Grace through Obedience of Faith (Part 2)

We need to hold faith firmly.  To me, that is my biggest duty as a follower of Christ.  I need to hold my faith under all circumstances.  It’s then and only then when I have obedience of faith.  It’s hard to have obedience in something when you don’t have it.  For example, at the school I go to Flagler College we have to attend 80% of our classes or the professor will drop us.  It’s a school policy.  Now, if I went elsewhere to a school without that rule I wouldn’t follow that policy.  Maybe I’d try to go to 80% of my classes but I’d probably end up missing 80% of them.  Faith is what every Christian needs.  You cannot have be a Christian and have no faith.

I’m taking a religions of the world coarse and it’s interesting to see these different faiths that are in the East.  Buddhism and Confucianism are the first that come to mind strictly because to me they seem like straight up philosophies.  There is very little faith in these religions.  They focus more on yourself and being righteous within a community rather then actually having faith.

Christianity is different because of faith.  In all honesty Christianity is better because of faith.  Why would I want to put faith in myself and my community?  That seems empty.

Well how does faith come about?

JOHN 3:8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Now when Jesus said this to Nicodemus after telling him that he needs to be born again and be born of the spirit.  Now, this word that Jesus spoke for “wind” in Hebrew, believe it or not Jesus didn’t speak NIV or ESV, is “ruah”.  Ruah means wind and spirit.  Jesus is comparing the Holy Spirit, which needs to enter in order to be a believer, to the wind.  We cannot see where or how the wind blows.  We can see where it’s blowing.  We can feel it.  We can hear it but we cannot control it — only God controls the wind.

Now see my faith is not my own.  It is my own in a sense that God has shown me grace so that I have received faith but God was the one that provided.  Jesus said:

John 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.  And I will raise him up on the last day.

God draws the people who will have faith and believe in Jesus.  We cannot control where the Spirit will go.  It blows like the wind it’s hard to control it.

Now, I’m not saying that we should stop preaching because the spirit will go where it goes.  No.  We are still called to be disciples.  God only knows who is going to receive it and who is going to deny it.  We still need to bear fruit.  Jesus also said:

Mark 4:26-28 And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground.  He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how.  The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, the full grain in the ear.”

This parable tells me two things.  I don’t know how my faith grows and I know that my faith will grow. A seed was planted in me and my faith suddenly started growing.  There is no defiant point of my conversion as in I can’t tell you when I became a Christian.  I think I prayed a prayer when I was in 3 year-old preschool at Truro and since then my faith has grown.  My faith looks completely different now compared to 6 months ago.  I don’t know how it happened.  God has just made my brain click with things in the Bible.  For example, last year I didn’t care about theology.  Now, 12 month later I seek Calvinism – sometimes more than Christ which is bad but nonetheless I’ve changed.  My faith has grown.  I always want to be maturing in my faith.  Ideally, I would like to be stronger in my faith by the time I’m finished writing this then I am right now.

I don’t know how I mature in faith but I do.  So right now, what the overall purpose of these last two blog posts have been is to hold on to your faith firmly and never let it go.  It’s hard to feel the wind when you’re standing inside so don’t shut it down completely.  In hard times never ever turn from faith.

Faith isn’t a bunch of rules.  Faith is in what God has decided to reveal to us, God’s revelation.  And when that revelation happens, we obey that revelation.  That is simply the obedience of faith and that is simply the ONLY way that one can receives Grace.

I love you,

Peter von Kahle