You Destroyed My Faith!

"Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall"  (1 Cor. 10:12, KJV).  
"Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if you do these things you shall never fall" (2 Pet. 1:10, KJV).

"But he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved" (Matt. 24:13; cf. 10:22, KJV). 

We aren't born tabula rasa, which John Locke believed, with a blank slate but are naturally creatures of faith as a sixth sense or instinct and that is the primary way we first learn: we take our parent's word for it!  Faith is knowledge acted upon and knowledge used wisely is wisdom.  Both are virtues we should practice as believers.  The definition of knowledge is believed or interpreted as being a justified true belief--we must believe it and it must be for a good reason, as if by some authority.

Faith is putting trust in what we have good reason to believe. It's also knowledge in action.  We have a right to our own opinions about the knowledge we know but cannot make up our own knowledge or fabricate our own truths.  Beliefs can be true or false and are very subjective, while truth itself is what corresponds with reality according to the correspondence theory of truth of John Locke.  To Christians, truth is what agrees with God.  Nothing is true because it's believed or untrue because it's doubted.

Children may learn to believe in Santa (a harmless myth) by being encouraged and they will eventually find out it's all pretend, but they usually know we are serious when we relate the true Christmas story.  We can all learn lessons of childlike faith and innocence from kids (cf. Mark 10:45).    They need to learn faith and put it into practice!   Parents don't destroy the children's faith in Santa, they just outgrow it by being around older and more mature kids or from the real world.  Kids have a big imagination and would probably believe even if not so encouraged.

Many atheists will insist they were once believers who lost their faith (the Bible would call this going apostate and departing from the faith which only proved they never had any according to 1 John 2:19).  They had some traumatic experience they couldn't cope with and took it out on God, developing an animus towards Him and then towards Christians, becoming militant atheists even anti-theists bent on destroying the influence of the church and neutralizing Christian influence.

It should be noted that the same sun melts the butter, hardens the clay;  we all either become bitter or better by the same experience and no one skates through life trouble-free without adversity or trials.  Our faith must be tested in the crucible of the trench warfare of real OJT in life.  Even Jesus didn't exempt Himself from adversity and was honest enough to warn us and to count the cost of discipleship. 

You don't need all the answers to believe and just because you believe it doesn't mean you can defend your faith,  But belief without evidence is called blind faith and we are commanded to have a reason for the hope that is in us!  Being apologists is for all believers!   We are to "contend for the faith" (cf. Jude 3) and "in defense of the gospel"(cf. Phil. 1:7)  as Jude and Paul did respectively.

We must remember that no matter how strong our faith, it's still faith and we are saved by faith, not knowledge, which is the error of Gnostics who try to achieve a secret, privileged knowledge of the elite.  We are not saved by intellectualism either--it isn't how much we know, but Whom we know as Paul said in 2 Tim. 1:12 that "I know in whom I have believed...."  Christianity isn't a faith of enlightenment, but of salvation and redemption from the real culprit-sin, not ignorance.  Assurance is not an automatic fruit of salvation but belongs to its well-being, not being and some people need to have a spiritual wake-up call before realizing their precarious faith.

One warning Jesus gave was not to cause a brother to stumble (cf. 1 Cor. 8:12) or a child to lose faith!  To wage war against the saints is odious to God.  We're all supposed to be on the same side as they say in the battle to the troops fighting each other;  "The enemy is over there!"  Note that it's been said that we are our own worst enemies!  We should be fighting sin and evil, not each other!  We ought to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace per Eph. 4:3. It's our job to reassure and foster faith in the weaker brother, but it's not our calling to certify salvation.

Now faith is the "substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen" according to Hebrews 11:1. For illustration purposes, let's say I reach my hand into my pocket and grab something and ask you what it is!  I hold it behind my back and you take a guess or two.  Finally, you come to believe I'm holding my car keys because you can hear them!  That's right, there's evidence for faith!  But this is still faith though you are convinced.  But let's say I open my hand and show you my keys in them; then I've destroyed your faith and given you first-hand knowledge! 

This is akin to getting the first-hand knowledge of our Lord and Savior via a personal relationship with Him--we have encountered Him empirically and know Him like for who He is and what it says:  "Taste and see that the LORD is good"  (cf. Psalm 34:8). The proof of the pudding we'll find out is in the eating!  We need believers with first-hand experience and knowledge of the Lord.  But know this: It's faith till we eat!  What I'm trying to say is that we can know God and be sure of our salvation by the Spirit residing in us: "The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are sons of God" (cf. Romans 8:16).

Let's take another example of faith:  a tightrope walker demonstrates he can walk across the rope with a wheelbarrow and asks how many actually believe he can push a person across in it!  Almost everyone raises their hands and says they believe. Then he asks of a volunteer!  No one is willing to test their faith!   Where's the faith now?  He didn't kill their faith but found out they had none for we must be willing to exercise or put it into practice for it to be bona fide, saving faith.  Anyone can say they have faith but it must be proved by our behavior, conduct, and works--we're known by our fruits per Matt. 7:20. 

A good example of faith in action is a kid flying a kite on a cloudy day: The passerby asks him how he knows the kite is really up there since he doesn't see it!  The kid says, oh, I feel a tug every now and then to reassure me.  Likewise, we feel God drawing us towards Him in fellowship and love.    Faith is like that--God reassures us and keeps us in the faith and doesn't let go.   Experience in flying kites made his faith strong and likewise, an experienced walk with Christ yields strong faith.  The more trials we successfully pass with flying colors the more real our faith to us.   

