Grounded Faith, Not Fantasy Faith

A statement of faith in itself does not have any power whatsoever. It’s just a statement. Faith needs a place to grow in; a ground of some sort (grounded? Ground floor? ground coffee??! Lol) to take root in.

There’s this saying that anything put into our hearts, grows. The ground for faith (or fear) is our hearts.

The fertile ground refers to our open hearts. When faith is planted in a fertile believing heart, it will then grow. It grows as we allow words of faith that have been planted to be nurtured. Nurtured how? Many times, words of faith are nurtured through situations where we need to act on these words of faith that are planted in us. That’s where exercise comes in. We exercise by being faithful to these words of faith in our hearts. Faithful in a little, then more will be added to you.

Many Christians are trapped in our own fantasy of one day experiencing ‘breakthrough’ in our lives or in certain areas of our lives yet excluding the Lord Jesus from our daily lives and decisions. Newsflash, the supposed ‘breakthrough’ will never come. Why, because the one who gives the breakthrough hasn’t been given room to break through anything.

If you want your breakthroughs to come, you need to begin to live your today with Christ and allow Him to lead you to and through your breakthrough points. Oh by the way, I should also throw this in – a breakthrough can only happen when you’ve been allowing Him to lead you until you reach those breakthrough points. Do not confuse this with self effort of doing and doing until hopefully you reach those breakthrough points that He finally notices you and gives you some magic dust to ‘breakthrough’. What we are talking about is pertinacious faith in surrendering your every day to Him. Surrendering to something is the evidence of having faith on something.

Faith on Him is of the now and the today. Do not delay any longer. Allow God to lead you today.

I’ll close this post by saying, “’Someday’ isn’t good enough to give everything you’ve got to Jesus. It needs to be today!”

Perception of Faith Explained

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?

More application coming at you in the coming posts. Stay tuned.

Perception of Faith

I post this post as a mean of a reflection on the importance of how we perceive faith to be. It’s important to perceive something accurately. What you perceive becomes what you believe in. What you believe in, becomes how you live.

I believe that knowing what you belief in is fundamental in living a life of purpose. I see so many people in this modern era chasing after everything without pausing to actually contemplate on what actually ARE their beliefs. At some distance later, they become disorientated because after all the chasing, they suddenly wonder what are they running after. And worse, not knowing where to place their trust in because they don't have a clue what to they believe in in the first place.

More so for Christians. We should know what we believe in and what our faith is all about. If not, we could be allowing ourselves to reach a point of disorientation even in our faith in God.

Is faith a gradual step by step progressive process of a monotonous journey or is it a momentous manifestation of an eye popping mind boggling occasion that goes down in history books? Should we be contended with just being faithful with our Christian duties week after week even if it doesn’t have any exciting explosive faith happenings? Or should we strive ala desperado for moments of insane manifestation of faith happenings and dismiss the time gap in between as unimportantly irrelevant?

Many believers today are unknowingly confused and often living their daily lives leaning to either extreme of one of these perceptions of 'faith'.

Let us look at both premises and how sometimes we face this challenge in living our lives with faith.

Do we settle for a mundane quiet ‘just-like-that’ Christian faith life? Or do we believe for powerful out-of-this-world stuff to happen? Do we believe in both? If in both, how exactly?

Great! I think I’ve successfully spurred you to think further and deeper about this. Over the course of my next few posts, I hope to unravel some truths in regards to this that I believe will help you live a powerful victorious life of pertinacious faith.

God bless you!

Hi again!

Why am I not surprised this is my first blogpost this year? *laughing*

(clearly shakes his head knowing that he was never an avid blogger)

I was never someone who jumps on any new trend bandwagon just for the sake of. I was one of the last who jumped on to the 'MSN messanger' bandwagon. I sticked with ICQ till the day where I realized I was only chatting with the same few people every day. LOL. I'm an old faithful if I may say. I'm STILL in all the way for emails. I found it more streamlined and personally directed at specific people whom I need to specifically address a specific matter.

But then again, blogging is one of the many modern tools enabling us to widen our influence to point more people to the one and only glorious loving God. Here's me to trying to wield this 'new' tool to channel more glory to Him.

