Foundation Of Faith

Sometimes the Lord has to make a wreck of our faith to teach us about faith. 

So much of our faith tends to be based on emotion. Many of us build our faith on what we can see and what we feel, rather than what God says about Himself. We build with the framework of emotion on the sands of circumstance, and when the circumstances are agreeable and good, our faith feels secure. But when God pulls out the pin holding it all together, our construct of circumstance-based faith begins to fall apart. 

As I continue to read through my stack of novels about the lives of different missionaries, I keep coming face-to-face with my own need for a greater faith— one that is not based on anything other than what God says about Himself. I need a faith that cannot be mustered nor maintained by human emotion. I need a faith that has no impetus in anything human at all. A faith not earned, but given. A faith not imagined, but lived. 

Austin-Sparks states that Christ must be known through experience, rather than through information— “The only way to know Him is by… being wrecked upon Him…so He brings us to a place of helplessness in order that we might discover our resource in Him.” A faith that endures is a faith that is tested. It is a faith that is not defined by circumstance. It is a faith that may be dashed upon the rocks of tribulation over and over, yet not found wanting. Because it is a faith that has found both its resource and strength in the Lord Himself. 

O Father in heaven, may we have such a faith. 

(Matt 21:42-44) Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”

(Rom 12:13) For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but think of yourself with sober judgment, according to the measure of faith God has given you.

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

(Rom 4:19-21) Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through disbelief in the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.