What Does Faith Really Mean?
Matthew 9:21-29; Mark 6:5-6; Hebrews 11:l
Yesterday we talked about touching Christ by faith. What do we really mean by faith?
In the story from yesterday, the woman’s faith had a touch of the superstitious in it, for she thought that virtue resided in his garments, and that by a touch she would be made whole. Jesus corrected that and said, “Daughter, your faith has healed you; go in peace” (Mark 5:34). What did he mean by faith?
Certainly, faith is not an intellectual assent to a fixed creed. I do not decry creeds, for anyone who thinks has to have something which he believes, that is, a creed. Even so, our creeds are never final, for they are our present conceptions of the truth, which is forever beyond us. Our creeds must therefore be open to correction as fuller truth dawns. But a person may have an intellectual belief in everything in the creed of the churches and not have faith.
Faith is an adventure of the spirit, a going out of the whole inner life in response to something we believe to be supremely worthwhile. It is wagering the life and not merely nodding the head. It is not discussion; it is decision. It is launching out on the highest hypothesis I know with my life. I don’t believe in a thing unless I act on it. I don’t believe in Christ unless I am prepared to wager all to follow him. That is faith.
Jesus forged an amazing instrument when he made faith the condition; for faith is trust in another, and yet it is an adventure and an attitude of our own. It therefore develops self-reliance and Other-reliance at one and the same time. If it were mere passivity, it would not develop self-reliance; if it were mere activity, it would not develop Other-reliance. It is both activity and receptivity. “According to your faith be it done to you” (Matt. 9:29)—you do it, and he does it. You are not stifled, and he is Savior.
O amazing Christ, as you save us from ourselves you save our selves. You ask faith, and that very faith makes us well, and makes us. We fling away ourselves to follow you, and we find you and ourselves. We thank you. Amen.
Week 6 Saturday
Must I Understand All Before I Follow?
Mark 3:1-6; Luke 17:11-19
Yesterday we said that faith is an adventure. Very little faith is enough to start on, for as we act, it grows. The ten with skin diseases had the word of Christ to show themselves to the priests (see Luke 17:11-19). They had that and their disease. Then that word grew until it possessed them. But they started with very little.
Don’t wait to follow Christ until you understand all about him.
None of us really understand electricity. Lord Kelvin, the foremost physicist of his day, declared, “If I were asked what electricity is, actually is, I should have to confess I know nothing about it.” But while I do not know all about electricity, I am not going to sit in the dark until I do. I know two things about it: I know I need light, and electricity supplies that need. That is enough to begin on. I don’t know all about digestion—how food turns into blood and bone and tissue, but I’m not going to sit and starve until I do. There are a thousand and one things I don’t understand about Christ, but I know this: When I expose my soul to him in trust and obedience, he meets my deepest need. That is enough, at least to begin on.
Jesus asked the man with the withered hand to stretch it forth; the one thing the man couldn’t do. He must have looked at Jesus with helpless astonishment at such a demand; and yet, he responded with the little grain of faith he had, and threw his will in the direction of raising that arm. And lo, in the very process of obedience, the strength came. His arm was well! (See Mark 3:1-6.)
As you launch out to follow Christ, you will think you are stepping out into a void, but that void will turn into rock beneath your feet. You step out, and he steps in—into your battles, your temptations, your tasks—and then you begin life on the cooperative plan. Faith seals the bond.
O Christ, I do not see all, but I see you. Let that suffice. I will take the first steps. I will supply the willingness. You will have to supply the power. Amen.
Week 7 Sunday
Week 7 Sunday
First Steps Out of the Old Life
Luke 19:1-10; John 1:35-42
We ended last week at the place of acting on what little faith we had and trusting it to grow in the process.
A Chinese engineer sat down with me and abruptly said: “What are you going to do with me? I am a man without any religion. The old is dead and I haven’t anything new to take its place. In America no church would take me, for I cannot believe in the divinity of Christ.”
I could almost see him inwardly stiffen to meet my arguments to prove Christ divine. So I used none. Instead I asked: “What do you believe? How far along are you?”
“Well,” he said, “I believe that Christ was the best of men.”
“Then let us begin where you can. If he is the best of men, then he is your ideal. Are you prepared to act according to that ideal? To cut out of your life everything that Christ would not approve?”
He was startled, and said, “But that is not easy.”
“I never said the way of Christ is easy. Are you prepared to let go everything he will not approve?”
“If I am honest, I must,” he quietly replied, “and I will.”
“Then, whoever Christ turns out to be, man or more than man, wouldn’t you be stronger and better if he were living with you, in you, all the time?”
“Of course, I would be different.”
“Then will you let him into your life?”
“I don’t know how.”
“Then pray this prayer after me, sentence by sentence.”
He did. “This is different,” he said as we arose, “for they always told me I had to believe first. Now at least here is something for me to begin on.”
The next day he came again, his face radiant. “I didn’t know a man could be as happy as I have been today. All my questions and doubts as to who Christ is have gone. And, moreover, I have been talking to my wife and she wants it too.”
Christ had verified himself. He does, when we give him a chance.
O soul of mine, full of doubts and fears, arise and take the first steps. Here and now I consent to cut from my life everything you cannot approve, O Christ. Amen.
Week 7 Monday
What Is Conversion?
Psalm 86:11; Acts 2:37-38; 3:19; Romans 8:1-2
This young engineer had undergone the change called conversion. What do we mean by it? Just when the church was allowing conversion to slip into the background through lack of emphasis, modern psychology stepped in and reemphasized it. Not in the same language, and often not with the same belief in God attached to it. Psychology tells us that the subconscious mind is the place of the driving instincts, which have come down through a long racial history. These instincts think only of the pleasure of
