respond obediently to God's direction, live by faith, and even be willing to face death for the sake of the Gospel.
Do not forget, however, that Jesus strongly emphasized obedience as an evidence of our professed love for Him. "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments...He who has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is who loves Me" (John 14:15, 21 NASB).
For almost two thousand years, the Gospel has struggled against being reduced to a religious exercise. If your motivation in living by faith is anything other than love for Jesus, correct that now!
The topics in the remainder of this chapter are practical issues you may face as you first pursue faith. Section 2 will introduce additional issues that you may face later.
The intensity of faith is unique for each believer
Chapter 3 says that faith is mandatory for every believer. This does not mean that the same intensity of faith is mandatory for all believers. I simply could not say for myself—much less for anyone else—that I must live by faith like George Müller or Hudson Taylor. Each of us must allow God to determine the intensity of the faith life that He has chosen uniquely for us.
On the other hand, I doubt that many could say that they have prayed about their faith life and then received a firm indication from God as to its final intensity. If believers will pursue faith earnestly, they will receive a greater measure of faith. If they pursue faith only moderately, they will have only moderate faith. If they do not pursue faith at all, their faith will be inconsequential. Why not pursue faith intently because faith pleases God, and then let God give it as He chooses?
Under no circumstances, however, are we competing with others. If I am pursuing faith intently, then God is producing in me the life of faith He expects of me. I have no need to compare my life with anyone else's whether it be the Apostle Paul's or that of some member of my own church.
When I started praying for faith some twenty years ago, I had no idea how that request would be answered. As I now look back from today's vantage point, I am amazed at what God has done. It is beyond anything I could have imagined then. Equally, from this vantage point. I can only speculate what God might still do in the future. I don't need to know now what that will be.
The intensity of faith will vary in your own life
I don't know how God will lead you as you live by faith. My own observation, however, is that God has been selective in the areas of my life in which He wants me to trust Him. Let me use a personal illustration because it demonstrates this selectivity. In many instances, God has led me to trust Him rather than too readily using medication or medical assistance from doctors. I often avoid using even aspirin so that I will not become dependent on over-the-counter medication because I want to place my full trust in Him. On the other hand, I am a diabetic and have been insulin-dependent for over thirty five years. I would die without it. Why not discard the insulin and trust Him with that also? I have sometimes wondered about that apparent inconsistency. To the best of my imperfect ability to discern God's will, the answer is simply that God has apparently led me to apply the criteria of faith in some areas of medicine, without applying it equally in every situation.
You will need to practice discernment as you begin to live by faith. There are countless areas in your life in which you could trust God alone without using conventional means. God may direct you to trust Him in one or two of those areas. Trust Him with those things He wants you to change, but do not overreact by trying to make everything logically consistent. He may want you to trust Him in one specific financial area in a certain way without asking you to make a similar change in all financial areas.
I am not talking about changes required because of the violation of biblical principles or because there is known sin. I mean discretionary areas of change that have the purpose of enhancing your life of faith.
The day may come when something God directed you to do in a certain way in the past will now seem to be inconsequential. To the best of your ability to discern, it will seem as though His leading in that issue has changed. At one time you were led to urgently pray for something (or someone) only to struggle with a sense of failure now when you realize that your interest in that area has waned. Let God lead you both into and out of focus areas as you live by faith.
Trusting Jesus
I do not think primarily in terms of faith. Rather, I think in terms of trusting Jesus. To me, the terms faith and trusting Jesus (or trusting God) are interchangeable. Nevertheless, it seems less hypothetical when I say, "Jesus, I want to trust you completely" rather than praying, "Jesus, I want to have complete faith in You."
In a similar way, I have personalized my faith as being a trust I place in Jesus. I certainly understand my dependence on God (meaning the Godhead—I address the Father as Father). Yet, having searched the issue in Scripture, I believe that because Jesus became a man, I can relate to Him as the tangible representative of the Godhead. Therefore, my most intimate prayer is addressed to Jesus. I address any of the three by name—Father, Jesus, or Spirit—but I most frequently use the name Jesus. I address them corporately as God or Yahweh. (I also delight in using two other titles of Jesus to remind me of who He is; Sovereign Lord God and Creator God. When I am addressing Jesus with these titles, I am acknowledging His grandeur or His power respectively. If Creator God as a title for Jesus raises questions, read Colossians 1:12-23.)
