When Faith Falters

Even if our faith falters, it can recover and grow much stronger.

Abraham did not waver through unbelief as the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise. The passage we explored in the previous posts—Romans 4:18–21—describes the state of Abraham’s faith as he neared the end of the journey with the time for Isaac to be conceived drawing near. We know this because Romans 4 describes his faith at “about a hundred years old” (Rom. 4:19). At that point he did not waver through unbelief.

But what was the state of his and Sarah’s faith 15 years earlier?

Leaning on their own understanding

When Abraham was 85 and Sarah 75, Sarah grew impatient with waiting to become pregnant. This was 10 years after God initially promised Abraham that he would be father of nations. Genesis 16:2 says, “Sarai said to Abram, ‘Behold now, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.’” By Sarah’s calculations, she and Abraham could not wait any longer.

In their culture it was acceptable for barren couples to get a child by the wife’s giving her servant to her husband as a surrogate mother. So what should the man of faith make of his wife’s idea? The situation was not clear, for the promises God had given Abraham never specifically said Sarah would birth his child. God had simply promised, “I will make of you a great nation” (Gen. 12:2) and “Your very own son shall be your heir” (Gen. 15:4). So Abraham could have felt he had leeway to lower his expectations and think the Lord would fulfill the promise, sort of, through Hagar.

When Abraham’s and Sarah’s faith falters

But until this moment, that had not been his hope. He and Sarah had assumed that God would give Sarah a child, and with good reason. For Abraham to have the child of promise by another woman was not the ideal revealed in creation, that a man have one wife. It is clear that Sarah came to this decision reluctantly. Having a child by Hagar was not worthy of the man who had received exalted promises from God. Everything about this seemed wrong.

Nevertheless they did it. They did it because they were confused; they were frustrated; they were leaning on their own understanding. It was easier than waiting on God. And the results were not good.

Faith that flickered, and reignited

But that misstep did not extinguish God’s promises. Their failure did not snuff out the promise because it did not snuff out their faith. Years ago for a birthday celebration my wife bought novelty candles that could not be blown out, at least not for long. When the candle was puffed out, the wick glowed for a moment and then popped into flame again. In a similar way, faith eventually reignited in Abraham as well as Sarah.

Abraham did not receive the miraculous birth of Isaac by his faith alone. Sarah’s faith also played a key role. Her faith returned as great faith. She even makes it into the faith chapter, Hebrews 11, which says, “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised” (v. 11). Sarah’s faith enabled her to conceive. Abraham did not have Isaac apart from Sarah’s body or Sarah’s faith.

Faithful

This verse describes the content of her faith. “She considered him faithful who had promised.” After Hagar gave birth to Ishmael, Sarah waited about 14 more years in barrenness, but those years did not diminish her belief in God’s faithfulness; rather, her faith increased. This is the delicious fruit of waiting on the Lord. After faltering at age 75, with each passing year her confidence grew that God’s nature is to be faithful to his promises, faithful to his covenants, faithful to his word, faithful to his nature, faithful to his people. He does not change; he does not fail. No one is as faithful as God. His faithfulness is holy, beyond our full comprehension. Nonetheless Sarah comprehended it enough to receive power to conceive and deliver a child at age 90.

Even if you who have faltered in faith, the test of waiting on the Lord can galvanize a deeper conviction that God is perfectly faithful.

This must be one reason he has you wait, and you are not alone.

In the next post—the conclusion of this series—we see that the Bible is a book full of people in waiting.

Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)

August 1, 2022July 26, 2022

Staying “in Faith”

Being “in faith” is a life-changing mindset and attitude.

On the windowsill of my office sit two flowerpots. In each is an orchid. One is almost completely dead, with three desiccated leaves, and one tiny, shriveled, yellow-green leaf sitting atop the stem. The other is alive, but only with four, long, drooping leaves, and a brown, stiff flower stem about 10-inches tall. Neither plant has had a flower in many months.

The plants are in this near-death condition because of my inattention. For years they would regularly put up a flower stem on which four to eight beautiful orchids would bloom and last for more than a month. We kept them in our living room window, where they received indirect sunlight. But then we moved them into my office, where there is much less light, and I watered them irregularly at best.

