Faith

First of all, I have to share some very relieving and wonderful news, I successfully completed my senior guitar recital this morning. After five years of hard work, frustration, and discouragement, God has brought me through this season of my life successfully, and having taught me many hard, but good lessons. Words cannot accurately depict the feeling I had when they told me I passed. I do have one other hurdle to jump before I get my diploma, but it seems small in comparison, and I know God will be as faithful with my piano proficiency as He has been with guitar recital.

Now, the title of the post is faith, and while my journey through the music degree at Boyce College is a good example of someone having faith, it is not the real point of this post. I was reading a little pamphlet entitled, Around the Wicket Gate, by the great preacher of the 1800s, Charles Spurgeon. It is a gospel tract that he wrote, which I read for enjoyment and the benefit of my soul. I honestly did not expect to get as much out of it as I did, because after all it is a gospel tract, and I do know and believe the gospel already. However, another great theologian, Martin Luther, has a good quote on this subject. A member of his church came up to him after the sermon and asked him why he continued to preach the gospel every week, and why he hadn't moved on to something else. Luther looked at him and said something to the effect of, "Because week after week, you come in here looking like people who don't believe it." It of course is the gospel.

The truth is that we never should tire of hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we never move beyond it, it is what gains us eternal life, and it is what keeps us on the path to eternal life. So as I read Spurgeon, he talked about faith, and clarified that faith is not a work. Often we tend to make faith something that we do all on our own, but Spurgeon tells, and more importantly, the scriptures tell us that this is not so. Ephesians 2:8, says that we have been saved by grace, through faith, which is the gift of God. Faith is the gift of God which is given to us by the grace of God, this is what saves us from sin.

A member of Spurgeon's church told him once, "I am trying to believe in Jesus." His response was that that is not good enough. He asked them if he believed his father, and the response was yes, to which he replied, then why can you not believe Jesus. His point in this is that we make faith far too complicated, which is why we don't understand it. Faith is not something you have to do, it is something you have, something that just works on it's own. Spurgeon compares faith to eating or breathing.

He gives another helpful illustration from a Sunday school teacher he knew. The teacher had a classroom full of kids, and to each of them he offered them a nice new watch. As he did, each of them refused it and politely turned down the offer of the watch. Finally one boy, who he said was a little younger and less thoughtful than the others, gleefully accepted the gift. The other students asked if he would actually get to keep the watch, to which the teacher responded, of course I gave it to him. They exclaimed that they didn't know that he was being serious, that he would really give them the watch. He said, the same is true with Gospel, Jesus stands offering life eternal, and we often refuse his offer because we won't believe that He means what He says.

Spurgeon's plea with the reader is to not dare and distrust the love and grace of the savior, yet believe the words of sinful men. It echoes the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:11, "If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him." This verse has always been a convicting and comforting word to my soul, and with the words of Spurgeon also ringing in my ears, not to distrust the words of Jesus as He calls me to come and find rest and salvation. Trying to believe Jesus' words is an insult to the character and nature of Jesus who freely gave His life as a ransom for many.

Faith in Jesus is much more simple than we think practice, we try to make some abstract thing which is only attainable by a few select few. But faith is given to us by God's grace that we may cling to Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith. He can and will bring us safely before God's presence to be delivered from sin and death and the wrath of God that comes with it. Hallelujah what a Savior, and what a salvation plan, never cease to fly to it for relief!