Let me start by stating my conclusive notion that living a life of pertinacious faith involves both a journey of growing in faith and experiencing moments of powerful faith explosions. To simply put it - an explosive journey of pertinacious faith.
Let us not be blinded that we need to 'balance' between the two 'types of faith' and in the process deprive ourselves of how real Christianity is meant to be. Jesus says in John10:10b,"I have come that they may have life, and life to the full".
NEITHER of these ways of having faith is the complete way to life our Christian life to the full.
It's easy to lean to one side and forgetting the other. I see many Christians faithfully going to church every week yet experiencing NO power; NO faith explosion happenings in their lives. They live their lives 'just like that'(local malaysian expression, ie - 'like that lor') without any anticipation and expectation of the realm of the supernatural to take place. In fact, it would surprise them if something bizarre happens.
This is blind faith! Don't get me wrong; Faith is stepping into the unknown, yes - but that's just half of it. I would like to further define faith. Faith isn't just stepping into the unknown. It's stepping into the unknown knowingly.
Unknown = yet to be but surely will be known.
Knowingly = knowing that God is already there.
It isn't blind faith. It is purposeful expecting faith with a 100% assurance that there’s nothing too big that He cannot bear or anything too small that He doesn’t care!
Yet there are some(or we sometimes) believers go to the other extreme where we dreamily anticipate and expect only the extravagant extraordinary to happen all the time and when it doesn't happen according to our expectations - we get anxious, we worry, we wonder if God sees our ‘extravagant faith’, we begin to doubt if God really is faithful, we may even wonder what has gone wrong. Then we open ourselves to the blame game of questioning whether there’s something wrong with me, or with others, with our spiritual leaders, or even with the church.
Another problem with this faith extremity is, when we do experience the extravagant and extraordinary, we tend to monumentalize these moments and get stuck with them failing to see that we should never stop moving forward.
Let me say this, faith isn’t wishful thinking. It isn’t crossing your fingers hoping by chance that something will happen. Faith manifests through conviction-filled actions. Faith without works is dead. There IS works involved. However, we do the works not because we are trying to qualify for a result. We do the works because we are convicted knowing that our God is faithful and has already predestined us to live a life of sufficiency in all things – be it natural resources or grace & favour for the impossible – all means absolutely all!
Action from conviction is involved. Faith needs to be exercised. Exercised for what? Exercised so that when an opportunity for a supernatural impossible faith-filled explosion appears before you, you will be ready to recognize it, and to apply that faith to see the impossible become reality.
Let us take a very elementary example of what I mean. Let’s take healing as one. If someone hasn’t learned to believe for healings through Christ for small matters such as a neck ache or a common flu, how is it possible for him to believe for a bigger healing such as from a terminal disease or a condemned organ? It is like trying to carry a 15kg dumbbell with an untrained arm.
This is the reason why Jesus said that faith is like a mustard seed. It has the potential to move mountains (Matthew 17:20) if it’s planted on fertile soil (Luke 8:4-16) and grown until its full measure.
Jesus also said when you are faithful in a little, more will be added to you. If you are not faithful in the little that you have, even what you have will be taken away (Luke 19:11-26). Perhaps, this is why there are certain real experiences you have had from the Lord that you wonder why you have not experienced more. Sometimes, it’s because we were not faithful with what has been already given to us and we remain dreamily just wishing for more wondering if God still loves us forgetting that we need to continue sowing works of faith.
Dear beloved of God, don’t be condemned by guilt if right now if you are recalling certain instances where you were not faithful with the little that you had. It’s never too late and there’s always hope everlasting. Know this, that you are greatly loved by Him and that He will never leave you nor forsake you. Come back to His embrace and be restored to your right standing in Him.
Combining these two lopsided versions on faith, we get a fuller picture of what it means to live a life of pertinacious faith – ‘adhering resolutely to God in complete trust’ and not ‘adhering occasionally to God in partial trust’.
Just exactly how are we to keep exercising our faith?
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