Using your phone or a piece of paper, I want you to take a quick note. Simply write down three things that you know God wants you to do, but for whatever reason, you struggle to do it (or you struggle to give it up). I don’t mean things like “be happier,” but specific actions or behaviors like “stop complaining about my car” or “respect my boss.” Anything from “read my Bible more” to “stop drinking” or “stop looking at porn” are great things to write.
I’m praying God will use what you write to change your life over the next few minutes, so come up with something.
A quick series recap
If you haven’t been able to keep up with this series, I’ll provide links and summaries to each article. If time allows, consider reading each article to get a deeper understanding of what we’ve learned about faith up to this point.
In part 1, we got a broad understanding of faith. We used a chair to help us understand it, realizing that we exercise faith in chairs by following three steps: examining, evaluating, and finally sitting down.
In part 2, we looked at the first step of seeing that the object of our faith exists. Just as we don’t give full faith to a chair without first seeing it, we can’t live the Christian life while doubting God’s existence.
In Part 3, we then dug into the importance of why we trust something. We all have certain requirements before we’ll trust a chair – after all, we wouldn’t sit in a chair with nails hammered upward in the seat or put our full weight on something made of flimsy cardboard. Likewise, we must understand why God is worthy of our faith. We must see, and believe, that He is trustworthy and able to do what He says.
Understanding all of that, let’s look at one of the most easily forgotten parts of our faith.
See, believe, and rest
God regularly reminds people of who He is. He is the “I am,” the God of all eternity. His existence is seen in the fact that there is order instead of chaos, beauty instead of bare functionality, and something instead of nothing.
Likewise, He regularly reminds us of what He’s done. We regularly see Him talk to Israel about the ways God has proven that He is trustworthy. He calls them to remembrance about how He’s rescued them in the past, and even asks them to logically consider whether idols humans have to carve are really more likely to save them than the almighty God of the universe.
You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. (James 2:19)
God doesn’t just call us to acknowledge that He’s real or believe that Christ is worth following. In a way, that’s the easy part because that’s all based on evidence. The difficult part comes when God asks us what we’re going to do about it.
We can stand next to a chair all day and claim we find it trustworthy. We can keep telling others it’s sturdy and comfortable. It’s easy to convince ourselves that we truly believe all of these things, yet if we refuse to fully rest in that chair, how much faith do we really have in it? It’s easy to talk the talk, but our faith is truly displayed by how it guides our lives.
Works by faith
But someone may well say, “You have faith and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” … But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? (James 2:18, 20)
The Bible is bursting with examples of how faith demands to be accompanied by action. The entirety of Hebrews 11 calls to mind all these Old Testament people who, because of their faith, did something in obedience and love for God:
- Abel offered a better sacrifice than Cain
- Enoch lived a life that was so dedicated to God that he was taken before death
- Noah built an ark
- Abraham obeyed and went where God told him to go, and lived as a foreigner there
- Sarah received the ability to conceive at an old age because she believed God was faithful and kept His promises
- Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice
- Moses refused to be called an Egyptian and live an easy life
- Rahab protected the Israelite spies
- Israel conquered Jericho
- In Hebrews 11:32, even the writer admits there’s just too many examples to list them all
The true mark of faith in God isn’t in what we say, or even what we believe, but in what we do about it.
All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11:13-16)
These people all had a hope of a coming savior because they believe God would keep His word. They believed He was worth dedicating their lives to, despite having no immediate feedback and every reason to choose the easy path. By believing that God was trustworthy, they did things that showed their faith was in things they couldn’t see.
This is precisely what that famous verse about faith is talking about:
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)
We have faith in Jesus Christ. We believe He’s worth pursuing because God has proven Himself mighty, good, and loving. But that can never be enough. If we truly believe it, our lives will show evidence by the things we pursue and the things we reject.
Not faith by works
To be clear, it’s not our actions that prove that we have faith. We can’t generate faith by doing something. That is salvation by works, and the Bible is just as clear that it’s not our works that save us.
