Because you love Jesus, you want your faith to please Him.

    Do you need to wait until you see Him in Heaven before you know if your faith was satisfactory?

    This book defines faith and also suggests how to live by faith in your contemporary world. Yet its primary purpose is to answer the question, "How does a believer acquire faith?"

    You have probably been admonished many times to grow in faith. Have you ever been told how?

    Can you say that you have as much faith as God wants you to have each day? In Chapter 5 you will see the joy of the believer who can say, "Thank you, Jesus, for giving me all of the faith You want me to have."

    This book was written primarily for those who say they are followers of Jesus. However, if I personally was not yet a follower of Jesus but was considering that possibility, I would find this book to be of great interest.

    I have an analytical mind and I want to have satisfactory information before I make decisions. If I were considering whether or not to follow Jesus, I would want to know what He might expect of me in the future. I would also want to know what I could expect in return if I chose to follow Him.

    I would particularly notice that this book talks about the high cost of faith. In itself, its high cost would not frighten me. Most things that are of value cost something. But I would want to know what the cost would entail, and I would want to be as certain as possible that the cost would be worthwhile.

    More than anything else, I would want to assure myself that I would not merely be joining a religious group which would sap my energy, my time, and my money.

    This book would allow me to gather a great deal of information before I made a final commitment to follow Jesus.

    No book has all of the answers, and that is certainly true of this one. You will be reading about faith as understood and experienced by only one, imperfect believer. Scripture shows the believer how to acquire faith. Yet, each believer also has unique strengths and weaknesses. After carefully considering Scripture, allow God to lead you individually as you grow in faith. Learn from this book if it is helpful, but do not depend on it to produce your faith.

    Living by faith is costly. If you truly begin to live by faith, you will someday look back and realize that the joy of living by faith was commensurate to the cost of pursuing faith. A growing faith will be a direct result of the adversity you are willing to encounter for it. (Simply stated, learning to live by faith is a process of transferring your trust from yourself and your society to Jesus. Learning to rely less on your own ability in order to trust Him is difficult.)

    I believe the so-called postmodern generation will make a significant contribution to the faith life of the emerging Church.

    My generation looked to the institutional church for our spiritual life. As such, when faith did not appear to be working for some of us, we stoically trusted God even when He appeared to be silent. Others in the church across town believed that faith should be more exuberant, so they evoked the necessary "manifestations" and "miracles" to validate their faith. Both attempts had some merit, and both were also flawed.

    However, the generation which is replacing us is not trying to preserve institutions. These individuals describe themselves as being relational—they want to relate to each other, and they want to relate to Jesus whom they can love and trust. They are demanding a faith which works. That emphasis will be a great benefit to the Church.

    This book will give you a balance between two important elements of faith. First, there is the need to build our faith upon a deep love for Jesus which allows us to trust Him implicitly. This emphasis was largely missing in my generation. The theme of loving Jesus will appear frequently in this book.

    But secondly, there is also the need to lay a biblical foundation for our faith so that our trust in Jesus has substance. This book will give the younger reader the biblical basis for that kind of faith.

    The first edition of this book was published with a pseudonym because I wanted to relate faith to real life experiences without drawing attention to myself. As you will discover, living by faith will require you to deal with similar issues in your own life. I believe faith is best taught by modeling it for others. In order for me to model faith, you must see examples of my thought process and my fear as I learn to trust Jesus. I reluctantly use my own name as the author of this second edition.

    To some small degree, I want you to see the positive results of living by faith. I can make that recommendation to you from my own experience of asking God to give me faith during a 25-year period of time while I was working in the electrical trade. My recommendation reflects my awareness that God is answering my prayer for faith by allowing me to inexorably lose a 40-year battle with diabetes. This includes an unknown future in light of mental and emotional deterioration resulting from four extremely severe insulin reactions in the last seven years. In my mid-50s I lost my pension as the result of a plant closure and was subsequently unemployed three times. Because of my diabetes I was forced into an unwelcome and financially disastrous early retirement at age 62. Since I was working temporary jobs which allowed time for ministry, I had no company loyalty to fall back on. Living by faith—that is, learning to trust Jesus—is becoming increasingly costly for me. Nonetheless, I continue to pursue faith aggressively. I would not choose to live any other way. Living by faith has also resulted in greatly enhanced personal ministry.

    After personally experiencing some of both its cost and its blessings, I wholeheartedly recommend that you pursue faith.

    This book is divided into two sections. Section 1 (chapters 1 through 7) explains the process of acquiring faith. Section 2 (chapters 8 through 24) contains shorter chapters related to living by faith.

    The illustrations in the first seven chapters portray a high degree of commitment and cost. These illustrations are often qualified in Section 2. As you read, be aware that further explanations are yet to come.

    Faith does not replace appropriate planning and decision-making. God has given us sound judgment as a tool to be used in personal finances, a healthful lifestyle, and the like. Faith is not a fatalistic approach to life. Nor does faith ignore either human wisdom or beneficial social institutions. In specific instances, however, God may lead us to go beyond trusting mere human effort.

    Before you begin reading this book, I want to remind you of the importance of the unity of the body of Christ. In Ephesians 4:1-6 Paul says,

    I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. (NASB)

    All true believers in Jesus, irrespective of the church group they identify with, are members of the body of Christ. The unity of His body is of paramount importance to Jesus. It should be of equal importance to all of us who are His followers.

    It is entirely appropriate that we set our hearts on growing in faith. It must also please Jesus when we encourage others to trust Him, too.

    But we must never allow that which is good to become a source of division between us as believers. Our human tendency is to view our way of pursuing faith as the standard for others. We must be extremely careful that we do not turn the positive emphasis of growing in faith into something divisive which hinders our unity in Christ.

    Earnestly desire to grow in faith because faith pleases Jesus. Model a life of faith that others can see when they are so inclined. When it is appropriate to do so, help fellow believers to grow in faith. But never allow the subject of faith to become sectarian by presuming that you have the most orthodox point of view. Never allow your experience in faith to divide the body of Christ.

    And finally, I have learned much from reading biographies. I discovered that others had already faced the same struggles on the road to faith which I thought were uniquely mine.

    However, the common weakness of any biography is the necessity of describing only the high points of an individual's life. When a biographer must condense a lifetime into 300 pages or less, we always lose sight of the daily routine of that person's life. We see only the high points.

    Be aware of that same limitation in this book. I am merely reporting the high points in some of my own lessons in faith. This book represents almost 45 years of my life, 25 of which have been spent in actively pursuing faith. Nonetheless, those last 25 years were spent in the context of a routine life while I was employed in the secular trades. There were certainly moments when I could see that growth was taking place. But as a whole, it was a process which took place during the routine of everyday life.

    Most surprising of all is that after I have presumably learned these lessons, I still go through times in which there seem to be few "victories of faith" (whatever that would be!) in my life and personal ministry.

    If you decide to pursue faith, allow God to lead you in His own time. Do not attempt to measure your growth by anyone else's experiences, and do not demand that God give you certain levels of faith (and resulting ministry) according to your expectations.

Copyright notice: This book is not copyright-protected and may be reproduced without restriction as long as the original text consisting of: 1) an overview, 2) twenty four chapters, and 3) two appendices is not altered. Notwithstanding the restrictions concerning the text, the book may be reproduced without using the original author's name. However, all quotations from other sources which are reproduced in this book are protected by the copyrights of the original publisher.

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations identified as (NASB) are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright© The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)