These orchids are a picture of what can happen to a Christian’s faith. Faith does not flourish without attention.

Firm in faith

Isaiah 7:9 says, “If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all” (ESV).

We need to be “in faith.” Faith must be our mindset, our overall attitude. Anyone who knows us well should be able to describe us as persons who have a spirit of faith, a heart full of faith, just as Acts 6:5 describes Stephen as “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit,” and Barnabas as “full of the Holy Spirit and of faith” (Acts 11:24).

But we will not get “in faith” by accident. We need to attend to two aspects of our heart.

Both general and specific

We need to water both general faith and specific faith.

Our overall spirit of faith consists in the firm belief we have in the truths developed in the previous posts of this series, in particular:

If you believe these truths as you believe the sun is hot, you will be “in faith.” Your heart and mind will have a faith culture where faith for specific promises of God will easily flourish. For this reason I regularly review and meditate on these truths.

If you doubt these fundamentals of faith, you will have a difficult time trying to believe any specific promise of God, such as his promises to provide for you (such as Philippians 4:19) and protect you (such as Psalm 121).

Specific faith

When I was in high school, several times a day my father would strap a sphygmomanometer to his arm and test his blood pressure. Keeping track of that was critical to his health.

Similarly we need to pay attention to our level of faith and do the work necessary to be generally in faith rather than generally in doubt, to believe rather than disbelieve.

For most people it is what it is. Like a flag on a pole, which behaves differently as the wind continually changes, their faith is at the whim of circumstances, input from reading and media, irregular devotional life and church attendance, emotions, and trials. Most Christians do not memorize or meditate on faith-building promises as a healthy person pays attention to exercise and diet. When doubt is their prevailing attitude, they are not self-aware and proactive to change it. They ignore it just as I have ignored my orchids for a long time (but no longer. When I finish this post, I will pitch my orchids).

Takeaway

Either faith or doubt will predominate in your heart. On any day, in any week, in any season of life, we will in general be a person of faith or of unbelief.

Being in faith means being aware of the faith level of one’s heart and taking whatever action is necessary to have faith in general toward God and his Word, and faith in specific for particular promises on which we are standing.

My father lived 82 years, more than 35 years beyond when I first saw him regularly checking his blood pressure. You can have strong faith as you pay attention to stay firmly “in faith.”

February 7, 2022July 26, 2022

Established in Faith

When you are established in faith, you can truly know God and his ways.

In the Fall of 2012 I was working full-time for a publisher and part-time as pastor of the church I still serve. One day my supervisor called me to his office and informed me that the company was laying off a large segment of its work force due to financial deficits and that I was one of those losing his job.

I had never experienced that before. You hear stories of people losing jobs and being devastated, and you wonder what you would do if it happened to you. As my supervisor explained the process of ending my employment and as I walked back to my office, my thoughts and emotional reaction surprised me. Although suddenly confronted with a long list of uncertainties and losses, my heart was calm. I was disappointed, sure, but not afraid. I felt confident that God was in charge, that he would provide for me and my wife, and that we were beginning an exciting new chapter.

Certainly I have not always been so assured. I recall a decade prior to this layoff driving for several hours with a friend to a meeting, and as the conversation moved to plans for the future, I admitted to my sense of financial insecurity. In other words, I was afraid and told him so. I did not see how I would have enough money for old age. For years I lived with foreboding about this.

Why? Because I did not adequately know God. Yes, I was a regenerated Christian, a devoted follower of Christ, a pastor. I knew God in the sense that I was born again and knew the Bible well and understood many truths about God accurately. But I did not know him well enough to trust what he repeatedly promised in Scripture about providing for my needs.

Faith and knowledge

To the extent that we do not really believe what the Scripture says, we do not know him. True knowledge of God depends on faith. One can articulate the most intricate aspects of the doctrine of the Trinity yet find it difficult to joyfully say, “God loves me.”

This is why the subject of faith is so important for Christians who want to know God better. Our knowledge of God cannot exceed our faith. The quest to know God is far more about increasing faith than about adding theological information and answering our questions.

