The Goal of Faith

The lack of faith is the root cause of disobedience or sin. Faith is both belief and trust but it is also much more. Our belief in the truth of an idea comes from our thinking mind, trust is from our emotional centre; our heart. Our deep centre, our heart is the wellspring of our faith. Faith is the positive commitment of our “I”. More important to belief in the idea and knowledge of God, is to trust and know God, the person. Faith is trustfulness and fidelity and we can only have these with a person. You cannot trust an idea or be unfaithful to an idea or commit infidelity with an idea. We can have all the knowledge and truths in the world about God, but if we do not have a relationship based on trust (no knowing of God in our hearts) with God, we have nothing. If we have trust in God (Knowing of God in our heart) and just grain of knowledge and truth of God we still have everything.  So the goal of faith is not truths about God but God himself who is truth.

Our Word is Really our Bond

Our decisions and our promises define us. Our word is really our bond. The strength of our word reflects the confidence we possess in our own integrity; integrity can be defined as our internal strength of character to honour our promises and commitments. If a person does not honour their word or commitments, they really have nothing. Life is about relationships; with God, ourselves and our neighbour. Relationships are based on commitment. All of life operates on the trust of keeping our promises and commitments. Honouring what we say we will do. Family bonds, business relations, marriage, friendship, partnerships, co-operations, teams, organisations are all based on the trust of commitments between people.   We are all restrained by the pull of the past, by our fear of the future, by our old habits, by our moods, emotions and circumstances. We can break the past by making a decision and acting on a commitment. When Christ said to the apostles “Come follow me”, they made an instant decision and followed the Lord from that moment. We become what we are committed to in life. It is this moment of decision that, we either choose to live according to our own purpose or God’s will. Many people make no commitments in life and drift from crisis to crises, fad to fashion, from addiction to pity. Their lives float aimlessly. Others only make half hearted commitments. These commitments are doomed because the first sign of trouble and they crumble. These commitments are stop and go, one day all fired up the next day crawling on the floor. It leads to stress, frustration, weakness, fatigue and mediocrity.  To grow in faith is the commitment to grow in faith. Growing in strong faith is based on clear identity and purpose, on who you are and what is the meaning of your life. Deep faith builds strong disciplined and focused character that will not be uprooted by moods and circumstances. Deep faith simplifies life; it separates what’s important from the unimportant. It solves one of lives great questions. It decides what you do and what you don’t do. With deep faith we know what we stand for and what we don’t stand for. Our faith gives us clear identify and purpose, a strong and firm ground upon which to decide actions, priorities, time and resources. Many people are totally committed individuals but still end up unfulfilled because they become committed to things or the world like money, work or the pursuit of success. The commitment to the pursuit of things of the world always ends in failure and disappointment because we die. We take nothing to eternity except our immortal souls. Commitment boils down to two choices; commitment to this world or commitment to eternity.

Faith is Tested Daily

Keep the faith. Once we have faith we must make the decision to keep the faith. It is a decision consciously confirmed from out of our thinking mind and our free will. Nobody can take faith from us. We cannot say our faith has extinguished or evaporated against our will. We can only make the decision either to believe or not to believe. It is not a feeling or a mood that determines whether we have faith or not. It is a reasoned choice. It is as simple as a “yes” to Christ or a “no” to Christ. Once we have faith, it can either grow in strength or wither in weakness. Our faith is tested daily. In fact it is test every moment of our lives. Christian living is faith interacting with the coalface of reality. This interacting creates a tension, a conflict, a test; we often experience trouble, suffering and pain. But through a deep and living faith we experience real joy a foretaste of heaven. We can experience a little bit of heaven n earth, it is fleeting, a pale shadow but all the saints have reached this state. Faith grows by living the faith. Living the faith means believing more and trusting more. No problem or suffering is insurmountable by having more belief and more trust. Our faith must grow, it does not come automatically; otherwise we will remain in perpetual spiritual infancy; helpless, dependent, undeveloped, self seeking for survival, fearful, instinctive, lack of self awareness. Our only survival mechanism is self-pity and moan, groan and cry out to the world for sustenance and comfort. Most of us grow up physically but emotionally and spiritually we are like stunted acorns.  God says you are more then a spiritual infant, he wants us to grow up and mature spiritually. Faith is an intentional decision; so is spiritual growth. We choose spiritual growth. We must decide to grow, we must plan to grow, we must push to grow, we must fight to grow, and we must persist at growing.

God's Plan for Man is Perfectly Clear

God’s plan was and is to make you the most important thing in all of creation. Man is its end. Christ is man’s end. Love and Truth is Christ’s end. Man is the goal of creation. Christ is the apex of creation. In fact man is standing on the peak of a mountain so high, part of man is already part of heaven while he is still on earth; this part of man is his soul. In all of creation a soul only exists in man. The universe has been intelligently designed; matter and energy; from planets, suns and galaxies, black holes and worm holes, super novas and light years, gravity and motion, time and space all work like a magnificent clock created by a master craftsman. The purpose of this magnificence is life, for it is nothing without life and man. Without life it is a vacant room. A room has no other purpose other then to be lived in, without life it is an exuberantly priced meaningless. God’s plan is love. It is written in love and truth. It is implemented by his divine providence. Out of this love he created man. Man is not a by product of creation, an accident of evolution, a freak event, a smart move, an experiment, a dalliance, a doodle, but an expression of love. What is God’s plan for man’s life? We can break the plan into many parts; love, obedience, adoration, service, mission, vocation, self-sacrifice, friendship with God, salvation, repentance, born again, preparation for heaven and eternity, character and spiritual development. But the plan is most clearly seen in the person of Jesus Christ.

