For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to die for our redemption.
God first loved us and believed in us. He trusted us with His only Son’s life—that’s how much He loves us. So how can you build a relationship with such a God? You can’t, because he chose you first therefore there is nothing left to build but just to acknowledge, trust and obey. We simply have to grow in His love; our task is to grow into Him.
And the only way to grow into Him is by faith. Here is an article I found in the pages of Make Today Count by John C. Maxwell. After reading this article, I don’t think there’s anything more I can add to this masterpiece.
We Already Have Faith.. The Important Choice Is Where We Place It
Author John Bisagno observed, "Faith is at the heart of life. You go to a doctor whose name you cannot pronounce.
He gives you a prescription you cannot read. You take it to a pharmacist you have never seen. He gives you a medicine you do not understand and yet you take it."
We all have faith. Every day we act on beliefs that have little or no evidence to back them up. That is also true in a spiritual sense. Just as one person has faith that God is real, an atheist has faith that there is no God. Both people hold strong beliefs, and neither person can produce evidence lo absolutely prove his point of view. Right now, you already have faith in something. Your goal should be to align your beliefs with the truth. Seek the truth, and I believe you wil find it.
Understand That Faith Is Often Birthed Out of Difficulties
I've already shared that some skeptical people see faith as a negative thing, almost as a sign of weakness. If faith is new to you and you are uncertain how to approach it, then I would advise you to view it as an opportunity for a course correction in the journey of life.
If you are experiencing difficulties, allow yourself to explore faith in response to it. Henri Nouwen said this "is the great conversation in our life: to recognize and believe that the many unexpected events are not just disturbing interruptions of our projects, but the way in which God molds our hearts and prepares us." Faith not only can help you through a crisis, it can help you to approach life after the hard times with a whole new perspective. It can help you adopt an outlook of hope and courage through faith to face reality.
A Faith That Hasn't Been Tested Can't Be Trusted
It's not enough to simply make a faith decision. If you want to live it out, then you have to work at deepening it.
Faith gives you peace and strength only if it's not superfi-cial. The deeper the faith, the greater its potential to carry You through the rough times. As Rabbi Abraham Heschel Said, "Faith like Job's cannot be shaken because it is the result of having been shaken."
Perhaps nothing in recent history tested the faith of so many people as severely as the Holocaust. Viennese psychiatrist Victor Frankl was one of the survivors of the Nazis atrocities. He spent 1942 to 1945 in the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Dachau, Frankl once said, "A weak faith is weakened by predicaments and catastrophes whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them." Despite the horrors he witnessed and the treatment he suffered, his
faith didn't weaken—it deepened.
MANAGING THE DISCIPLINE OF FAITH
Thousands of books have been written on how to live out the discipline of faith. Perhaps that is so because it is such a difficult thing to do. For me, the discipline can be captured in one simple phrase: every day to live and lead like Jesus. While the words are simple, following through is not. Living out the discipline of faith is the greatest challenge of my Daily Dozen. The problem is that instead of being like Jesus, I often want to be like John Maxwell. I fall short of the mark. But with God as my helper, I keep growing. And when I do follow in his footsteps and live his principles, people are helped and I am fulfilled.
Following are four suggestions for managing your discipline of faith:
1. Embrace the Value of Faith
I've already given a number of reasons why I think faith is beneficial. But let me add to that list. There are some things in life you will arrive at only through faith. In the past, many people hoped that science would provide all the answers to life's questions. But science cannot do that.
Ironically, what is embraced as scientific fact changes from generation to generation. Just look at the way scientists have viewed our solar system. Ptolemy believed the earth was at its center. Copernicus asserted that the sun was at its center and the planets moved in circular orbits around it.
Kepler proved that the orbits were elliptical. Today, scientists no longer argue the structure of the solar system, but ideas about how it was formed change continually. In fact, just this week scientists found what they are calling the oldest known planet in the globular star cluster M4. They say it is a ""stunning revelation' that will force scientists to revise their ideas of planetary formation."26
Contrast science with faith. The core beliefs of Judaism and Christianity have not changed in thousands of years.
There is a spiritual aspect to human life that cannot be de-nied. Spiritual needs must be met spiritually. Nothing else will fill the void.
2. Put God in the Picture
There's a story of a man driving a convertible on a mountain road who took an unexpected turn too quickly and went right over the edge. As his car fell, he managed to grab on to a tree sprouting from the cliff face as his car dropped a thousand feet to the canyon floor.
"Help!" he screamed. "Can anyone hear me?" An echo was the only response.
"God, can you hear me?" he cried.
Suddenly the clouds rolled together and a voice like thunder said, "Yes, I can hear you."
"Will you help me?"
"Yes, I will help you. Do you believe in me?
"Yes, I believe in you."
"Do you trust me?"
"Yes, yes, I trust you. Please, hurry."
"If you trust me, then let go of the tree," thundered the voice.
After a long silence, the man cried, "Can anyone else
hear me?"
If you want to embrace faith, you must let God into your life. No one else is worthy of our absolute and unconditional trust. Theologian F. B. Meyer said, "Unbelief puts our circumstances between us and God. Faith puts God between us and our circumstances." Who wouldn't like to have the Creator of the universe helping them? James, one of the fathers of the first-century church, advised, "Come near to God and he will come near to you."
3. Associate with People of Faith
Comedian Bob Hope once went to the airport to meet his wife, Dolores, who had been doing some charity work for the Catholic Church. When her private plane pulled in, the first two people to step off the plane were Catholic priests. Then came Dolores, followed by four more Catholic priests. Hope turned to a friend near him and quipped,
"I don't know why she just doesn't buy insurance like everybody else!"
It's a fact that you become more like the people you spend time with. If you desire to increase your faith, spend time with others who exercise theirs. Learn from them.
Find out how they think.
4. Explore and Deepen Your Faith
Developing your faith is very similar to developing yourself physically. Perhaps that's why the Bible contains so many athletic metaphors for spiritual growth. If you want to get into good physical condition, you need to exercise your body regularly. If you don't, you not only don't gain strength and conditioning, you begin to lose what you once had.
D. L. Moody, a nineteenth-century lay preacher who founded Northfield Seminary and the Moody Bible Insti-tute, explained how his faith developed. He said, "I prayed for faith, and thought that some day faith would come down and strike me like lightning. But faith did not seem to come. One day I read in the tenth chapter of Romans,
'Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.' I had closed my Bible and prayed for faith. I now opened my Bible and began to study, and faith has been growing ever since."
Congratulations if you read to this point. I must say, faith is the compass that guides us to God and His purpose for our creation. With faith, there is no impossibility—your trust becomes limitless, knowing that God is always in control, even when it doesn’t seem that way.
I mean, you don’t think we were just born to exist without purpose, right? They always say life is more spiritual than physical, and that’s why we don’t live based on feelings. Feelings are temporary, but God’s Word is eternal and never changes.
Always read your Bible to keep your faith burning like an unquenchable flame!
Feel free to leave a beautiful comment for others if you are inspired.
- Austine Martins.
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