Walking by Faith

There comes a point in our Christian growth when God calls us to walk by faith. Walking by faith has two key components - having faith and surrendering. This means that our walk by faith may have a couple of different stages to it (Note: there is no set path from stage to stage, however).

Baby Stage (Low Faith, Low Surrender) - In this baby stage, we do not really trust God, nor have we surrendered ourselves to Him in a significant way. We are walking by faith in name only. This is the typical starting point for most of us. The key indicators of being in this stage is that our life matters a great deal to us and we do not think God can or will take care of us.

There is a second group in this category of low faith and low surrender, but they are not babies in the faith at all. This group consists of people who have such a negative emotional picture of themselves and the Lord that they cannot trust Him or surrender themselves to Him in a significant way. Typically, they are well aware of their struggles and really want things to be different. However, they are in the ICU Stage (Low Faith, Low Surrender) where much healing needs to happen before they can walk by faith.

Self-Sufficient Stage (High Faith, Low Surrender) - When we believe in the goodness of God, but we are not yet ready to lay down our self-will to Him, we are in the self-sufficient stage. It is possible for us to have been Christians for a long time and to be well-regarded by others, and yet still be in this stage. This is especially true if we are very talented or have a lot of worldly wisdom. Because our hearts are so deceitful, it is also possible to live in this stage and not even be aware of it. The key indicators are that we still consider our lives to be important and we still think too highly of ourselves. It is a place of great, albeit subtle, pride.

Wounded Stage (Low Faith, High Surrender) - Frequently, people who have been wounded in the past are willing to surrender themselves to the Lord, but do not have any expectation of receiving anything good from Him. They are willing to pay the cost to follow Jesus, but they walk by faith in not being blessed instead of in being blessed. Because they simply cannot face the disappointment of being let down once again, it is easier to just not expect anything. The key indicators of someone in this stage are unresolved abuse, rejection and authority issues.

Faithful Stage (High Faith, High Surrender) - The person in this stage has embraced the paradox of losing their life to gain it. He or she places no importance on their life anymore - they do not love it even to death. They exist only to serve the Lord. At the same time, this person has discovered the tremendous love that the Father has for them. As a result, they gladly trust Him and have no fear of what may happen.

Notice this, though, what may happen may not be pleasant. The person in the faithful stage is no longer personally invested in how their life turns out. Their life is fully surrendered to God and they have released any claim they may have had on what God does with it. Instead, their satisfaction and success in life is found in the love of the Father - and this allows them to have great faith that whatever the Father does with them is good.

Also keep in mind that the stages presented here are not distinct categories. There are gradients to faith and surrender. Rarely will we find ourselves exactly in one category or another. However, we can begin to see what our dominant tendencies are and ask the Lord to work specifically on those areas so that we can mature in our walk with Him.

Conclusion - The way we grow in being able to walk by faith is simple: The more we know the Father and His love for us, the better we can surrender, the more faith we can have, and the more healing we will experience. So, we don't exert ourselves to generate more faith or greater surrender by ourselves. Instead, we make it our goal to press in to know the Father. As we do that, all the rest gets taken care of.

Freedom in Christ - Free to be Ourselves

I have been spending my time lately contemplating freedom. Here are a few thoughts:

1. We limit our own freedom: Although most of us say we want to be genuine with others, we are often afraid of what others may think. So, rather than be genuine, we perform, presenting to others who we think they want us to be, not who we are.

This masquerade has a couple of unintended consequences. First, we begin to think that we also need to perform for God. We act differently at church than we do at home. We become dishonest in prayer - telling God what we think He wants to hear, not what we actually think or feel. In doing so, we lose the opportunity for a real relationship with God. It all becomes a dry act of religion with no life in it.

Another unintended consequence is that as we get better and better at performing for others, we lose sight of who we are. We begin to identify ourselves with the persona we present to others more than the person that we really are. We become lost. As a result, it becomes increasingly impossible for us to have meaningful relationships with others since who we really are is never a part of the relationship.

2. We limit others freedom. We all have a natural tendency to try to define a person in a particular way. When we make our definition of someone rigid and inflexible, our relationship with them will be limiting on who they are and uncomfortable for them. Probably the best example of this is when we are around family members who have not seen us in a while. When we are together, it feels like they are squeezing us back into who we used to be instead of letting us be who we have become. We notice the discomfort when it is we who are being squeezed. Still, we continue to squeeze others because it would become uncomfortable to us if we were to actually give them the freedom to change.

3. Freedom is found in Christ. The best way to allow ourselves to be who we really are is in a genuine relationship with Jesus. When we know the love of God in a deep and personal way, then our deepest needs for security & belonging are met. Then, we are able to risk being ourselves from a position of strength instead of having to fiercely guard against rejection.

In addition, when we cry out to God to know Him more, He begins to work in us the healing we need to be who we really are. You see, He wants a relationship with us and not any persona we put on. So, seeking intimacy with God calls forth from within us our genuine selves and puts us in a place of emotional security that gives us the courage to live genuinely with others - and to let them be genuine with us. This process is not always as easy or pleasant as it may sound.