God has a Destiny for You

God’s plan includes you. In fact if it did not include you, there would be no existence for you. The plan includes every detail of your life, your very essence. God has a plan for you and me, therefore he has expectations. He has a purpose and expectation for all our lives that must be fulfilled. He had an expectation for you even before you were conceived. The mind of God created a master plan of your life down to the finest details even before creation existed. You were conceived twice; first in God’s mind then in your mother’s womb. You were always destined to exist. There was going to be no other option; any other fate. He planned you inside and out, every atom and molecule, every aesthetic and talent, every quirk and endowment, your personality and character. Every moment of every day has been scheduled; every action and thought has been recorded on to the plan. But how can man have free will in such a plan?  The plan is so infinitely ordered and infinitely comprehensive that it takes into account all of man’s good and bad decisions, all errors, faults and sins. God’s infinite wisdom knows all things and sees all things. His plan has taken account of everything. There is no predestination because within his plan he never took away man’s freedom to choice. There is destiny, an end point a purpose in the lives of every single person that has and will exist. There is no predestination; God did not conceive, create any person to fail, error or sin. He has destined us for His happiness but free choice still remains with us.   

God takes Care of Us

God had no need for a master plan, a purpose or to create. No plan, no purpose, no creation can add or increase God. The purpose of the plan which results in creation is to express his glory. Creation has not finished it continues on to this instant and beyond to the end of time. It does not add to his glory but communicates his glory. The master plan reflects god’s love and goodness. That is the reason for his plan. The plan is not to benefit God but to benefit man. God gains nothing but man gains everything because our whole existence results from god’s purposeful plan. You and I were not created by pure chance but on pure purpose. We are part of the plan and it is our responsibility to partake in it’s implementation. Realising and accepting the reality of God’s plan and his purpose and control of every fine detail will fundamentally change our focus in life. We can be assured that we are taken care of, there is a purpose in everything, there is a reason for everything, and we have a destiny in God’s glory assured as we had a beginning in God’s creation. We are assured that God is in control and not the fallacy that we are in control. We are free to make choices but God is still in control, even when we make bad or evil decisions. God knows every detail of our lives, there is no hiding. We can convince ourselves otherwise but the reality is he knows everything. One of the most astounding aspects of God’s plan is the first cause of existence which is God. God is present in all of existence; if he was not, there would be no existence. Everything in existence, visible and invisible, matter and non matter, every living thing, everything we see, touch, feel has it’s existence in God. God is infinitely loving, caring, good, wise, truth, beauty, power and his plan reflects Himself therefore we can trust everything to God. God is infinite love that wills what is best for us, infinite wisdom to know what is best for us and infinite power to make the best happen for us. But we need trust, childlike trust in the Lords plan and in God himself. Like a child trusts his loving and wise parents, how much more can be trust our heavenly father. This is why Christ asks for childlike abandonment to the divine providence of the almighty Father who takes care of his children’s smallest needs.

There is a Master Plan

There is a master plan. It is God’s plan. All men were created as a result of the master plan for the purpose of it’s end. Creation, the world, life, your life is not an accident. There are no accidents in God’s plan because God does not make mistakes. People make mistakes but all human mistakes are taken account of in God’s plan. God is in control of everything in creation. God is in control of the implementation of the master plan. He holds it together, he knows every last detail. Part of that plan is our lives. God is in control of our lives not us. What do we know about the plan? We know about the plan through revelation. We do not know all or understand the entire plan. The plan is real because reality is real. Reality came into existence because He planned it and put the plan into practice. We are part of the plan because we exist in realty not outside it. There is order to the plan. It is not chaotic, segmented or piecemeal. Everything fits together. It is sequential, it rolls out in the completion of time, it isn’t there one moment; all delivered and completed, things and events happen one after another, things change perfectly, and there are no glitches or broken pieces. The plan works because creation works. God’s plan is divine providence; God guides, directs and makes happen his creation toward the perfection of his master plan.  Providence is “what happens”. Anything that happens in creation happens on purpose. It is God who makes it happen; that is why we call it Divine Providence. The plan is how it will happen and the result of it happening is creation. Who it happens to is Man. God’s plan is priceless, man’s plans are worthless. The master plan is good and beautiful and whole. The plan not only determines our origin but also our destiny. God planned to create us; he also plans to share his joy and happiness with us in the next life. God is the author of the plan. We have no rights over any of it’s aspects or the success of the plan. We can neither add nor subtract except partake in it. God’s master plan will give us everything we could ever dream of in return for one thing; man’s trust. God asks us to trust Him and His plan. God is infinitely wise, good, true and powerful and his plan reflects the nature of God. God trusts man and he asks man to return that trust. God trusts man by giving him the gift of free will and his image. Man can choose. His ultimate choice is either to accept and trust God or reject God. Man can trust God and his plan or reject God and ignore his plan. But man ignoring God’s master plan does not affect it’s implementation. God’s master plan takes account of every eventuality and detail. God’s plan will succeed because God does not fail and his plan is perfection.