The importance of faith

I recently returned from India. It was a challenging time. A time of seeing what really matters in life and ministry. I was, amongst other things, compelled by simplicity. Why do we make this so complicated when Jesus spent all his time making it so simple? God forgive us!

I also learned from India was that I need more faith. I think that the curse of the western world that I live in is a lack of faith. As my old pastor used to say, ‘faith is the magic with God’. I’m starting to see how right he was. We can’t be any use to God without faith. In fact, without faith it is impossible to please God. We are saved by grace through faith. Faith is the door into all of the blessings that God has laid up for us in Christ.

The truth is that we can’t even see God without faith. Without faith all we will see is some watered down philosophical construct, which might make us feel God about our lives for a season, but which won’t provide transformation in us. Without faith we won’t see God, just a dim reflection in a mirror of our own pitiful souls.

Without faith we will always attempt to change our lives through our own efforts. We will seek to help ourselves to healing. We will become skilled in the language and liturgy of psycho-babble, heck, we might even construct a watertight theology around it, but we won’t see change. Our worship will become narcissism, self-obsessed squandering, empty tunes with empty hearts. Without faith God will not listen to our singing and preaching. It will be empty noise to Him and He will take no pleasure in it.

Only faith pleases God. Not effort. Not perfection or excellence. Not aesthetic. Not performance. Not knowledge. Not anything. Only faith worked out in love.
So how can we grow in faith? The first and most important step is to take our eyes from ourselves and put them onto God. Only when we choose to centre our lives on the character, nature, size and stature of God will we grow in faith.
The bible calls this Fear of the Lord.

We need to learn it. We need to be schooled in the power and size of God, the same God who could crush the universe just by ceasing to will it into existence. This is the God we serve. He owes us nothing. We owe Him everything. We revolve around Him, not He around us.

Faith grows in this environment. We must repent of our self-obsession and offer our bodies to God for His use. We must tear down the biggest idol and obstacle we have in seeing God as who he is. Us. We have to learn to fear God again and to live with big visions and big expectations.