Paying the Price of Faith
By Linda Rex
During the time of my personal spiritual upheaval in which I went from the legalistic underpinnings of my youth in Worldwide Church of God to the grace-based reality of life in Christ I experience today, I wrote a letter to a high-school friend, explaining how God had changed my heart and mind. My purpose in writing this letter was to renew our friendship and to try to make amends for any harm I may have done through my misguided theological beliefs.
In my letter I explained the transformation in my understanding and beliefs, and how it was all through God’s grace. I was hoping I would not offend this dear friend by my zeal to share with her the wonderful blessing of God’s work in my heart and life. I most certainly did not want to alienate her in any way.
I was grateful to receive back from her a letter filled with warm understanding and appreciation of our friendship and of the change which had occurred in my life. She also wrote that she envied my strong faith. That surprised me. For the last thing I ever thought about myself was that I was strong in my faith.
I’ve had other people tell me something similar whenever I share with them what God has done in my life and try to encourage them to grow in their relationship with their Abba through Jesus. It seems that having faith is a nebulous yet longed for goal in people’s lives. We want to believe in something or Someone, but we don’t know where to begin, especially when we find nothing within ourselves to be the source of that faith. We think we have no faith at all, when in reality, we have a source of faith within ourselves that is abundant and always accessible.
This source of faith is the person and power of Jesus Christ by the indwelling Spirit. The faith we long for will not be found in our own broken humanity, but in the perfected, glorified humanity of Jesus Christ, which was poured out on each of us through his Holy Spirit. To embrace the faith of Jesus Christ is to open ourselves up to the work of God in us by the Holy Spirit.
Maybe one of the reasons we struggle so much in this area is because we think if we had great faith, everything would go well in our lives. If we needed something, we could just ask God for it and believe God would give it to us, and he would. Maybe we think if we could just drum up enough faith, God would come through for us every time we asked him for something. We wouldn’t have any problems in our lives because we were strong in our faith and living good lives.
There is a fundamental flaw in this way of thinking and it has to do with what we believe about God and about ourselves in relationship with him. For this is what faith is all about—believing the truth about Who God is as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and who we are in Christ as God’s adopted, forgiven and redeemed children—and trusting in the gracious love of Abba as he works to bring to completion all he has begun in us through Christ and in his Spirit.
The faith we need isn’t our own faith, but the faith of Jesus, Who lived eternally in relationship with Abba in the Spirit as the Word of God. When the Word of God took on our human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, his complete, implicit faith in his Father, his Abba, was evident at every point in his life. It was most effectively expressed in his final moments on the cross when, even though he did not feel the presence of Abba in his humanity, he entrusted his Spirit and his being into the care of Abba. He trusted implicitly and entirely in this relationship of love which he had had with his Father since before time began. He knew to the core of his being he could never be separated from his Father’s love.
We need to take heed to Jesus’ words of warning and comfort: “…in this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33 NIV) Each of us, no matter who we are, no matter how “good” we are, no matter how faithful we are, is going to have trouble in this world. Hard times will come. Suffering will happen. Life will be a struggle. But Jesus says to us: “…take heart, I have overcome the world.”
What we can rely upon is the reality no matter what we are facing, in Jesus we can find the strength, the courage and the faith to endure it. No matter what our needs are, we can find in Christ, by the Spirit, the ability to touch the heart of God and to know he cares for us and will carry us through our emptiness to the other side where he has enough for us—maybe even an abundance for us.
God calls to us and says to us over and over, “Trust me. Trust in my love for you.” And we don’t, because we are frail, broken creatures who have only experienced disappointment, loss and betrayal throughout our lives. It can be almost impossible to trust a God Whom we don’t know, or Whom we see through the lens of all the hateful, hurtful people in our lives who have let us down, abused us or betrayed us.
So we go through life, over and over facing opportunities to learn the deepest truth of our lives: God loves us and he is trustworthy and faithful, no matter what. We experience the pain and suffering of our humanity in the midst of the reality we are held—held in the grip of God’s grace in love through his Son Jesus Christ and his presence by his Spirit. Indeed, if we are open to receive it, God never leaves us or forsakes us, but is always present in every moment, ready and willing to carry us out of darkness into his marvelous light.
In every relationship there are ebbs and flows, ups and downs. There are times when we are close to one another, and others where we cannot stand to be in the same room with one another. Some relationships are stronger and deeper than others, whereas some are just simply a sharing of time and space with one another as circumstance indicates.
In this same way, our relationship with God ebbs and flows and has its ups and downs. We come to see, over time and through many experiences in the difficult times in life, that God is always a good God, always faithful and trustworthy, always willing to listen and to understand, always willing to carry us when we cannot carry ourselves. God allows things to test our trust and faith in him, knowing through these experiences we will grow into a deeper love for him and faith in him as we turn to Christ in the midst of these difficulties.
It is Christ in us by the Spirit who trusts Abba through all these difficulties. It is his faith at work in us in the midst of trials and struggles. It is Jesus’ perfect knowledge of the Father we participate in when we hold on to God in faith while struggling with pain, suffering or loss. When we see all we are going through as merely a sharing in Christ’s pain, suffering and loss, we find within ourselves a capacity to endure and to trust in spite of it all.
Lately, God has shown me how I have not been trusting him as completely and implicitly as I could and should do. Intellectually I can believe in the goodness and love of God, but the reality of what is going on in my heart can be heard in the words coming out of my mouth in casual conversation as I struggle with these changes and challenges in my life right now.
It is how we put the faith of Christ in us to work in the midst of difficulties which shows the quality or completeness of our faith—and so God allows us to struggle. The tree on the edge of the cliff, blown by the wind and tested by the storms, is the tree which puts its roots down deepest into the soil. It is not our faith which will hold us, but the faith of Christ deep within us, by the Spirit, which holds us in the midst of our struggles. May your faith and mine be proven to be genuine and real as we bear the storms of life.
Abba, thank you that it is the faith of Jesus in us by your Spirit which really matters in the end, not our own faith. Thank you for being near and being faithful no matter what is happening in our lives. Grant us the grace to trust you and in your perfect love in every situation, through Jesus and by your Spirit. Amen.
“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” James 1:2–4 NASB
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.” 1 Peter 1:3–9 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 