NB:  Our faith is held by God's power (cf 1 Pet. 1:5) who will not let go of us nor give up on us (cf Phil. 1:6)--we're all works in progress.  Someone hostile to the faith may ask some questions we cannot answer, but no issue or problem with the Bible or the faith is going to bring Christianity to its demise after 2,000 years.  But sometimes God allows us to have doubts and to experience hardened hearts; it is important to realize that doubt is not a Christian problem but a human one, it's an element of faith, not the opposite of it.  It can take courage to doubt. 

But in the final analysis, we should doubt our doubts and believe our tried and true faith, so we can say with Paul's swan song (cf. 2 Tim. 4:7):  "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith,"  knowing we are kept in Christ from beginning to end (cf Jude 1: 24).  God doesn't teach us to swim only to let us drown!   

In sum, let me quote the late Rev. Billy Graham:   "If you want to keep your faith, you must give it away!"  Let me add:  A privatized faith is no more than a cloistered faith that cannot reach out to the lost.   Soli Deo Gloria!  

Jesus Doesn't Need To Prove Anything!...

"At the same time, God also attested by signs and wonders, various miracles, and distributions of gifts from the Holy Spirit according to His will" (Heb. 2:4, HCSB).
"Despite all this they kept on sinning and did not believe His wonderful works" (Psalm 78:32, HCSB).
"You are the God who works wonders, You revealed Your strength among the peoples" (Psalm 77:14, HCB).   

Gideon was known for putting out the fleece and testing God's Word (as Jesus told Satan, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God,"), but we no longer need to do this as an act of faith, having the fully revealed Word of God.  God didn't have to prove anything to Gideon but obliged his immature and growing faith.  Likewise, Jesus never had to prove anything to the world, just be His perfect self and that should've sufficed.  There is an anecdote of Muhammad Ali being asked to fight a teen and he refused to go along with the "test" of his greatness; then the teen bragged that Ali was afraid of him and refused to defend himself--actually, Muhammad would not stoop to the level of fighting a naive teen, he was still the champ to anyone who knew better because this was not challenging nor worthy, but he was protecting the kid.  The Word of God speaks volumes and is self-attesting, proof in itself (if it appealed to any higher authority, it couldn't claim to be the final arbiter of truth).

Jesus performed many miracles or signs as John referred to them as, but not to prove Himself!   He met needs and had compassion.  He never did anything on-demand, for personal profit or gain, showy, or any biggie miracle that would erase all doubt and force belief even against one's will.  I'll give you a for instance:  after feeding the 4,000 the Pharisees asked for a sign to prove He was from God.   What was the feeding of the 4,000 but a miracle to behold to the believer?   They should have reasoned He supplies all their needs.

Jesus would not oblige them and their hardened hearts that refused to believe despite the miracles He did perform.  John 12:32 says they would not believe, not that they could not believe--viva la difference!   Miracles are simply unusual events caused by God or they'd be called "regulars."  The thing about miracles is that they only give an appetite for more miracles and skeptics are never convinced, but only harden their hearts with some excuse or doubt.  Miracles don't produce faith, but faith produces miracles!  These Pharisees needed a miracle done in their hearts not a sign from heaven.  They were probably expecting Jesus to prove He could outdo Moses and bring down manna! When a person is stubborn or hardened in heart, no miracle will make him repent and come to Christ for salvation--there would also be some way to explain it away and expect only a bigger one.  Their mistake was to think God must oblige them and be their genie or miracle worker; however, Jesus didn't want to be known as a miracle worker but as our Savior.

In reality, Moses didn't do that but God used him as His spokesperson and God brought faith by performing miracles through him for forty years in the wilderness where they were tested.   If Jesus had obliged them and performed a miracle to prove Himself, where would it end and what about faith.   The biggest miracle is the radical change in one's heart to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior and become a new creature in Christ.

Every miracle or sign Jesus accomplished was a lesson to be taught about His divine nature:  He raised the dead to prove He is the life; He fed the multitude to prove He's the bread of life; He calmed the storm to prove His power over nature; He healed the sick to prove He's our Healer; He cast out demon to prove authority over them and Satan.  Every one of the divine attributes of God can be attributed to Jesus and they are illustrated by His sayings and acts.  Basically, Jesus showed He had all authority as the only begotten Son of God.    Jesus went about teaching, preaching, and doing good and also convincing the multitudes of His compassion.   With Jesus in charge, we need not worry or fear that our needs won't be met. 

Not to berate miracles in Scripture, because without Jesus doing them, He'd be but a footnote in history and Christianity would be disemboweled if one removed its miracles.  Note that other religions may have miracles but they remain intact without them--the miracles are believed on account of the religion already being believed--miracles are given to kindle and feed the dormant or nascent faith of believers.  Faith cannot survive on mothballs or in a dormant stage, it must grow and go forward in progress or rest in peace.  No amount of evidence will convince the hardened heart--God must do a work of grace first.  We must not be as clueless in not having eyes to see that God can supply all our mundane needs too ("daily bread").   Soli Deo Gloria!