What is faith?

Faith is a widely misused word in our spiritual vocabulary. Many Christians use the term to indicate a belief in Jesus. On the contrary, Christian faith is not simply a belief in Christ Jesus as our Savior. So what does it mean to truly have faith?

Faith involves trusting God with the Spirit of Truth (also known as the Holy Spirit). It is a process that requires cultivation on our part.

We do not automatically gain this type of faith by mindlessly attending church. Yet there are many “Christians” who think they have faith by doing just this. Outside of attending church, how many of them are reading the Bible on a regular basis and working towards bolstering their relationship with God?

God creates us in His image (Genesis 1:26). As with the development of all creations, the process of being created in God’s image occurs in a stepwise fashion. As an infant grows, she learns to roll over, sit up on her own, crawl, and then walk.  Similarly as our faith matures, we go through different phases.

Israel’s exodus from Egypt parallels the different phases of faith. My last blog posting “many are called, but few are chosen” includes a figure from “God’s Mystery that is Christ” that depicts this parallel. In the first phase, we are the oppressed Israelites in Egypt. While in this phase, we approach God through the law of conscience because God set eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We embark on our spiritual journey by metaphorically crossing over the Red Sea and entering the wilderness church or second phase of faith. It is in the wilderness church that we approach God through Moses’ law (also known as the written word). In the second phase, our conscience seeks God through institutions like the organized churches.

The Israelites spent forty years in the wilderness before making it to Canaan. This is an extraordinarily long time considering the short distance they had to traverse. While in the wilderness, they encountered venomous snakes and scorpions (Deuteronomy 8:15) that delayed their crossing over the Jordan River to reach the Promised Land.  Take note, venomous snakes and scorpions represent the teachings of men. After we spend sufficient time in the wilderness, we too are able to figuratively cross the Jordan River to enter the third phase of faith. Later on in the fourth phase, we approach God through the Spirit of Truth and our spirit is revived. We can only enter the Promised Land when our spirit is revived.

God leads His people through the wilderness church to humble us on our way toward the Word of Christ’s Truth. This is God’s plan: “He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:3, NIV).

When we are in the wilderness church, we are called out of Egypt, but we have not received salvation yet. In this state we easily vacillate between worldly knowledge and the Word of Truth because we are unable to fully distinguish between the two. Many in the wilderness church believe they have salvation. Unfortunately those in the wilderness church worship Jesus without truly knowing the inner meaning of Christ Jesus.

The teachings we learned in the wilderness church are the elementary (Hebrews 6:1). In the wilderness, Christians gain the teachings of men and interpret the written word with human wisdom, which causes them to linger in the second phase of faith. When Jesus speaks of the religious leaders in the four books of the Gospel, He speaks of the bondage of the wilderness church (Matthew 23, Mark 8:15, Luke 20:46, John 5:39-40).  We must turn from the teachings of men towards the Bible’s written word to catch sight of Christ’s Truth.

Another concept from “God’s Mystery that is Christ” is the “third day faith.”  This concept parallels the creation story. God’s intention is hidden in the third day (Genesis 1:9). The goal of our faith should be to reach for and attain the third day faith. This is significant because it represents when our spirit is revived and God restores us. “On the third day He will restore us, that we may live in His presence” (Hosea 6:2, NIV).

Those who accept Jesus as Savior with their conscience are blessed even if they remain in the wilderness church, as long as they are reaching for the third day faith. Still, we must not linger in the wilderness church. When we keep worldly interpretations of God’s written words in our hearts, we keep idols close at hand. In God’s eyes, these are detestable things and abominations.

The days of the creation story represent yet another way to understand how our faith grows with Christ. After God dried the land on restores. He commanded seed-bearing plants and trees to produce vegetation on the dry ground (Genesis 1:11–12). Dry ground referred our inner states. We too must plant seeds in our dry land. These seeds are the Word of God (Luke 8:11), which are always present. The seeds sown in good soil will surely grow and bear fruit. Rightly this fruit is the “mystery of Christ” (Ephesians 3:4) and “God’s mystery” (Colossians 2:2). God’s mystery refers to when we are able to discern the Bible’s written word planted in our heart. This is the meaning of the third day. God’s law is the undiscerned written word, however we must know the written word as the Word of Truth—the discerned Word. “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the Truth” (1 Timothy 2:3-4, NIV).

When we reach for the third day faith, we return to the Bible’s written word and engraving them in our hearts and minds (Hebrews 10:16). We are still in the second phase of faith when this occurs. In this phase we approach God through the Bible’s words as we dry out our land to allow the Word to take root. As with all seeds that are planted in good soil, sprouts eventually emerge. The same will happen when the Word of God is planted in our flesh. Once our heart is in the right state to receive the Word and we are able to discern God’s mean we have attained the third day faith and entered the fourth phase of faith.

The discerned Word is the revelation of the Bible’s written word by the Spirit of Truth. The discerned Word comes to us individually. This is the resurrection of Christ Jesus in our spirits. Until we achieve this state, we have a reputation of being alive, but we are dead (Revelation 3:1). With the fourth phase of faith we approach God through the Spirit of Truth. Once we reached the fourth phase we simultaneously work toward encompassing the fourth, fifth, and sixth days of the creation story. God’s intention is for us to be created in His image. Therefore “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day” (Genesis 1:31, NIV).