Faith is an exercise of your own choice
Living by faith is not a matter of following prescribed religious dictates. Increasingly, your life will become more internally directed rather than being directed by outside influences. Though you will become increasingly interested in ministry involvement, this does not mean that you should take on more church activities. You will increasingly find that ministry opportunities will result from your personal prayer time, even though these ministries may take place in your church or other Christian organizations. In all likelihood, your ministry emphasis will move you away from preserving religious institutions and toward ministries to people.
You will discover that the decision to aggressively pursue living by faith must be your own. You must become less dependent on others in structuring your Christian life. Because of the high cost you will encounter in living by faith, you must ultimately make this decision for yourself.
Neither coercion nor programming will produce faith in others. The biblical pattern for reproducing faith is by modeling faith. Paul modeled his faith for many believers such as Timothy, Titus, Luke, Priscilla, Euodia and Syntyche. Many of these individuals themselves became men and women of faith in their own right.
Solitude
Allow for my subjectivity in this section describing solitude. If you are intent on pursuing faith it will require that you spend considerable time with Jesus in prayer, and that you learn to discern His unique and personal leading. This will require some degree of solitude. My own pursuit of faith began when I converted a small utility room at the back of our garage into a study. It was there that I first had sufficient privacy to pray and think without distraction. I know another layman who laid down several sheets of plywood on the joists in his attic. During the years his children were growing up, his attic was his private place where he could be alone with God in study and prayer.
Unless you live alone, you will most certainly need to establish a time and place where you can spend undisturbed time in prayer.
Evangelical churches today often extol the gregarious personality as being the ideal for the Christian life. The person who delights in radiant-smile-back-patting-touching-hugging-and-small-group-participation is identified as the ideal Christian. The truth is, no personality type is any more suited to Christian growth than another. Each individual—irrespective of their personality type—have both strengths and weaknesses in developing Christian maturity. Certainly, the gregarious person works well in building social institutions. But a life lived by faith is not a social institution. It is a life of trusting Jesus.
Those of us who enjoy solitude must be careful that we do not abuse this inclination. Nonetheless, the positive side of our personality type may be the ability to avoid unhealthy dependence on others' encouragement and opinions. (I am talking about a healthy personality that enjoys solitude, not a dysfunctional personality.) Living by faith will often be a lonely venture. Increasingly, you will need to be self-motivated rather than relying on outside encouragement to continue pursuing faith. Solitude will help prepare you to pursue faith when others around you give faith low priority.
If you enjoy solitude, feel the freedom to develop that as a strength in your life with the Lord. If you have neglected to develop times of solitude, you may need to begin cultivating that habit now if you want to live by faith.
We all begin faith at the same starting point
There is a notion that seminary or Bible school training produces faith. It does not. Nurtured faith can only grow through trusting Jesus. The theologian and the layman have the same starting point for faith. Academic study does not produce faith.
Before I entered the trades, I had finished seminary and spent 17 years in so called "full-time" ministry. But it was not the seminary education that prepared me to live by faith. The most memorable early event in my life of faith took place when I was 21. My doctor said, "You have diabetes." I immediately began grappling with the real life meaning of the sovereignty of God.
It was almost 20 years later while I was working as an apprentice electrician, however, that I began asking Jesus to produce faith in me. Because I didn't understand the process, I was unaware at that time of the effect that request would have on my life.
Every believer, with—or without—a formal Bible education, must start at the same place when pursuing faith. You have neither advantage nor disadvantage when compared with any other believer. You must begin your life of faith by asking Jesus for it, and then trusting Him for its growth.
Godly living
Early in your experience of pursuing faith, you must deal decisively with godliness. This is such an important topic that Chapter 10 is devoted exclusively to it.
You must realize that you cannot live by faith while you are simultaneously compromising God's standards of holiness in your life. There is great laxity in evangelical churches regarding holiness in Christian living. If you pursue faith, you may feel that you are alone in desiring holiness.
You will need to look carefully at Chapter 10. Be aware that godly living is a mandatory part of the decision to pursue faith.
How long will it take?
