The Focus Of Your Faith

“Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God, Whose ways you may not understand at the time.”—Oswald Chambers

There are many misconceptions about faith in the church today.  Faith is not believing that something we want to happen, will happen.  Faith is not saying to God, “I know You will do such-and-such thing.”  We don’t manipulate God, we align ourselves with Him.  He is not the one who changes, we are.  When the writer of Hebrews described faith as, “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (11:1), it was a hope and conviction in God’s character-- a hope and conviction in God's faithfulness to follow through on His promises.  True faith is when we hold onto God even when He doesn’t do what we want.  Faith is knowing and believing that He loves us, even when our circumstances seem to portray otherwise.

True faith is faith in a person.  Our faith is in God Himself, not in what He may or may not do.  True faith is not in hoped-for temporal circumstances, because there will come many times in our life when we believe God is going to act in a certain way, but He acts in another.  Our faith cannot be put in a hoped-for set of earthly circumstances because we do not know the mind of God.  We make assumptions, and sometimes those assumptions are right and sometimes they are wrong.  But as long as our faith is rightly placed in Who God is, rather than how we assume or hope He will act during the course of our lives, we will never be wrong or disappointed, because God never changes.  God is.  And He will always be.  But He is often not what we expect.  A genuine encounter with God shatters all illusion and previously held notions about Him.  This is because we come to Him on His terms, not ours.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asked God, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will” (Matt 26:39).  We look at this verse and it seems to us that Jesus is asking God to change His circumstances, but that is not what is taking place here.  Read it again.  Jesus is describing and confessing His own will, then asking God to change it, if necessary, to align it with His.  This verse is Jesus' prayer to align His will with the Father’s.  That is why a few verses down, when Jesus prays the second time, we see a change in His approach.  He doesn’t say anything about His own will.  He simply says, “if it is not Your will for this to pass away, then let Your will be done” (v. 42).  We see no bargaining with God here, just surrender and resignation to the will of God.  God did not grant Jesus’ will, but Jesus surrendered and followed Him anyway, even though the path led to His own death.

Jesus gave us the greatest example of accepting God on His terms, rather than our own.  Jesus didn’t put His expectations on God and call that “faith.”  Faith is our surrender to God on His terms, not ours, and clinging to Him regardless of how those circumstances turn out.

And without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. (Heb 11:6)

Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Pet 1:8,9)

As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in Him will never be put to shame”…Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. (Rom 10:11,17)