What Jesus expected

As you read the Gospels, have you ever noticed what Jesus repeatedly called attention to as he engaged with his disciples and strangers? He certainly talked a lot about love, obedience, righteousness, and truth. Nevertheless, though I have not tallied the occurrences, it seems to me he talked most about faith and unbelief. He regularly either commended people for their faith or admonished them for doubt. He expected people to have what we would classify as enormous faith. And he marveled when his disciples were afraid of drowning in a momentous tempest. He admonished them when they worried about going hungry in the desert although they had just two loaves of bread and a couple of fish and a crowd of 5,000 to feed. He bypassed others who doubted he could heal the sick and demon-afflicted.

Moreover, he taught things about faith that are, well, unbelievable. He said true believers would with a word be able to move mountains, perform miracles, replant trees in the sea, and receive whatever they ask. Not only can God do amazing things, so can we.

God’s will

This stretches one’s faith to the breaking point. Some Christians respond by reaching for that level of faith, though it is by no means easy (that is, unless you become as a child [Mark 10:15]) and it raises many questions. Others do not know what to do with these teachings. They might explain them away, regarding Christians who pursue such faith as unwise or unhinged, asking for trouble and disillusionment. Or they might accept the teachings, but shake their heads and regard them as personally unattainable. Some might say these teachings of Jesus are for those who have the special gift of faith.

Based on my reading of the Gospels, I do not think Jesus would say that. He expected big faith from everyone. Moreover, to limit strong faith to a spiritual elite is to relegate most Christians to a stunted knowledge of God, as described above, and the fear, insecurity, instability, weakness, and defeat that comes with it.

No, Jesus said, “Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22). That is an imperative. Thus that is his will.

Scripture warns against being double-minded, saying to one who asks for wisdom, “Let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (James 1:6–8, ESV).

Hebrews 11:6 says, “without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

Romans 14:23 says, “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”

Isaiah 7:9 says, “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all” (NIV). The RSV says, “If you will not believe, surely you shall not be established.”

The trouble with accepting unbelief

We cannot experience the Christian life described in the Bible without faith in what God says. So the idea that we should tolerate in ourselves an unbelief of anything God says in his Word is simply wrong. We must not be satisfied with anything less than believing all he says. Unbelief insults God, implying that he is not truthful, cannot be trusted, and is not Almighty. Being content with unbelief requires resisting Jesus, who is the “author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).

Therefore we must not rationalize and excuse our own unbelief. Unbelief will creep and grow. It is Satan’s foot in the door. It is an invitation to the unmanageable power of fear and the ruin that accompanies it.

Established in faith

So we need to be established in faith.

To establish means to put on a firm basis, to make stable or permanent.

I live on the 20^th floor of a high-rise. I have watched many high-rises built around us. Before the first floor is built, I have seen dozens of holes drilled deep in the soil and then filled with concrete. I have seen a quarter million tons of concrete, steel, and glass go into a tower one floor at a time. A high-rise is as established as a man-made building can be. It is heavy and has a big footprint. It is anchored to the ground with deep underground columns. A puff of wind will not knock it over, nor will a normal trembling in the earth crack it to pieces.

To establish something is to position it to endure. It is in balance, not teetering. It is grounded, not suspended in midair. It has a foundation. It is built on rock, not sand. It is consistent, not wavering. It is single-minded, not double-minded.

The 20 truths this series highlights will bring you to this place of established faith. Believing these 20 truths will make you an immovable, spiritual rock. And most importantly, you will know God as he is. You will know him in your experience, not just intellectually. And your Christian life will work the way the Bible describes.

How the Christian life works

The Bible describes the life of a Christian as one marked by peace and joy even in the midst of conflict; by strength abounding even in our weaknesses; by answered prayer even though for a long time we walk by faith and not by sight.

The Christian life does not work as the Bible describes without faith, without faith in everything the Bible promises, without faith in the worldview the Bible describes—a worldview in which God is almighty and responsive to the prayers of those who believe. That is not the worldview of most people in educated, Western cultures, for whom the idea of a God who can do miracles is inconceivable. If you want to know and experience God, you must abandon that worldview and fully adopt what the Bible says about God and his ways with us.