You will want to know how long it will take before you experience substantial growth in faith. I can't give you an answer. Foxe's Book of Martyrs and similar accounts of the persecuted Church tell of believers who were martyred after they had known Jesus for only a few months. (There are numerous accounts of martyrdom taking place within days of an individual's declared faith in Jesus.) These individuals' faith grew quickly! For most of us, however, God may choose to work at a slower rate. Let Jesus determine the rate at which He wants you to learn to live by faith. You are only responsible for pursuing faith with an obedient heart—Jesus will plan the lessons and the time schedule.
Remember this: if you ask Jesus for the faith He wants to give you for that day—and if you are certain that your life is free from known sin which would hinder that faith—you can be assured that you will be given as much faith as He wants you to have.[2]
[2] This is not a prayer formula which you must recite each day in order to obtain a certain allotment of faith. It is merely a practice of regularly bringing your need for faith to Jesus with the anticipation that He will give it to you.
However, I would expect your experience to be similar to my own. You may see little change in your day-to-day life. One day God will open a door to a new area of faith and you will realize that your faith has grown considerably. You will realize that you could not have handled the same situation in faith six months or a year earlier. You may be surprised at how much your trust in Jesus has grown.
Living by faith is always uncertain
Our natural inclination is to want to become so skilled in living by faith that it becomes predictable and comfortable. However, that is the very antithesis of faith, because the deepest trust in Jesus comes when the known and the familiar are out of reach.
A life of faith will never eliminate uncertainty. This does not mean that a life of faith is filled with constant dread. The purpose of living by faith is to learn to trust Jesus more rather than to develop skills for dealing with the unknown in our own strength.
There is much about trusting Jesus that I don't know. Nonetheless, I expect that the unknown future will always contain the same potential to incite fear in me. It is my reliance on Jesus that is changing. As I repeatedly see His faithful care, I can trust Him more for future uncertainty.
By its very nature, living by faith requires that I will always be uncertain about what lies ahead.
If your church background is non-charismatic
There is an interesting difference in the way charismatic and non-charismatic Christians expect God to work. Our backgrounds condition us to have certain expectations of God. These expectations can either help or hinder our life of faith. There is merit in learning from both viewpoints.
My own background is in non-charismatic churches. Generally, we are conditioned to expect little of God in terms of His direct intervention in individuals' lives. We don't come to church on Sunday expecting to see a "miracle healing" or a "deliverance." Over time, we become satisfied with our concept of a God who saves but does little to manifest His miraculous power in daily living.
I have occasionally attended a biblically-sound charismatic church. These people come to church expecting God to do things. They plan extra staffing in the nursery, maintain the building heat, and train prayer ministers so people can stay to pray for an hour or more following the service. I have been amazed to see their expectation that God still works today.
Following their example, I began to raise my personal expectations. I began asking God to do more in my life, and I was excited with the anticipation that He would.
If we are non-charismatic believers, we increasingly need to expect God to be involved in our lives and ministries. I am not suggesting that we seek "miracle" experiences. Nonetheless, we need to give Jesus the freedom to act and do things in our lives. In all probability, if we are pursuing faith, we will realize that Jesus may bring even greater trial and adversity into our lives so that we will trust Him more. We cannot expect God's greater work in our lives to remove us from pain or hardship through miraculous manifestations.
Nonetheless, we need to expect God to do His part as described in Hebrews 11:6:
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. (Emphasis added.)
We non-charismatic believers need to expect more from God.
If your church background is charismatic
If you come from a charismatic church background, your expectations of God may be much higher. On the other hand, you may have unrealistic expectations of how God must act in certain situations.
Remember that a thesis of this book is that faith is trusting the Person of God. If you have a charismatic background and want to learn to effectively live by faith, you may need to shift your focus from what God does, to trusting God Himself.
A non-charismatic Christian who is living by faith may have a better understanding of trusting the Person of God in the absence of miraculous manifestations. That is the objective of our life of faith. It is God Himself we must learn to trust. Job was a man of faith. He understood how to sustain faith through the hardest of circumstances when he said, "Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him" (Job 13:15). Job was not experiencing miracles at that point in his life. Yet his faith in the Person of God remained strong despite his continuing trials.
As a charismatic Christian, you may need to learn to trust God more as a Person without depending on special manifestations.
