Faith

It is very interesting to see some people who lived along with Jesus and were appreciated well by the Lord Himself.

1.       The centurion (Mat 8:5-13)

2.       The woman who touched Jesus and got healed. (Mat 9: 22)

3.       The poor widow who offered everything she had to the Lord in the synagogue. (Mark 12:41-44)

4.       The Canaanite woman who pleaded Jesus for her daughter’s demon problem (Mat 15:21-28)

5.       The woman who washed Jesus’ feet with the alabaster jar of perfume (Luke 7:36-50)

The common thing in all these people is that their FAITH was appreciated.

Also, it is very much evident that Our Lord Jesus never had appreciated anybody for their deeds.

This truth breaks apart many of our pride, confidence and any hope that Jesus will honour us because we have lived a holy life or if we have worked very hard for the Lord.

Paul’s letters clearly establishes this in many verses.

Rom 1:17, Gal 3: 11, Heb 10:38    “The Just shall live by faith”.

We need to understand the important of this statement which Paul uses thrice. There is nothing else that we can depend upon.

Moreover, the first portion of Rom 1:17 says that “Righteousness of the Lord is revealed from faith to faith”. This means that the righteousness increases and is not a onetime thing we earn. Also, this righteousness increases as our faith in God increases.

The bible does not offer any other method for righteousness or salvation or life

Rom 1:12, mentions that our mutual encouragement does not come by our boasting of works done, blessings received from God. It comes only by faith.

Rom 3:28 says that we are justified by Faith and outside the law. The Law does not justify us, it is our Faith in our Lord Jesus which makes us righteous.

If we mediate Romans 4, we would understand that Abraham’s faith only justified him. We can see reasons why Abraham is “the Father of Faith”

The book of Romans, throughout it, keeps repeating that “we are justified by faith and not works”.

The important thing we should learn here is in Romans 12:3.

The verse says that we should not consider ourselves to be successful or great by measuring ourselves based on our works. The only thing that makes us greater is our faith. A person who has more and more faith in God at every situation of his life is better than many preachers and worship leaders.  

We think if a person is blessed with money, he is great.

If he has great talent in composing, we assume he is great.

If the person has a large number of followers and is great at preaching, prophesy, runs a large organization, there are chances that he may not even enter heaven. Please read Mat 7:21-23.

The only scale of measurement is our faith in God or in simple terms, our dependability on God. During our hard times, if we break our heads it displays our faithlessness.

If we curse, yell or sin, it is our deficiency in faith that we do not believe enough that our God lives.

Interestingly, we should also not that “deficiency in faith” is not a sin.  (Rom 14:1-2) It makes one greater when he puts his trust completely in God. Coming back to Rom 1:17, our position in God’s eyes increments as our faith increments.

If our faith is stagnant, it is like we are handicapped and not willing to grow.

We read the result, the fruit of faith where Paul writes his epilogue in the book of Romans.

“Obedience that comes through faith”. (Rom 16:26)

If obedience is not displayed in our lives, then there is no faith there.