Have you ever thought of the place of faith in the Christian life. Have you ever thought that faith was a key ingredient to the completion of the Mission that we have been called to?
Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” What I get from here is that it is by faith that we are saved (In what Jesus did at the cross), and it is by faith that we live as followers of Christ. Faith ought to be a characteristic of God-fearing people.
There is another verse that speaks of faith and the importance of it in the Christian life and that comes from Hebrews 11:6, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” Both drawing near to God and seeking Him are acts of faith. Surely then faith should be a natural and observable part of our Christian lives.
But what is it? Hebrews 11:1 gives us a clue, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” The NLT helps make it a bit clearer, “What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.”
In actual fact, the whole of Hebrews is showing practical examples of people who live with the conviction of the unseen God who called them to do radical things. RT Kendall, in his classic work on Hebrews 11 says that faith is “Believing God.” Jim Cymbala wrote a brilliant definition, “It is total dependence upon God that becomes supernatural in its working.” There is something about living by faith that brings a God dependence and a God awareness to us and those who we meet.
Why do I bring this up today as we are looking the story of Jonah? The answer is simple, because Jonah needed to get to the place in his life where he responded to God in faith so that he would complete his mission. When I look at Jonah 1, I see a time when a faithless man begins to come back to the place of faith – he comes back to an awareness of God.
A question to ask ourselves today is, “What am I doing that I could not do apart from the power of God?” So often we can be just like Jonah, crippled by fear, driven to isolation, pursuing comfort, and yet that is not where God wants us!
So what is it that stirs faith in us. We’re often opting for the passive approach where we want faith to rise in us without doing. I think God speak and calls for us to follow and when we do we find faith rising.
Reclaim your true identity
Who you are before God is who you really are. Jonah got back to the place where he got this and said in Jonah 1:9, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” You can even feel faith rise as he speaks those words. If you are a Christ-follower, you belong to Jesus! It does wonder to a person when they can walk with the confidence, “I belong to Him!” Christian, know whose you are to know who you are!
Return to your calling
Jonah needed to go back to what God had called him to. Sometimes we have heard God’s voice in the past but never responded in faith and we wonder why things are not working out as we expected. Go back to what God has told you to do but you haven’t obeyed. Maybe it was something simple like loving your husband or wife. Maybe it was letting go of something that you value too highly. Maybe it was something that God called you to sacrifice but you haven’t believed you could trust God to supply.
Respond in faith
For faith to be real there always needs to be action! We are called to walk by faith and not by sight. I think an alternate spelling to faith is RISK. Sometimes there is great risk to ourselves. We can be crippled by our self consciousness and don’t want to jeopardise our comfort, our family, our standard of living, our jobs etc. We miss this fact – we experience God in ways we couldn’t otherwise when we step out in faith! God has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you!” Do you believe it? What are you going to do about it?
Let me ask again, “What are you doing that you could not do apart from the power of God"?”
