Faith

And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of    glory, 1 Peter 1:8

What comes to mind when you hear the word faith? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as complete trust or   confidence in someone or something. Webster defines faith as allegiance to duty or a person, belief and trust in and loyalty to God.   Have you ever wondered why you have faith in Jesus Christ even though you have never seen Him? You love Him and have never looked upon   His face. How is that possible?

When I think about those I love and have faith in other than Christ, I realize that it is based on personal experience. I love Cathy and have faith in her because she has been the love of my life for 50 years. I have faith in my fellow Elders because I have seen their love for     God and His church in action. I love you, the body of Grace Harvest, because God has given me the privilege to shepherd you.  But I don’t have faith in people I don’t know or have never met. There is no personal connection. So, how is it that we have faith in Jesus Christ? Why do we declare Him King? Why do we devote our lives to following the commands of  someone we have never seen or heard?

Jesus said, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are those who did not see, and yet believed ( John 20:29).” Jesus calls every believer blessed because even though we have not seen Him we believe. But before you start patting yourself on the back, we must understand where our faith in Jesus comes from. Jesus said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day ( John 6:44)” and “For  this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me    unless it has been granted him from the Father (John 6:65)”.

Our faith to believe is a gift of God’s grace in our lives. For by  grace you have been saved through faith, and this not of  yourselves, it is the gift of God; (Eph.2:8). By knowing that faith is a gift of God I understand what Paul was talking about in Romans 12:3 when he said, “For through the grace given   to me I say to each one among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound thinking, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”

How is this faith by God given to His people? Paul gives us  the answer: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by  the word of Christ (Romans 10:17)”. Let us be faithful to  proclaim God’s Word to a lost and dying world.

Your shepherd,

Pastor Mark Wells