For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. (Luke 6:44-45)
Even things that seem good can come from wicked motivations. Consider how much time Christ spent saying things like this to the Pharisees, men whose lives appeared to be so devoted to God that they’d make us all look like pagans by comparison. Yet for all the good they appeared to do, their actions were never motivated by a true faith in God. Rather, their faith rested in their own ability to do good and save themselves.
Our first act of true faith
Consider what was involved in the moment of your salvation. You believed the truth of God’s wrath against your sin because it violated His law and holiness. Knowing there was no way to save yourself, you trusted that Christ’s death and resurrection was the only way to truly pay the penalty of your sin. And then, most importantly… you had the faith call to Him for salvation.
Salvation is the purest form of our faith. Crying out to Christ from beneath the overwhelming weight of our sin isn’t what creates our faith. Rather, begging Christ to save us from our rightful condemnation is a natural outcome of realizing who He is, who we are, and how desperately we need Him.
Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25 ESV)
We desire this beautiful, unmerited salvation because we believe that the one we put our faith in not only exists but is capable of saving us so completely. When we’ve spent our lives trying to find satisfaction in a broken world, working to be “good enough” while knowing how wretched we are, we realize how very hopeless our situation is. When confronted with the glorious reality of Christ, what else can we do except to act on what is so clearly revealed to us?
Faith in false gods
Of course, salvation isn’t the only way we see that action is simply the final step of placing our faith in something. In fact, every act against our holy God is done specifically because we’re putting our faith in something else to bring us satisfaction. We can see when our hearts are far from God by honestly examining where we’re truly finding our hope.
Anger? We’re often trying to find hope in having our desires met, and we react when we don’t get what we want. Lust? We’re putting our hope in pleasure. Laziness? Surely meeting our desire for comfort will help us fill the emptiness in our soul. Ultimately, we put our faith in finding satisfaction in our own happiness, rather than living in the will of God.
Everything we do in our lives is evidence of our faith in something. Whether it’s sitting on chairs, yelling at our kids, or praying to God, we do things because we want to believe that the object of our faith will give us what we desire. Yet a lifetime of disappointment easily, painfully, reveals to us that nothing else can give us what we need without failing us.
Nothing apart from Jesus Christ will last, because everything else is as weak and broken as we are. Just as Christ was the only one who could save us from our sin, He remains the only one worth trusting in every area of our lives.
Looking at that list
Faith is both incredibly simple and painfully difficult. We know Christ is worth pursuing, but doing that often demands that we lay aside our faith in weaker things that feel familiar, comfortable, and safe. We know that, by truly stepping out in faith, we’ll be putting our full weight on the grace of Christ to embrace a life that seems so at odds with everything this sinful world finds valuable. We know that faith demands a lifetime of growing closer to Christ by dying to our own desires so that we can live in His.
And if you made a list at the start of this article, you know where to start.
“For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not delay. But My righteous one shall live by faith; And if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.
That list is specifically why a discussion on biblical faith is so critical. True, genuine faith will naturally create a desire to act upon what we believe. The things we say and do, what we purchase, how we react to situations, where we spend our time… all of it points to the various things we put our faith in.
Of course, that’s not to say that the items on the list mean we aren’t saved. God is far too good to leave something as valuable as our eternal destiny in the hands of someone who can’t even go one day without idolatry. However, that list is an excellent indicator of areas where we’re resisting Christ, putting our faith in something lesser because we’re convinced it has more power and value than it truly does.
Look an item on the list, and consider three questions:
- Do I know God wants me to do something about this?
- Do I believe that Christ offers greater satisfaction than ignoring this ever could?
- Do I have a legitimate reason not to surrender this to God and do what He desires?
We see the truth of something in our lives.
We believe what God has to say about it.
We do something about it by the power of the Holy Spirit.
That’s what it means to live by faith, and that’s what it means to live a life that is pleasing to God. The comforts and struggles of the world seem so important now, but God’s ways are better. Everything else will fail us, but living by faith in Christ will never go to waste. Trust Him for salvation, and trust Him for all of life.
This article is part of the series “65 Theology Questions People Will Ask You.” Click the link to read more articles like this one!
