Faith is an important part of how everyone lives in ordinary life, not only in spiritual matters. If I believe something, I act upon it in little matters like turning on the lights or running water into the sink. Because I believe my children are capable of doing many things, I don’t worry about them all the time. Because faith tells me the sun will come up in the morning, I’m not looking for a flashlight to get me through the day. All sciences and activities are based on faith also. Those engaged in anything must believe something about it or they would not do it.
I read this morning that God made us like that. However, in matters related to faith in Him, it isn’t about some idea or proof or evidence that I come up with, or that someone else teaches me. This does not negate Christian teaching, but if that is the only ground for faith in God, then I could change my mind if something else is more appealing to me.
The nature of true faith depends on God revealing it and giving me the ability to believe what God says, not the content of what He says so much as that fact of who is saying it. When God speaks to me through His Word and His Spirit, and I hear it, I cannot deny it. That is faith.
And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. (Romans 10:15–17)However, the Bible is clear — merely hearing the Gospel does not automatically result in saving faith; I must hear God speaking in whatever form that hearing happens, either in reading His Word, or hearing it preached, or when someone says His truth and God uses it to speak to me. It is the Word of Christ that produces faith, not the words by themselves.
My experience verifies this, even though it needs no such proof. After many years of daily Bible reading without understanding it, I was reading a non-Christian book and God spoke to me through a verse of Scripture quoted in that book. This time, I heard God and faith happened. In that instance, He changed my life to one of faith in Him instead of trusting myself or my own judgment.
Lately I’ve noticed that many who call themselves Christian have not really heard God. They have had much Christian teaching, but like the cult members who came to my door, hearing it from others, even if what others say is true (not so in the cults). That alone does not create belief in what they say. To have genuine saving faith means hearing the Lord speak. When that happens, so does obedience and a change of life.
Merely hearing it from a human source without the voice of God may produce a form of believing, but it does not change lives nor does it last. The idea of “I must be good enough” remains, the idea of “I need to earn it” remains and motivates.
Once I asked a different member of that same cult mentioned above to read this aloud to me:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8–9)Then I asked her how a person is saved according to what those verses say, and she replied, “By doing good works.” She did not hear God speak nor even understood the words and remained in spiritual darkness.
PRAY: Lord, I know too many who never hear You or expose themselves to hearing You. Some of them go to church and will say, “Oh what a good speaker” about the sermon and yet their lives are not changed. I know that it is possible to shut my mind and at times put faith in myself. I need You to speak to me, even now as a saved person. My heart aches for those who think they must earn salvation and for those who are not at all interested. Speak, Lord. We all need to hear You.
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