Still, perhaps today, Jesus is calling out to us. If you are like me, your genuine self has spent too much time buried away. And now, the Savior is walking up to the tomb, calling out to the Lazarus in each of us, "Come forth!"

4. Freedom is Attractive. Of course, what I have written here is just one aspect of the freedom God gives us. There is much, much more. However, in a world that is hungry for real people, the freedom to be ourselves is perhaps even more appealing to them than the message of salvation. We, as lovers of Jesus who live life genuinely, will naturally call forth to the many Lazarus's we meet. Our own honesty will cry out to them to come forth, too.

Impossible Callings

There are times when the Lord calls us to do something that is impossible. It may be an act of forgiveness or a task that is outside of our abilities or any one of a number of things. In our performance Christianity, we usually think that every task God reveals is one that we need to do, even the impossible ones.

God's plan in those moments, though, may not be to make us do the task at all. More often than not, God's purpose is to expose our self-sufficiency and call us to a deeper level of trust in Him.

The next time you are confronted with something you can't do, don't beat yourself up over your failing or get discouraged at the task demanded of you. Instead, quiet yourself like a little child on its Father's lap and confess your smallness before Him. The Lord loves it when we trust Him and make room for Him to work.

Embracing Shortcomings

In Colossians 2:6-7, we are told that we should walk out our Christian life in just the same manner as we received salvation. In effect, what Paul is saying is that living the Christian life requires the same thing from us that salvation did.

What is that? Surrender.

The key to salvation is an act on our part to surrender ourselves to God. We no longer rely on our abilities or our worthiness to achieve salvation. We understand that it is only by His work that we are saved.

The same is true in the spiritual life. We can try to accomplish many things by our own efforts, but true success occurs when we surrender and allow God to accomplish in us what only He can do.

Too often, because we do not yet trust Him fully, we rely on our own efforts to grow spiritually. As we do, God will often show us the many areas in which we fall short of what He desires. Sadly, we may understand this revelation as a demand by the Lord that we work harder. In fact, He is trying to show us how incapable we are of true righteousness so that we will finally yield to Him and let Him work that righteousness in us.

When we do this, we are truly working out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it is God who is at work in us (Philippians 2:12-13). We can also embrace our shortcomings and delight in our weakness. We have finally discovered the truth that when we are weak, He is indeed strong (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Too much of Western Christianity more closely resembles a self-help program or a how-to manual, and too little of it calls to us to fall on our knees and cry out to the Lord as our only hope. But if we are to be truly spiritual, the road involves surrender, not accomplishment.

The Holiness of Brushing Your Teeth

One significant difference between life under the Old Covenant and life under the New Covenant is the power of sin.

In the Old Covenant, sin had the greater power. Defilement was stronger than holiness. As a result, followers of God had to avoid touching dead people; they stayed away from lepers; and they had to always be on guard to keep themselves from becoming unclean. The calling to the follower of God in that day was to avoid all evil and the defilement it caused. Holiness was something to be closely guarded.

Under the New Covenant, instead of things outside of us making us unclean, we make them holy. Paul puts it this way in Titus 1:15:

To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted

and do not believe, nothing is pure.

When we walk in submission and in love with Jesus, we have the ability to make whatever we do pure and holy - an acceptable act of worship in His eyes. We can even brush our teeth and our tooth brushing becomes in itself a holy activity of worship.

There is no need to go try and find great things to do for God. He is just as honored when we do little things for Him. He is not looking for the size of our results. He is looking for the devotion of our hearts. When our hearts are right, we make whatever we do in life holy and pleasing to Him.

Contradictions in God?

God is perfect. He is perfect in all of His attributes.

His mercy is perfect. His justice is perfect. His love is perfect.

But there's a problem.

How can a perfectly loving God exercise both perfect justice and perfect mercy? How can perfect justice ever forgive anything? It can't. Justice, in order to be just, must be impartial at all times and in every situation. It cannot show any mercy. To do so would be to be unjust.

But love delights in showing mercy. How, then, can a God be perfect in love, perfect in mercy and perfect in justice?

There is only one way. God, in perfect justice, must demand that there be a full and complete punishment for every act of wrong doing. Then God, in perfect love and mercy, must decide to take all the punishment He demands upon Himself and pay the price for sin by Himself.

When God chooses to do this act of atonement, His complete justice is met and His complete love and mercy are extended - and none of these aspects of who He is violates the perfection of the others.

In the cross of Christ all of God’s attributes are both summarized and displayed in their perfection – even those attributes that don’t seem like they could exist together.

No other religion can have a perfect God because no other religion has a cross.

Where do we find our identity?

Here's a thought:

We develop our identities from our interaction with the rest of the world. What our families, friends and others say to us and about us helps form our opinion of who we are. Add to that all of the self-talk we have inside and we have most of the data we use to form our self concept. Here's the catch: If you form your identity based on the feedback of a fallen world, you will end up with a fallen identity.

It is when we decide to choose to draw our self concept from what God says about us that we enter into our true identity.