“The righteous shall live by faith”. This verse has always puzzled me. Such is the predicament of the righteous. Who is the righteous? The one that lives by faith. I know, you did not get any further with it, neither did I. This statement first appeared in the book of Habakkuk in one of the Lord’s answers to his complaints and later in the New Testament, it was quoted in Romans (1:17), Galatians (3:11) and Hebrews (10:38). Faith is essential to the Christian for without it, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6) and so the lack of it thereof is an abomination to God. Hebrews supports it with the following: “…but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” (Hebrews 10:38, italics mine). That faith has to be continuous with no shrinking back, hence the term faithful. When I read this, I have a sense of fear that comes upon me and a deeper realisation that this whole Christian walk is more than I take it to be at times. If faith is so important to God, why do we not live in a way as to cultivate it day in and day out? Do we even think much about faith? What faith are we even talking about here? Today’s post, I would like us to take a step back and think deeper about what we believe and how that should shape everything we do. I will do so by looking at instances of faith in the bible.
Faith, as Hebrews defines it is “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). This is always in relation to the word of God. Just as it was with the patriarchs of faith commended by the author of the book of Hebrews so it is with us today. We know that “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness” (James 2:23). If Abraham had not believed, he would not have been credited righteousness. In this context, righteousness is not something you do but that is given to you as a result of an act of faith. It is a status conferred to you. Additionally, this act of faith is manifested by an action, something tangible that is done in obedience to the word of God on which your hope resides. That is why Abraham offered his son Isaac when asked to do so by God because he had faith in God and he demonstrated that faith by his obedience. Abraham had faith that God would still accomplish his promise of making him the father of many nations with or without Isaac or better as Hebrews points out, Abraham had faith God could raise Isaac from the dead and still fulfill His promise (Hebrews 11:19). What I understand with regards to faith is that it is always tied to our belief and understanding of the word of God as well as our response to who God is. To have faith means to trust God wholeheartedly. When I read the Hebrews definition, it is evident that an element of faith is hoping for something that you do not yet have. So if faith is capital to the Christian walk, you can be sure the Christian walk is bound to be filled with inconsistencies between what we hope for and what we see. I believe it is important for us Christians to embark on this journey of faith with such foreknowledge as that will save us from many needless frustrations.
We already know that we live at war in this world because we have the battle between the flesh and the spirit. The two natures are always at enmity. Being new creatures thanks to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on the cross, we now belong to the kingdom of Light where the Spirit of God leads. This means, our new reality will not coincide with the reality of the world we live in and that is precisely what it was for the forerunners of faith we have in the bible. Whenever God sent forth His word through His prophets, He often made sure it was repeated so that it would get into the ears and hearts of its hearers. The reality of what was contained in the word spoken through the prophets was always completely and entirely contrary to what its hearers were living. For example, God had promised a saviour to Israel while Israel was still in exile and oppressed yet the saviour would not come during that bondage. Or take for example the time when God promised judgement on the nation of Israel by handing them over to the Babylonians when Israel was still doing well yet Israel would not believe. This is simply because what was being prophesied in the word of God did not match the hearers’ current reality. The word of God took a long time to be fulfilled but it came to pass as Israel went into exile in Babylon. To have faith then, is to believe God at His words and live by it no matter how long it takes or whether your reality matches it or not. This is the very basis of Christianity. By faith, we believe that Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God died on the cross to take away the punishment that we deserved and restored our broken relationship with the Father. By faith, we believe that we have been given Christ’s righteousness while he took our unrighteousness on the cross thus making us part of the family of God and giving us the privilege to share in the inheritance of the saints. By faith, we believe that we have received the Holy Spirit who is a guarantee of that inheritance we now have. By faith, we believe that the Spirit of the living God lives in us. Without faith, it is impossible to hold on to such truths and to access God so do you see why it is so important? Without faith, we would not be claiming we know God or are known by Him. We need to believe that He exists first, that He is who He says He is before we can obey Him and claim everything that is ours in Christ Jesus. I believe faith is very important because it allows us to see God for who He truly is in a way that our physical eyes cannot see. Faith is truly the base and foundation of our Christian walk.
Just like the patriarchs were called to live by faith, we too are called to live by faith today. The faith the bible calls us to live by is the faith in the word of God, which ultimately is faith in who God is and what He has spoken. Knowing our tendency to despair and lack faith, God taught His servants how to ensure they would keep the faith and that was by reading, hearing, studying, and meditating on His word. Indeed “faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). When God told Moses to instruct the Israelites to teach His commands diligently to their children and to discuss it when they sit in their homes or when they walk by the way or when they lie down and when they rise (Deuteronomy 6:7), the purpose was to instill faith. The same thing was done to Joshua when he was about to take leadership of the people of Israel following Moses’ death. God told Joshua to “be strong and courageous and to not let the book of the Law departs from his mouth, to meditate on it day and night” (Joshua 1:8-9). The more Joshua would meditate on the book of the Law, the more he would see God for who He truly is; the more he would believe and have faith in God, the more he would be courageous. The famous verse quoted above “faith comes by hearing” is an extension of this principle. We need to be immersed in the things of God, in His word to nurture and increase our faith. As people that have been raised with Christ, we ought to set our minds on the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God as Paul reminds us in the book of Colossians. Moreover, we need to die to the principles of this world and live by those of Christ because we now belong to a new kingdom (Colossians 2:20). The continuous renewal of our minds is necessary to grow in our faith and so please God for “we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved” (Hebrews 10:39).
I have personally come to understand that you cannot have faith in God while at the same time believing falsity about His character. Indeed, it starts with believing the truth about God and who He is. God is Holy, He is just, He is love, He is truth, He is good, He is patient, He is compassionate, He is slow to anger, among other things. The more we read about who God is, the more we spend the time meditating on His character, the more our faith in what He has said can grow. But, this can be achieved only when we set ourselves aside. We need to humble and remove ourselves from the picture before we can recognise and accept God for who He is. It is so ironic that for us to have faith in God we must humble ourselves and have less faith in us. One would think that the fact that we serve a God we cannot see would humble us totally but that is not what we see. Faith is a simple act yet it is also quite complex. I am still growing in this area but I have seen that element in every man and woman God used. There is no way around it. So, I pray you too take it seriously and seek to grow your faith in God because that is the portion of the righteous to live by.
A Word Aptly Spoken 