Expectations after faith growth begins
After you have begun to grow in faith, you may experience an unexpected emotion. It may follow a difficult but rewarding time of faith growth. Because of your life of faith, you will long for God's direct provision for you. You may realize that you now want His care rather than trying to do things in your own way.
You may become vulnerable in your desire to see God work uniquely in your own life. Through faith, you may have seen Him do unexpected things for ministry and others. You may feel that now it is your turn to be the recipient. You have trusted Him to do much more difficult tasks than what you are asking for yourself. Now, however, you feel an emotional urgency to see God do a "miracle" or "healing" for you. You may be weary because of some unresolved health need or other burden. Most of all, you feel compelled to validate your faith by seeing God do something for you because of your love and relationship with Him.
But He may not do it!
Paul faced a similar circumstance. Though Scripture does not tell us what his "thorn in the flesh" was, it could well have been a physical ailment, possibly a prevalent eye disease of the time. Paul wrote to the church at Galatia,
As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you. Even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. (Galatians 4:13-14)
There was a common and painful eye condition in the Mediterranean region which could account for the verse following Paul's comments about his illness: "If you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me" (Galatians 4:15). Paul could also have been referring to an eye condition in his closing comment, "See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand" (Galatians 6:11).
Whatever the problem was, Paul asked the Lord three times to remove it, but God chose not to answer his request.
To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surprisingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:7-9).
At this point in your life of faith, you will need to trust God to give you what He knows is best for you without coveting more.
Can I revel in growing faith?
Absolutely! Just as in any other area of Christian growth, you should be able to view your increasing faith with satisfaction.
Don't minimize your growing trust in Jesus. When God is truly producing faith—or love for Him, or any other quality in your life—there is merit in recognizing it. Additionally, further growth is best achieved when you are realistic in your evaluation of your present progress.
However, what you say publicly is another issue. Others may perceive your assessment of your faith as arrogance. Many fellow believers will not want to be reminded of their own lack of faith. Consequently, restraint in talking about your life of faith is probably wisest. When it is appropriate, God will give you opportunities to encourage others. Allow Him to open doors for conversation, but avoid antagonizing people with your exploits in faith.
Finally, there is no place for pride. Braggadocio or an attitude of superiority over others is always out of line.
The more you grow in faith, the more you may be frustrated because you want to help others, but you know that it is better to say little. You may experience an increasing sense of isolation.
The days are still routine
What should you expect to see as you progress in living by faith? There is often the expectation that anyone living by faith will be a radiant Christian (whatever that means!) and have a positive impact for Christ on everyone else. We often couple this with a notion that the individual will become effective in evangelism.
In reality, if you begin effectively living by faith, your daily life will go on as usual. If you go to work at 6 a.m. now, after you effectively begin living by faith you will still go to work at 6 a.m. If you are employed 40 hours a week now, you will continue to work 40 hours a week after you are effectively living by faith. If you prefer working alone and intensely dislike others' blaring radios in the work-place, after you are effectively living by faith you will still prefer working alone and will continue to dislike others' blaring radios.
Your thought life may require significant change. Your work ethics should improve if you have been lax with company time. Your frustration and impatience with problems and people should lessen. If you have had a foul mouth, your speech should show marked improvement. Time spent watching television would undoubtedly be greatly reduced while time in prayer would significantly increase.
In all probability, there will be changes in your life. However, the changes would not attract attention to you as a person or to your great "spirituality."
If you begin to aggressively live by faith, you would soon realize that your life will continue much as it has before. I recently worked as a temporary electrician in a large food processing plant. A sign by the time clock expressed the sense of futility in the work place: "Here today, here tomorrow!" You will continue to live in your world, but will no longer be controlled by it.
I do not want to discourage you. God will do wonderful things in your life if you choose to live by faith. But He will not take you away from life. Rather, He will complete your life within the same setting you have been in the past. God may direct a few individuals into other employment or life situations as a result of their growth in faith. For most, however, life will continue with much the same routine even after they have learned to live by faith.
Lord God, I am willing to make mistakes in order to learn to live by faith. On the other hand, my foolish mistakes may not best serve either Your purpose or mine in helping me to grow in faith. Jesus, please give me wisdom in every decision and action so that I might effectively live by faith as You want me to.
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