Will Jesus find faith??
June 27, 2009
The mandate of a messenger of the mysteries of God is not to explain but to proclaim. True faith regarding the person of Jesus is the object of the Fathers pleadings through the voices of apostles and prophets. Faith that is embraced through the wisdom, arguments, equations, reasonings and philosophies of men is not ultimately real and true faith. It may be a belief sure enough, about something that may or may not be attributable to God, but it stops short of actual belief in God.
When it comes to attributes or ideas about God it is good to believe whatever may be true about Him but it is another thing altogether to believe in Him, regardless of our understanding or misunderstanding the fullness of His character. Albeit, knowing His character and ways helps us to know Him but it does not necessarily cause us to believe in Him. Belief has an element of love, real and evidential love. We may believe He is full of mercy but we must go on to the understanding and the belief that He in and of Himself, is mercy. There is an element of blind faith here that must be settled.
Even Jesus said, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen and have believed.” Seeing is not necessarily believing. At the end of the day we may have all the facts about God himself but love compels us to agree with and love those facts for in doing so we love God Himself, thereby exemplifying the nature and fullness of true faith. We do not see in order to beleive but we believe in order to see. In other words, we love so that we may be loved. Love can only be freely given when that love is unhindered by what ifs! Faith, similarly, can only be fully expressed when it is ok with the what ifs! The portion of believers is to embrace God’s person regardless of our understanding or thoughts about God’s ways. Once we embrace His person then all paradigms come slowly into perspective and align themselves appropriately. This is, after all, the inside, upside down kingdom.
July 4, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Nathan! Joining the discussion – Just so you know, and from this point on, anything I say is only to further conversation and examine thought. I am not trying to tear anything down, nor do I necessarily believe everything I write, though I play devil’s advocate. Please know that my intentions are pure even if my language may not be!
On the subject of faith: Your argument struck a chord, as it were, because it seems that faith has become so narrowly defined. You wrote “true faith regarding the person of Jesus is the object of the Fathers pleadings through the voices of apostles and prophets. Faith that is embraced through the wisdom, arguments, equations, reasonings and philosophies of men is not ultimately real and true faith.” There may have been pleadings pre-Jesus because the prophets did not know what they were asking the people to believe. They had to believe solely on the word of God. But post Jesus, we have basically the complete knowledge of where all things were leading, though we need the holy spirit to comprehend. So, though we search for God through the wisdom, arguments, equations, reasonings and philosophies of men, and find faith therein, that does not mean that it is not true faith. Thomas saw and had faith because of what he had seen (that is truly what the seen and believed means in that verse), even now, all it takes is that mustard seed size faith to move mountains. If you take all those man made mechanisms and still come out believing in God, that takes more faith than to spend years in the church never researching, only believing what was told to you.
So what faith will Jesus find when he returns? Faith in his person, or faith in these entities we call church, who, for some, has determined their walk and which may not be faith at all, but mere obedience to the words of man.
I love your blog, Nate!
July 8, 2009 at 2:10 am
Hi Angel, happy for the response.
What I’m basically saying/asking is if Jesus will find real faith from people about who He is and who the Father has declared Him to be, i.e., the only way, the only truth, and the only light and the redeemer and savior of the world. I believe Jesus is hitting this point when He asks the question in Luke 18; He wants to know if people will believe in all of who He is.
I appreciate your questions but I disagree about how you see the “pleadings of the prophets” in the O.T. I think its pretty clear that most of the major prophets knew what they were asking the people to believe. At least its clear to my mind.