Door Six.

Without faith it is impossible to please Him.

I say these things as an encouragement to whoever reads them.
My goal is not to have everyone who peruses, jumping to hear about the next transition in my life but I don't want to withdraw what's important to me simply because it's a matter of "good taste".

And part of living soberly is not thinking yourself into circles about your motives, when we're told that if our conscience doesn't condemn us, we have the liberty to proceed.

Part of starting this blog was to have an outlet as well as an outreach, because I believe both are important, and both work off of each other.

Interpret that however you want, but I mean it.

Faith. Why did I forget that?

About a year ago, I was hit with the proposition to stick around BJU for my MA in studio art. Since I was going to be at the school of a year as a full-time staff member anyway, I jumped on the opportunity, with a good deal of prayer and faith, because originally I thought that the Lord was telling me to leave the school and "live", essentially.

My view of faith. Taking a step into something totally irrational and expecting the Lord to provide (Think of Jesus' response to Satan's suggestion to throw Himself from the pinnacle.) It's almost like I, no I was saying, "God show me something amazing and I'll trust in you", but until then, I'm going to be driven around in circles, grasping all my truth from Piper devotionals and being satisfied with enduring the people that irritate the fire out of me, and not loving them as friends. (Nothing wrong at all with Piper)

One of the reasons I can't really nail down a time of my salvation is because these simple truths didn't bore into my heart as much as I think they should have.....and here's the conclusion I came to.

I wasn't having faith in God NOW. I could blame it on my surroundings, or that I hadn't been "put to the test". The test was then and still is. Not whether I have enough faith to do something "daring" and sensational ala, "be a Christian schoolteacher in the Jerusalem", but whether I had faith that the God of the universe wants me to stay at Bob Jones, behind my desk at Webtech, with the sense of being cloistered and fake and sheltered, so that He could reveal to me that this place isn't a bubble, it's the world just as much as anywhere else, and that I'm not cloistered, fake or sheltered. It's a battle among God's people, as someone told me lately, there are Achans in the camp. I heard in a sermon recently. who lead the way into damnation? the "fearful and unbelieving" (Rev.)

That scares the daylights out of me.

BUT, we can grab onto the Head. That's what I needed was to grasp onto Christ. And truthfully, Satan tries to defraud every one of us, by telling us that we "didn't really mean it" or a number of other horrific attacks. That's the best way I can describe that, is that the Devil is truly terrible and frightening and without God he has his way with us.

But that's where our God-given ability to "try the spirits" comes into play, and we can say with confidence that this can't be from God because it goes against His revealed truth of salvation given freely, and a new life promised, and a growing closer to Him. Satan wants to rob us of our joy. That's what mom used to tell me in college before I knew God, when I'd blindly ask her advice for some sort of medicinal answer which was black and white in the Word and now it makes perfect, perfect sense.

So how are we purified from this perverse mindset and justified?

Faith is essential. That's where the life and work begins. We all know what it means because we're the only ones that really know that we have it, or don't have it.
And God's grace gives us that presence of mind (Eph. 2:8) Don't let anyone talk you out this. Because God knows and you know. God knows and I know.

And it's basic Biblical principle, which makes sense only to those who it's being lived out in.

This is very spontaneous. But I truly hope it helps someone out.

Posted by Kammer at September 12, 2003 01:17 AM