Faith is the vehicle that turns our spiritual hopes into realities, but how do we show faith? How do we express faith in such a way as to access God's grace for our everyday lives? Faith moves beyond the merely academic or theoretical when the following is true of it:
First, we learn to depend totally upon God. In this regard, we note that there are not "degrees" of faith: either we are depending upon God or we are not. By Biblical definition, if we do not entrust the entire weight of a particular concern to God, then we are not trusting God at all for that concern; the minute we introduce self-dependence into the picture, we have ceased to trust God. Salvation and sanctification are by faith alone, or they are not by faith at all. The Bible admits no middle ground here: we live either by God-dependence or by self-dependence, but certainly by no combination of the two.
Second, we maintain our focus upon God as the only worthy object of our faith (without a worthy object, faith is vain). This stands in contrast to the temptation to have "faith in our faith" (am I believing just right? is my faith strong enough? did God honor my faith?) God is a worthy object of faith because He is both all-powerful and good. Upon these two bed-rock truths rests the life of faith. But, we must depend upon these truths about God - not merely consent to them as correct doctrinal affirmations. However, at the end of the day we will never learn to trust someone we don't know (we don't trust strangers). Thus, depending upon God requires getting to know God. This is why our focus must always be upon Him.
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Dr. Ken Burkett grew up in the Midwest. His father was a pastor, so he was reared around the ministry and has been involved in serving the Lord most of his life. Next to accepting Christ as his Savior at a young age, the two most formative events in his life were (1) his...