Raw Faith

By John Stallings



Faith is counter cultural, counter intuitive, & counter rational. The journey of faith, should you decide to take it, involves risks.

Esther is a classic example. She took a great risk by going in before the king uninvited. But she had a pressing need. It’s possible that she saved the Jewish race from extinction, but it wouldn’t have happened absent her taking this risk.

What were her famous words? “If I perish I perish,” but I’m going in. There’s a need & I have to go.” Faith is like that, you have to take risks. Playing it safe will never get you into the zone of power. On the faith journey many times we have to risk everything to get what we need.

Famous men have said that Christianity is a weak religion for weak people. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Some of the same men in history who made this statement died barking mad. It takes great courage to be a believer.

FAITH CAN’T LONG EXIST IN A THEORETICAL REALM -

Faith thrives on action. Faith impels us to decide something, say something, think something & do something.

Faith impacts life, conduct, relationships, moral convictions, your world-view, & your destiny. Faith covers every aspect of one’s life. An individual can’t be a part time believer, a part time Christian, & faith can’t be compartmentalized. Faith permeates every area of the believer’s existence. We can’t be a believer without having faith coloring & impacting every area of our life. Faith if allowed to live & thrive will penetrate & settle every sphere of its influence.

FAITH IS COSTLY

God said to Abraham, “Give me your son. Sacrifice him for me.” When Abraham committed to do it God wouldn’t allow it. He said, “Abe, I was just checking on you to see if you’re truly committed to me.”

Please excuse me if this sounds like a strange way of defining faith; that’s because it is. You won’t hear this description of faith anywhere but in the bible. Many of the “Faith teachers” of our day are anything but faith teachers. The faith they espouse may be a trendy, new-fangled faith but it doesn’t always square with what’s in the bible unless you wrest verses out of context. The way some people teach faith in my view is a travesty of a mockery of a sham. As a matter of fact- it’s two travesties of two mockeries of two shams. Not all of them, but many “faith teachers” when they get your “seed-faith” gift will book a skiing trip to Vail.

Don’t misunderstand; I’m not criticizing, just offering an observation. I appreciate anyone’s efforts to lead us into a more dynamic faith, as long as they’re not scammers. Don’t believe anyone who tells you if you have enough faith you’ll have two cars in your garage, a beautiful house, three kids & a dog & cat. But poverty certainly isn’t a badge of faith either. Read Hebrews eleven but read it all the way to the end. Too few faith teachers ever go near the last verses.

Was Paul a man of faith? Yes! But on one of his faith journeys he stayed in a storm at sea & never saw the Sun for two weeks. It ended as his boat broke into pieces & put him in the ocean to swim. He floated in on a piece of the ship & then got snake-bit to boot. Many times faith will lead us to pay a big price & it will lead us into storms. Read Paul's story all the way through & it turns out great. Faith produces storms –it did for Job, but when the storm passes you are still on your feet because faith has carried you through.

FAITH REMAINS

Faith remains despite uncertainty, lack of clarity, delay or unexpected results. The key here is -remains! Faith is hardy, resistant, & obstinately strong & it—remains. You can lose all your money but true faith remains despite all of that. Faith remains despite all the complexities of life. Faith is a zigzagging journey. Faith is multifaceted, indefinable & many times unpredictable & uncontrollable. If you require getting what you want when you want it & if you need to feel you’ll always get the results you expected , if you see faith as a candy machine—in goes the penny-out comes the candy-you might want to get off the “faith bus” at the next stop. That’s not the way faith works—not the way faith is & the faith journey isn’t for you unless you change your thinking.

God can’t & won’t be controlled & His purposes are unfathomable, complex & many times takes you where you don’t want to go. Faith can be obstinate, desperate, focused, persistent, forcible, confronting, & yes, VIOLENT! Faith is militant, aggressive & dynamic. Faith won’t always get you what you think you want or need. Again, if you need a nice smooth ride at all times the faith bus won’t get you there. Faith & hope are traveling companions. As I’ve already said, many times it’s only those who have obstinate faith who get what they need.

I don’t think my life & experience is all that different than others of my age group but I can tell you, when I first started the faith journey I slept in the car in order to stay in the ministry. To be very candid, I’ve only done that one time [this doesn’t include pulling into rest-stops for a few winks] & it was in the very beginning of my ministry but there have been other times when I drove all night, not because I didn’t have the money to rent a motel room but I was young & healthy & felt it more prudent to drive all night & keep the thirty or forty dollars in my pocket. I got too old to do that -years ago. I tell you faith can be desperate & violent.

More times than I’d like to think about I’ve undertaken things in the ministry & I felt like a fool taking the first few steps. Maybe you’ve always had it good & always had a sense of being perfectly in control but many times I’ve proceeded, hanging on by my fingernails, praying to God not to let me fall & break my neck or be a laughing stock.

Maybe you’ve always had a nice dependable car that never made you nervous & I’m happy for you if that’s the case. But I know what it means to be driving five hundred miles from nowhere, worried sick about my car & imagining all sorts of knocks & noises. I told my wife in those early years- “I’d love just once, to actually complete a trip without having someone pass me & point to something on my car.”

