Title: How to Believe Is True Faith?
Contents
Romans 12:1 says, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” The word “spiritual” is derived from the Greek word “logikos,” which means “word of the Lord,” and the meaning of this word is “reasonable” in English. When we worship God spiritually, it means that we worship by mobilizing our reason. In order to provide a rational worship service in which intelligence, justice, and will harmonize at the same time, we must become a thinking Christian. You have to think, ‘Will God really be pleased with this?’ ‘What is the meaning of my life?’ Faith without thinking becomes blind faith. Blind faith destroys us. Believers must believe, thinking that they must always live according to God's will. If I pray while thinking about whether I live according to God's will or why I should pray, the content will change. Everyone has a frame of faith and hates its change.
How will you believe? How can belief be true right faith? The definition of belief must be renewed in order to transcend For example, for a ten-year-old daughter, the definition of ‘daddy’ is just to buy candy and help with homework. However, just as the definition of a father changes when the child turns 20 or 30, the definition of faith changes as faith matures. Let's define "faith" in a new term.
1. Faith is obedience.
Being a Christian means being a person of obedience. ① It is obedience to the Word of God. Faith is total obedience to every word and command in the Bible. ② “Faith is obedience” means obedience to the circumstances given to me. No matter what situation I am in right now, the right faith is to believe that it is God-given.
Fanny Crosby, who composed hymn 434, confesses, "No matter what happens, everything will be well." There will be only obstacles everywhere the blind man walks, so how does it all work out? The reason was that he closed his eyes because he had accepted the fact that his situation was God's grace, but everything went well. He could only see with his eyes closed what he could not see with his eyes open. Don't complain about the fog in your life. It is the attitude of a true believer to accept with gratitude that there is a grace that God is about to give because it has been delayed and stagnant.
2. Faith is courage.
If obedience to a given situation is faith, then what I need to be obedient to any given situation is courage. We must be really courageous. So, when faith is courage, where does that courage come from? If the source of courage is myself, then it is arrogance. But when the source of courage comes from God, we have true faith. All the great men of faith in the Bible were men of courage. History is changed by that one courageous man. The Apostle Paul went to Rome with chains and was imprisoned in a crypt. There is no hope in sight. But he wrote the New Testament in that crypt. If they had not had the courage to accept the circumstances, they would have ended up in a miserable death in a crypt, far from writing the New Testament.
3. Faith is the gaze.
If faith is courage, and the source of that courage is the Lord who is with me, what is faith? Faith is living while always looking at the God who is with you with your own eyes. Faith is the gaze toward God.
There is really nothing in the wilderness of Israel. Not a single piece of grass, not a drop of water. There Jesus fasted and prayed for 40 days. You didn't go because you wanted to go. He went because the Holy Spirit compelled him to lead him. David lived in the wilderness to escape the sword of Saul. He also didn't buy it because he wanted to live there. You could have talked to Moses even on the plains, but would God have called Moses to the top of Mount Sinai and let him dwell there for 40 days? Not a single tree can be seen from the top of Mount Sinai. There is nothing to appreciate. There is nothing to think of but God. By calling Jesus into the wilderness, by calling David into the wilderness, and by calling Moses to the top of Mount Sinai, God fixed his gaze on God.
In Psalm 16:7, David confessed, “Every night my heart instructs me.” Every time my heart beat, I felt God moving my heart. He heard God's lessons through the sound of his heart and lived in grace.
The fact that we were able to eat three meals a day today and even urinate is because God protects our health. Go to the hospital. Even among those who have a lot of money in the bank, there are many people who can't eat even one meal a day and lie down.
Psalm 23:4 says, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for God is with me; Your rod and your staff comfort me.” Like David's confession, I hope you will have faith.