Tag Archives: faith
Until Our Faith Becomes Pure
Faith is one of the key ingredients of the Christian life. We are saved by grace through faith. We have to have faith in what Christ has accomplished for us on the cross. It is by faith that we accept that we have been made holy in Christ. And it is by faith that we overcome the world and sin and the devil. But why is it that so many of us fail so often? It is hard to give any concrete answer because only God can tell what it is that goes inside each of us. There are things that even we don’t understand about ourselves. And when we feel that we have overcome suddenly we fall. But failure in the Christian life has to be viewed like failure in any other area of life. It is all a learning experience. We learn from our mistakes and we enrich the body of Christ by our learning. We should not give in to despair when we fail but rather lean upon the Holy Spirit to teach us more about God and His ways. Salvation from sin is what Christ came to offer us and it should be our quest to be free from every kind of sin we may have in our life whether known or unknown. But there are many failures in our quest for a pure and holy life. One of the reasons being that our faith is many a time polluted with our own imperfections and thinking. But every failure is a step to the purification of our faith if we learn from our mistakes and each step takes us closer to the kind of faith that Jesus had. So, we live and we fail and then we learn until our faith becomes pure.
Tagged faith
Calm The Inner Man
The sure sign of a healthy spiritual life is calmness in the inner man. We have to refuse to be moved by the flesh and instead move by the Spirit. How do we know when we are moving in the flesh and in the Spirit? When we move in the flesh there is usually a struggle and uneasiness in what we are doing. We have to make an effort to do anything. This is living in the flesh. When we are moving in the Spirit, there is a freedom and we soar like an eagle. We accomplish more and do more. We know in our inner man that we are at rest. The temptation to most of us is to move in the flesh and do something for God. So we move prematurely, like Moses did when he killed the Egyptian or like Abraham did by bringing Ishamel into this world who was the son of the flesh as the Apostle Paul said. When we feel like nothing is happening, we have to remain still and wait for the strength of God to move us. How do we know all this? You will know because the Spirit of God resides in you and He will teach you all things. You will have to learn to trust the leading of the Spirit in the inner man. We might make mistakes but we will learn from them. We have to refuse to do anything in the flesh and in our own strength even though it might be a good thing and the most logical thing to do at that moment. God’s ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than ours. So, learn to move in the Spirit and you will have peace in the inner man. There will be a sweet calm that covers your life. Mountains will be removed and nothing shall move you for you have learned to trust God in everything. You will have the calmness of God that comes as a result of faith and trust in Him and refusing to move in the flesh.
Lord, Help My Unbelief.
It is true that faith comes by hearing the Word of God. But it is also true that we cannot make the “hearing” a “work”. We may listen to cds and tapes to the extent where we are trying to manufacture faith as a product of our hearing. But God does not want us to live like that because that is not what faith is. Faith is simple trust and belief. There is no formula or magic in it. And if we fall short why can’t we pray like the man in the Bible who prayed “Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief.” It is so simple that many a times we stumble upon that truth. We find it hard to believe that the things of God are so simple that it is easily understood even by a small child. If you find that your faith is lacking, just pray a simple prayer asking God to help your unbelief. And you will be pleasantly surprised that God Himself makes your faith complete because does not the Bible say that He Himself is the author and finisher of our faith? Trust Him to come through where you fall short even in the matter of your faith.
Tagged faith