Faith is the first command and most common command of Jesus. It may seem impossible to command faith - as impossible as it is to command love (Mk 12:30-31) - but Jesus says that this is the most crucial step.
Faith is the only way we can know we are hearing Good News - good news, as opposed to good advice, can only be received by trusting. Faith here is something a lot like humility.
Faith is the only we can enter the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is the great inversion. God uses the weak of the world to redeem the world (1 Cor 1:26-31). The king Himself leads by serving. But we are impressed by power and impatient for results. Our instincts are off when it comes to the way the kingdom works - so we need to proceed by faith. We need to trust God's ways more than we trust our own.
Quote from Reinhold Niebuhr is helpful here. "Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. "
Faith is the way through the wilderness. There are lots of voices out there that speak louder than God's voices - each of them telling us who we are and what we should want. Faith is focusing not so much on our own sinful desires or actions (of which there are plenty) but on what God says.
This is why we do Bible study, church etc... not to make an experience happen or to gain credit. We do it to hear God's voice more clearly, to ground our faith.
Two Articles
An article I read this week helped me to wrestle with this idea. Bridges concludes that the gospel of grace by faith is for everyone, including Christians.
As I see it, the Christian community is largely a performance-based culture today. And the more deeply committed we are to following Jesus, the more deeply ingrained the performance mindset is. We think we earn God's blessing or forfeit it by how well we live the Christian life. Most Christians have a baseline of acceptable performance by which they gauge their acceptance by God. For many, this baseline is no more than regular church attendance and the avoidance of major sins. Such Christians are often characterized by some degree of self-righteousness. After all, they don't indulge in the major sins we see happening around us. Such Christians would not think they need the gospel anymore. They would say the gospel is only for sinners.
For committed Christians, the baseline is much higher. It includes regular practice of spiritual disciplines, obedience to God's Word, and involvement in some form of ministry. Here again, if we focus on outward behavior, many score fairly well. But these Christians are even more vulnerable to self-righteousness, for they can look down their
spiritual noses not only at the sinful society around them but even at other believers who are not as committed as they are. These Christians don't need the gospel either. For them, Christian growth means more discipline and more commitment.
Bridges concludes: "So I learned that Christians need to hear the gospel all of their lives because it is the gospel that continues to remind us that our day-to-day acceptance with the Father is not based on what we do for God but upon what Christ did for us. I began to see that we stand before God today as righteous as we ever will be, even in heaven, because he has clothed us with the righteousness of his Son. Therefore, I don't have to perform to be accepted by God. Now I am free to obey him and serve him because I am already accepted in Christ (see Rom. 8:1). My driving motivation now is not guilt but gratitude."
Also liked this article.
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