Each of these 20 truths plays a crucial role in the superstructure of established faith, so do not miss a week. You will learn to call these truths to mind before you pray and then pray with confidence. When you sense fear and unbelief slipping into your soul, you will call these truths to mind, and they will reestablish you in immovable confidence. You will learn to live all day, every day, established in faith—and thus knowing God better than ever before.

September 20, 2021August 20, 2021

Pray for Wisdom with Faith

We must pray for wisdom with faith because a double-minded person will not receive anything from the Lord. Here is how you can develop the necessary faith.

The most encouraging verse in the Bible about praying for wisdom is James 1:5. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him” (ESV).

However, it is immediately followed by a warning that might make you lose heart. “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” (James 1:6–8)

Knowing that an answer to prayer depends on your faith can make you lose faith! If everything depends on God, we can be confident because we know he is reliable. But if something depends on us, we can despair because we know how far short we fall of perfection, especially perfect faith. And we know how our emotions can ride a roller coaster.

There is no way around it, though. If you want to learn how to pray for wisdom for everything that matters to you, you must learn to pray with faith.

And you can do it.

You can pray for wisdom with faith

Again, you can do it. God will help you if you will enter the school of faith. Depending on how strong or weak your faith is now, it may take a while to learn to pray for wisdom with faith, but you can and will learn if you depend on God and persevere.

Praying for wisdom is an outstanding exercise for developing the muscle of faith. You build faith by using it, by going through the ups and downs of having faith for a request but then losing it—but not giving up. You again press in to God’s promises to regain faith. And you may go through that cycle many times, but if you do not quit, if you do not give up in despair, if you come back to your senses—to the bedrock reality that God is absolutely faithful—and keep choosing to believe God’s Word, you will find that the episodes of doubt come less often and are weaker and weaker.

Meanwhile your foundation of faith gets deeper and deeper, stronger and stronger, to the point where faith dominates your soul. And finally you come to the place where, changing the metaphor, all the oxygen for doubt is gone. Doubt suffocates and dies. And the only thing left standing and breathing is indomitable faith.

That is your future, my friend, if you will enter into the school of regularly praying for wisdom and staying at it until wisdom enters your heart (Proverbs 2:10).

Day one is decisive

Daniel 10:12 shows one key principle of faith. In previous posts in this series we saw that an angel appeared to Daniel, who for three weeks had been earnestly inquiring of God for wisdom. The angel said:

“Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words” (Daniel 10:12).

There is a crucial principle about how to pray for wisdom with faith: believe that the moment you pray God has heard you. Notice the past tense: “From the first day…your words have been heard.”

That is not unique to this verse in Daniel. In the New Testament God promises this to all Christians as we pray according to his will. First John 5:14–15 says, “This is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” Again we see that the answer comes when we pray.

Jesus himself states this truth. “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). In the past tense you received it, and in the future tense it will be yours. So God has heard your request and determined to give you the wisdom you seek, but he may not do so immediately, or even soon. You have to keep faith that God has heard you for as long as he in his wisdom requires.

You can do it with his help. He will give you grace, for he delights in your faith.

Your words are decisive

I love the last few words from the angel in Daniel 10:12: “your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words.”

Do you recognize the weight of your own words? Do you realize how much attention God pays to your words, how much spiritual glory and power they have? And do you appreciate how decisive your words are in God’s sight?

Granted, some teachers, both Christian and non-Christian, have taken this to an extreme, but do not overreact to unbiblical extremes to the point that you lose the reality clearly taught in Scripture. Words that accord with the will of God are the currency of his kingdom. Pray for wisdom with faith that your words are heard in heaven—and it is done (James 1:5–8).

March 19, 2018February 24, 2018

Faith Required

believe in God_why God does not make it easier to believe

God’s way: Believe in God and his Word.

Our way: Believe only what we understand. Believe only when we know the future. Trust our own mind and human understanding. God must be and do what we think is reasonable.

