Liberating you from bad ideas about God
Have you ever heard the wheelbarrow tightrope walk over Niagara Falls as an illustration for faith? It is a terrible illustration, because it does not accurately portray what faith really is or how faith works. This post considers the illustration and defines faith from Scripture.
When James writes about dead faith in James 2:14-26, many people think he is referring to faith that does not exist. But this is not the message of James. What is dead faith? It is useless faith. It is faith that does exist, but is not accomplishing what God wants or desires for it.
We have very little control of anything in life. This brings great fear. So we try to control the fear by letting go of control. But this is simply another vain attempt to control. Just as we cannot control life, we cannot control control.
The only way out is to recognize that control is an illusion. We have no control. Life is a ride, and God is the builder of this ride, and Jesus is riding it with us, so we can just enjoy all the ups and downs of life.
Have you ever wanted to have faith like a child? Some think this means that we don’t ask questions, and we must be content with being ignorant about the things of God. But this is NOT faith like a child. Having faith like a child means having the imagination like a child.
You can believe! You should believe. God wants you to believe. God calls you to believe. This is just as true for you as it for anyone else on earth. While sin is a universal problem, people are not so depraved that they cannot respond to the call of the Gospel and believe in Jesus for eternal life.
For biblical, theological, and practical reasons, we conclude that faith is not a gift from God. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
This post contains 3 reasons why some people believe that faith is a gift from God, and 4 reasons why we know that faith is not a gift from God.
Faith is being persuaded or convinced that what God says is true. One of the things God says is that He gives eternal life to anyone who believe in Jesus for it. Because of all that God has done in history, through various forms of revelation, and by His Holy Spirit, people are able to believe in Jesus for eternal life. Faith is not a work, but is the opposite of works, and as such, faith is in no way meritorious.
In a previous post I explained what Calvinists believe about total inability. Here is what I believe about total inability as it relates to faith. While I would agree that people cannot take the first step toward God, I believe that God has taken steps to enable people to believe in Jesus for eternal life, and that this faith is not meritorious.
We are all familiar with the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead in John 11. But what exactly did Martha believe about Jesus in this event? When Martha said that she believed that Jesus was the Christ, was the same thing as believing that Jesus was the resurrection and the life?
Some believe that Ephesians 2:8-9 teaches that faith is a gift of God. But the grammar and context of Ephesians 2 does not support this idea. This post looks at the context of Ephesians 2, and summarizes the five main views on what the gift of God is, before finally explaining what my view is and why.
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