Teach me, Lord, the way of Your decrees, that I may follow it to the end.
Give me understanding, so that I may keep Your law and obey it with all of my heart.
Direct me in the path of Your commands, for there I find delight. Psalm 119:33-35
Faith is a little five-letter word that we sometimes equate with “doing all things right before the Lord at all times, trusting Him in everything, and praying really hard, believing He will answer all of our prayers, though we cannot understand it at all.” Unfortunately, faith is a really big thing that a really big God has asked us to have. Not only are we called to have faith in Him, but we are encouraged to act in faith…faith in the True and Living God. To whom much is given, much will be required and at least for me, this is sometimes a very daunting task.
Thankfully faith is also often referred to as a “gift from God” in Scripture, and we can be certain that it is not all dependent on our “ability” to have faith in Him. But unfortunately, we often forget that God has given us tools to grow our faith in Him. In our waiting for this “gift” and not trying to “work hard at achieving anything,” we often sit still and do nothing. We simply lay at night and “ask” for the gift of faith. This is also sometimes really unhelpful.
So we are left somewhere in the awkward middle, trying to do our best at what we know we are called to do (rightfully so since it benefits us and those around us) and at the same time trying to trust that we cannot do it on our own, allowing God to grow it (somehow in His supernatural mysterious way) deep within us.
Something that has clicked recently for me is the realization that God spent a lot of time giving His people “The Law” to help them live in a way that honors Him. For some reason, I never go back and read that with attention. Maybe it is the whole “Leviticus” thing that does not seem exciting to me. But slowly I am realizing that the decrees God gave His people are very purposeful, and although we live “under grace,” we do not have to throw them all out the window.
I believe that if we choose to follow them, we will be surprised at how our faith grows. There is a direct relationship between understanding and following His decrees and intimacy and trust with our Father. It worked for hundreds of years; it must still work today.
Although we do not usually think of delighting in the day-to-day commands as a way to work on our “faith,” I have found that the little things make a big difference. Even little things like turning on candles in my room to separate the Sabbath from the rest of the week (my attempt to honor the Lord’s command to keep the Sabbath holy) has made a significant impact. Each week I do it even more joyfully, and delighting in His command to keep the Sabbath holy has surprisingly made me trust His Word a bit more each time.
How do you feel when you think of “The Law”? How has your faith in God grown or changed when you have delighted in His decrees? What commands or decrees have you been working on recently? Have you spent time asking God how He wants you to follow them at this time? In what ways can you change your behavior, add or take away things to honor His commands?
Today’s post was written by Cynthia Ramirez-Martinez. Cynthia grew up in a Christian home in Mexico City. She studied Communications at Wheaton College in Illinois and moved back to Mexico last August. She currently teaches high school sociology, research, history and culture in English in Mexico City. Cynthia loves people, traveling, and missions. She gets most excited when she hears/talks about the global Church. You can read more from Cynthia at her blog, Far Country.
Has anyone ever told you to just “have faith” when something’s going wrong in your life? I’ve heard it often. A former pastor of mine used to preach about how we’re always trying to measure and count our faith. Maybe if we have a little more faith, we can get what we want or need. Maybe if we can work up some extra faith, God will be more pleased with us.
The Bible has a lot to say about faith, and people are certainly commended over and over in Scripture for their faith.
But as my pastor would also preach, faith has to have an object. When the object of our faith is faith or ourselves, we’ll never have enough. But when the object of our faith is the Author and Perfecter of faith, the Holy Spirit gives us more than enough faith to please God.
For me, this idea has been life-changing. I used to often confuse faith in God with faith in my own ability to have faith. I wanted to please God, and I thought I needed to do something to work up more faith and to bring about God’s plan in my life.
But when I realized that Jesus should be the object of my faith, “building faith” came to mean building more intimacy with Jesus – getting to know Him better. Not running around, praying harder, studying more fervently, and trying to muster up a stronger feeling of belief in my heart. When the relational trust is there with Jesus, the feelings of faith come naturally.
Have you ever struggled to muster up more faith for faith’s sake? Have you been taught that, in order to receive salvation or healing, you must work up enough faith? How does it help to know that Jesus, not faith itself, is the object of our faith?
Have you ever felt like sometimes we (Christians) are too chummy with God?
Now, I’m the first to confess that I need more intimacy with Jesus, not less. I want more of Him, a deeper relationship, stronger faith. I want to know His thoughts and His heart for me and for the world.
But allow me to play “you know who’s” advocate for a moment. Sometimes, I feel like our focus on intimacy with God as our friend overshadows our understanding of God as King and Master. Like all things, it’s easier to go all in one way or the other, instead of having a balance.
What do you think? Is it hard for you to view God both as your friend and as your King? How do we seek intimacy with Him, while at the same time, revering Him?
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings (1 Peter 5:8-9).
Sometimes spiritual life feels like this, doesn’t it? We think we’re doing things right – we’re sticking to the “water” where we don’t think the enemy can reach us. Then, the next thing we know, in the midst of our church-going, Bible-studying, and prayer, the enemy has got us on dangerous land by the throat.
Fortunately, the analogy changes there. Unlike a real lion’s prey, Christians, the “prey” of the devil, have a lot of weapons available to fight back.
When the enemy has you by the neck, it’s very tempting to forget the good stuff you filled up on when things seemed to be going well. It’s easy to turn away from those things, in fact. It’s easy to say, “Well, God said He would protect me, but I don’t see Him anywhere now, so whatever. I guess I’ll just do what I want to do anyway. I guess I’ll fall back into temptations I had been running from. He doesn’t seem to care what happens to me.”
But when we have a reaction to suffering that rejects the good things we’ve put into our spirit, we stay in the enemy’s jaws. Eventually, we can be eaten up entirely – given over to depression and spiritual death.
If, on the other hand, we have a fighting attitude in the enemy’s jaws, he cannot stay locked on us forever. We can resist him, and it will work. It may not work exactly when and how we want, but if we persevere in our faith, if we take heart in knowing that we’re not alone, if we continue to trust God when it isn’t easy, we will overcome.
Have you experienced times of great trials and suffering in your life? What was your response? Have you had times when you responded with defeat? Other times when you responded with perseverance? What are some Scriptures that have helped you in hard times?
