A DIFFICULT CONCEPT

Hosea 1:1-3:5; 1 John 5:1-21; Psalm 124:1-8; Proverbs 29:8

“When the Lord first began speaking to Israel through Hosea, he said to him, ‘Go and marry a prostitute, so that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution. This will illustrate how Israel has acted like a prostitute by turning against the Lord and worshiping other gods.’”

“We know that we are children of God and that the world around us is under the control of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding so that we can know the true God. And now we live in fellowship with the true God because we live in fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the only true God, and he is eternal life. Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.”

“We escaped like a bird from a hunter’s trap. The trap is broken, and we are free! Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.”

“Mockers can get a whole town agitated, but the wise will calm anger.”

As I approach the conclusion of this journey – only twenty-six more days to go! – one theme that keeps repeating itself in my head is that a life of faith has very little to do with emotion or how we may “feel” about things. It is much more a question of what is. Meaning, faith actually is grounded on objective fact rather than subjective belief. Our problem as humans is that we have difficulty translating or accepting spiritual truth as objective fact. Because God’s Truth encompasses so much more than we can comprehend, we have a hard time believing it. That does not in any way change the objective accuracy of spiritual truth. It should not impact our faith therein, either. What is, is, regardless of how we feel about it or what we believe. However, we too often allow what we believe, or what we are able to conceive, to define the limits of our faith, and that’s just wrong.

Belief is only a synonym for faith when it sets limits upon, and so artificially defines, what we think of as faith. In reality, true faith transcends personal belief. Faith is the recognition and acceptance of facts which are by definition beyond our ability to logically comprehend or believe them. For example, I may have a difficult time believing Grace will really save me at the end of the day. But in faith, I still have the audacity to put my faith in the fact that grace can and will do its thing as advertised, regardless of whether I feel worthy of it or not.

The question for eternity thus is not what we believe; it is in what facts we choose to place our faith. God will not ask us what we think, for that, in eternal terms, is never relevant to the issue of what is. He will ask us what we know to be true. If we make the mistake of answering based only on the physical realities of this world, our spiritual myopia might well undo us.

When it comes down to what is true, there is much more to the answer than what meets the eye. No doubt, Truth is defined – but only in part - by physical realities. It is also described by what the Spirit says is true. Therein lies the heart of our difficulties with faith. Those of us who are not inclined to listen to the Spirit of God will never be able to even hear, much less actually grasp, the vast universe of spiritual truth. Without knowing those facts, we can never hope to understand Truth.

Belief does give us a reason to test the deeper realities of eternity. Once we do that, though, we can never again say we merely believe in spiritual truths. We either know them, or we do not. We either accept spiritual truth as factual reality in which we place faith, or at best, we merely engage in hopeful, but nevertheless wishful, thinking.

This is not a semantic battle. It is literally the difference between life and death. If we are content to live on the basis of what we believe to be true, we become Satan’s easy prey. We can believe actions do not have consequences. We can convince ourselves that sin does not separate. We can also be fatally wrong and condemn ourselves to despair and regret. Knowing Jesus Christ for Who and What He is dispels all possibility of error. If, however, we hold back from total commitment and simply acknowledge our personal belief that Jesus is Lord, the idea that this represents any kind of tangible or life-saving faith is ridiculous. We have no faith because we will not commit to the fact that Jesus IS Lord. Our Savior is not remotely interested in whether or not we believe in Him. What concerns Him is whether we truly know Him or not.

We can believe almost anything. Only knowledge can honestly support faith. Consequently, our living, present relationship with Christ is the only thing that will support saving faith in Him as Messiah. What do you know about Jesus? Forget belief. Belief is cheap; it’s cheaply won and easily forsaken. Faith requires facts. Faith that saves is faith in the knowledge that our Lord is here and now, whether we believe Him to be or not.