How do you know what’s real?

    Last time we talked about Fake Faith, and we used the example of a Bowie knife that had inscribed on the blade, “Original Bowie Knife.” That tells us it can’t be the original, because an original isn’t considered an original till the imitations appear. Here’s another way the knife showed it’s inauthentic nature; it didn’t hold up to hard use. The steel would not hold an edge, and it dulled quickly, unlike the quality steel of the true original.

    Fake faith may seem real but won’t hold up under hard use. Real faith, working faith, daily faith, ah, that is what we are all looking for. Something that will hold its edge under hard use! So how do we seek Real Faith? Here are some suggestions:

1. Seek God with our whole heart. (Deuteronomy 4:29)
   If we seek God, but our motives are to seek Him for His “usefulness” or as a personal reward/success technique, God will disappoint us. Since the dawn of time, God has steadfastly refused to jump through hoops of human construction. We will be disappointed if we seek God for the sake of something else. When we seek to manipulate God to do our bidding, we try to make Him into an idol and we lose our relationship with Him as our Father!

2. Ask God’s Spirit to shift our concerns from outward signs to inner faith. (Matthew 6:31-33)
   If we externalize our faith, we begin to walk by sight instead of faith! We become “event-based” Christians, our faith rising and falling like thermometers based on our external circumstances! We “have faith” (really fake faith) when things look good, and “lose faith” when things look bad.

3. Reinterpret Hebrews 11:6 in your own heart.
   Realize that God is talking about Himself and the relationship we can have with Him as the reward of faith. God is the reward not what He can produce for us. Folks, a relationship with God is deeper, wider and fuller than we can ever begin to understand this side of heaven. If you only see God as a cosmic Santa Claus or a success technique, you will miss the true treasure of deeply knowing God in the very face of life’s tragedies and triumphs.

4. Finally, read Revelation 3:20, and invite Jesus to your daily table of life.
   You see, Revelation 3:20 isn’t for folks who aren’t Christians. It’s written to us, folks who are struggling with lukewarm faith, who hold Jesus and his Lordship at armslength, and look to Him only when we want something from Him. Instead, He wants to be a part of ALL that you are, and ALL that you do. Nothing less will give us the real strength and hope we need. If we compartmentalize Jesus as someone we only depend on for limited “religious” meaning, His Power will barely trickle through our lives. He seeks to be in all our lives, and anything less cheats us out of real faith.

Real faith takes us to the heart of God in the midst of our struggles.

    Now pause a minute, and let me ask you a question. We all have struggles in our lives. Even as we seek to walk in faith, bad things continue to happen in our lives and in the lives of people all over the world. There is much innocent suffering, and many times our best intentions end up on the scrap heap. We want God to “fix” all this. At the same time, do you really want a “God” who is under our control and power, who has no deeper plans than the ones we can see? Isn’t God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, greater and more awesome than we can even begin to imagine?

    Real faith takes us to the heart of God in the midst of our struggles. That’s where Real Faith is forged — in the crucible of daily life. In finding this kind of faith, we come to learn that the glory of God is not that He fixes all of our problems or undoes all of our messes or prevents others from exercising their free will and harming us. No, it is in understanding that He joins us in our circumstances and allows us to know Him, to experience His presence, and find in Him our hope. Real faith is realizing that there isn’t a place that life can lead us, nor a disaster that Satan has planned to defeat us, that can run God’s love and presence from our lives. In the middle of the storm, no matter the type or intensity of that storm, we can call to God, know He hears, and can invite Him into our hearts to help us through.

    To goal of true faith is God. There our hearts will find their home.

 

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©2002, Cary Branscum. Used by permission.

Title: "Fake Faith, Part 2"
Author: Cary Branscum
Publication Date: July 30, 2002