“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” —Hebrews 11:6 (ESV)

Believe in God

Have you ever wished that God would make it easier to believe? That he would do for you and everyone else in the world what he did for Saul, as recorded in Acts 9? Give you a vision of Jesus in dazzling light and speak with you telling you what to do? Even perform a miracle?

Before that vision Saul was an ardent unbeliever, an enemy of Christ, but that vision made it nearly impossible not to believe. So if God wants everyone to be saved, if God wants every Christian to trust and obey his Word, why not just do for everyone what he did for Saul?

The Lord requires faith

The answer: Because God loves our faith. And therefore he relates to us in a way that requires faith. He supplies abundant grounds for our faith, but he almost never does anything that makes it impossible not to believe.

For instance, he spectacularly and unmistakably displays his glory in nature, but unbelievers can choose to explain our world with something like the theory of evolution.

He puts into the heart of every human a moral conscience and an awareness of God, but unbelievers can choose to explain that with theories of sociology, psychology, genes, and DNA.

He inspired men to write his Scriptures. The Bible is the most astounding book in the world, a revelation of truth about life and reality that bears the unmistakable stamp of divine authenticity and authority. But unbelievers can choose to avoid God’s Word, and those who do read can choose to harden their hearts to it.

He sent his Son to the world as a man. Jesus taught the truth and performed astounding miracles. He fulfilled Old Testament prophecies. He predicted his death on the cross and resurrection from the tomb. Then God did indeed raise him from the dead, and Jesus appeared to his followers numerous times. They proclaimed that resurrection throughout their world, and many believed, but many more could choose to dismiss the reports and the evidence.

God still does miracles today. Yet unbelievers can always choose to explain them away as something less than evidence of God’s existence.

As God intends

So God gives more than ample reason to believe, but one thing he does not do is show up visibly, audibly, and indisputably in a way that science and all could verify. That is, not since his appearance to Moses and Israel at Mount Sinai and Jesus’s post-resurrection appearance to the disciples. And not more than occasionally to individuals or a small group, as he did with Saul.

That is God’s deliberate way of doing things. He always leaves those who do not want to believe an open back door to escape the truth. And he always gives those willing to believe more than enough reason to believe. (See Romans 1:16–23; John 3:14–21; John 18:37)

He always conducts our relationship with him in a way that requires faith.

Romans 1:17 says, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

So, obviously he must love our faith. Hebrews 11:6 (the Scripture that opened this post) shows he is indeed pleased by our faith and dislikes our unbelief so much that we cannot please him without faith. Jesus always commended people who had faith and chided those who did not believe. He talked about it regularly because it matters so much to him.

Unfortunately, if we had it our way, we would never need faith in God. We would always know what the future holds and have full control of it. And everything God does would make sense to us ahead of time. What faith requires is actually offensive to our pride, to our proud minds. It takes us out of the driver’s seat. It makes us dependent, like children. We won’t understand everything. “Unless you turn and become like children,” said Jesus, “you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).

God’s Ways: He loves our faith and so relates to us in a way that requires us to believe him.

Implications

For all who want to know God and walk and work closely with him, this means five things:

We must never be okay with our own doubt and unbelief. (But we are to be merciful toward others who See Jude 1:22) (See John 20:27; James 1:6–8)
We must choose to believe what the Bible says and resist our Western scientific training that has left a bias in our mind against the supernatural. This is a choice based on who we think is more reliable. (See Luke 1:37; Matthew 22:29; 1 Corinthians 1:17–31; Proverbs 28:26)
We must believe in Jesus Christ. (See John 3:16; John 6:27–35)
We must do the things that strengthen faith. Read and memorize the Bible daily. Attend a church weekly that believes that the Bible is inerrant and that God still does supernatural miracles such as healings. And pray continually. (See Romans 10:17)
We must understand that for all our lives, growing in faith is God’s spiritual curriculum for us as much as growing in love, holiness, and knowledge. Therefore God will allow situations in your life to draw out more faith. So you need to respond to those situations as God intends—with faith in him and his Word. (See Hebrews 12:2)

Question: In the comments area, tell us: What would you add to this list?