I’ve learned that the faith journey sometimes asks us to do things that seem risky & foolish in order to please & receive things from God. Sometimes there’s a crucifixion that takes place where you sacrifice your pride, your reason & your self-image. Our pride & fear of failure many times prevent us from doing great things in God’s Kingdom & becoming powerful men & women of God. I don’t make this next statement lightly but 90% of Christians will never get much from God expect a “warm-fuzzy” feeling when they come to church. Why? They never really ask. The number one reason for unanswered prayers is—not praying.

THERE MUST BE A BREAKING

If you & I think the faith journey is going to always make perfect sense & always be explainable before we do something, we’ll never become supple & agile in our walk. Jesus said unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground & dies it remains alone, but if it breaks it bears much fruit. It’s the external covering of pride & human self-sufficiency that need everything to be correct, accountable & explainable. This breaking cracks the crust that prevents the inner life of God from reaching us. When this cracks, then God can emerge & express Himself to us & we in turn can be a blessing to others. On the faith journey, reason & prudence quite often need to go by the way side.

If we only could see what a beautifully complex & dynamic thing faith is we’d also see that our lives can be revolutionized & we can be turned into someone very powerful in God’s kingdom.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a man or woman, come from a rich or poor background, how much education you have or whether or not you speak eloquently. The quality of your faith will make all the difference in whether God will work in & through you.

RAW FAITH

In my last blog I touched slightly on the woman with the issue of blood. I don’t think that this woman understands all the theological complexities of this Jesus man. Her faith was a raw rather than religious faith. Let’s face it, we today with all the scripture we have- can’t say we understand all that much about faith.

This woman had “going to jail” faith. The reason she was so obstinate was that she had no where to go except to Jesus & she has reached the place that she has nothing left to lose. What if she’s rejected & kicked out? They’d done that to her ten times before.

Perhaps the hardest thing for her to do was to break the absolute inertia of zero. Have you ever had the experience of needing to do something but not knowing quite how to do it, or even know if you could do it?

A few years ago we sold a house in Tennessee & the bank said we would have to do seven things to the property in order for them to finance it for the buyer. It was too expensive for us to pay an expert in each field of endeavor & I remember the shear terror of getting down to basics & doing the work.

One job was putting molding around the corners of a room which involved cutting trim-wood to exactly fit. This work belongs to a “finished carpenter.” Working around the corners was especially difficult. But as things progressed they got easier & surely enough in a few days all the work was complete. When the inspectors came in they didn’t ask who did the work. All the work passed inspection & it was because we just looked at what had to be done & took a deep breath & started measuring, cutting & nailing. So it was with this woman & so it will be for us when faith has us to venture into areas where we don’t have expertise. Sometimes we’ve got to commit ourselves to the shear grace of God to move forward.

Blind Bartimaeus was sitting on the side of the road screaming. He screams, he screams, he screams-Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. People say –shut up & he screams the louder. He knows he probably will have this one chance in his lifetime. Finally he hears Jesus say, “Bring him to me” & he leaves that day with his healing. He only had raw faith but it worked.

Zacchaeus climbs all the way to the top of a tree to see Jesus & gets what he needs. If your faith isn’t working, try it again, knock again, get back on the horse, try a different prospective, keep tweaking. This capacity to try & keep trying is one of the qualities of faith. Like Jesus said, “ask, seek, & knock.”

Faith isn’t all that magical & mystical after all is it? The bible tells about a man at midnight that knocks on his friend’s door. “I’m out of sugar, can you spare a cup?” Two hours later the friend opens the door because he knows if he doesn’t he’ll never get any sleep. Jesus tells this story to explain what faith is. Faith is insistent, persistent, obstinate, focused & desperate.

Someone said, “God loves us all, He just loves some more than others.” That isn’t true!! But I’ll tell you this; God uses some more than others. And the ones He uses are a little bit pushed, a little pressed, dynamic -with goals. God doesn’t like passivity much.

Like Timothy, God wants us to stoke the fire of the gift He’s placed in us. He hasn’t given us a weak nor timid spirit, neither has he given us a spirit of fear. God’s Spirit is one of Power, Love & Self-control. God wants us to take hold & take authority as believers. He doesn’t want us to be passive & pusillanimous.

What are your goals? What has God spoken to you about your future? Stay with it until God gives it to you or maybe something better than you had faith for at the time. Sometimes that happens.

Jesus’ brother James told us that if we have a wavering faith, if we’re doubtful, not to expect to receive anything from God.

The woman with the issue of blood knew that Jesus was a Rabbi & she knew that he was a good man. That was about it! She has a raw, simple faith. Maybe she didn’t understand all the ramifications of His being the Son Of God, but she believed one thing--that He could heal her.

She acted on it. She risked censure & so much more. She was sick, she was broke & she had no connections. She had no insider to tell her, “Come & I’ll put you in at the head of the line. I know Him; he’s a friend of mine.” She was just a nobody with no way. She was an outcast & anyone she happened to touch would be unclean too.

Can faith sometimes be unreasonable, pushy, & desperate? If this woman had been reasonable she’d be home dying. But she was too busy living to die. She used the faith she had & touched Jesus with it & everything changed. He even called her daughter!


Jesus did not disappoint!


Blessings,


John