So here it goes, brace yourselves for the floodgates of some real life in-your-face talk of our pursuit of pertinacious faith!

(Ends this blogpost knowing very well that his blog experienced some sort of resurrection some time last year but was left in a zombiefied state). ‎

Blog resurrection!

Hey there people. Wow! It's about time my blog gets resurrected. It just celebrated it's one year anniversary with just 1 posting in it's 1st year!

I bet it's 2nd year will have manifold more postings! ...or not... haha...

It has been a topsy-turvy year for me (in a good way). Lots and lots of new happenings and frontiers has just been keeping me high alert on my toes like a sprinter at the line seconds before the gun goes off. SO nerve wrecking!

Not complaining here though. I wouldn't have it any other way. It's just awesome to be living life on the edge. It keeps things fresh and clear in the pursuit of life in all it's fullness. And that's how life is meant to be ain't it? Who wants a murky hazy stale life??

In the coming postings, I will be zoning in on what are some of the challenges of one who has decided to adhere resolutely to God in complete trust might face; and hope to encourage and inspire you to press on and continue living life as such.

May we all live with pertinacious faith as a lifestyle and not having a 'hot hot chicken shit'1 faith lifestyle.

So if you are reading this and want to make 'adhering resolutely to God in complete trust' a lifestyle, join me in my coming postings! Let us together explore the wonderfulness of our gloriousness living God.

*Jason grins and points to his laptop's 14.1" screen and declares*,

"BLOG RESURRECTION!!"

(1. as the Malay adage goes, 'hangat-hangat tahi ayam'. Which means getting very enthusiastic about something, however very quickly losing steam as well).

The name, why the name?

Perrr tiii na ci....perr tiiii naaa ci uu....perti what?!!

Before you nail me on a wall for coining (technically no, this word DOES exist) such a fabulicious (fabulous + delicious) name for my blog, allow me to bring you up to terms.

PERTINACIOUS is such a strong awesome word to begin with. I was in search of a word that reflect a state of being where we belong in our faith yet always being on the move with God the beginner AND finisher of our faith.

It takes a lifetime to learn about faith with God and rightfully being so - faith isn't something that we can wrap our mind around it in a straightforward 2-dimensional plateau. In fact, the moment we reach such 'surety' of what faith is; get this - we have switched from the state of real FAITH to the state of what-we-think-and-feel-that-we-already-know-it-all-about-faith.

Hey, wait a minute...

Isn't faith something that we believe in because we have seen the results before?

eg, - 1. I've seen the effects of gravity when I dropped my mum's favorite vase; so I'm sure that if I threw my hamster out the balcony, I'm pretty sure my hamster would hit the ground and not somehow miraculously fly instead.

- 2. I've tried playing badminton before and I looked like a fool with a raquet; so I'm pretty sure that if I tried tennis, I'll be a double fool.

- 3. I've given and prayed for God to bless me with a double-fold return before; so im quite sure that if i did the same again, I'll get another double-fold return.

True...

But not true enough. That's just half the truth. Faith of which God speaks about does not refer to just what we have known, or experience, or seen. 'Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things NOT seen' (Hebrews 11:1-3). Faith in it's real sense is ALSO continuously believing even for the things that we have YET to know, YET to experience, and YET to see.

Now, this is where the Christian faith with God becomes so real and powerful (accompanied with a whole lot of fun too!).

Still on Hebrews 11:1-3, we can see that because there will ALWAYS be more that we have yet to know, experience, and see - we will ALWAYS have reason for us to fix our eyes on Jesus and DISCOVER new things. 'Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the beginner and finisher of our faith..', another translation puts it as, 'Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith' (Hebrews 12:2a). Beginner and author gives us the understanding that the moment we dared to say "God i believe You are real, You do exist", God has already started the work of faith in us. Finisher and perfecter on the other hand, shows us that faith is a journey. Not something that we can journey by ourselves because we can never be our own finisher or perfecter of faith even if we tried.

Faith is active. Always on the move. Always meant to grow higher, wider, deeper. Faith was never meant to be stale, boring, and predictable(no fun factor).

Hence my blog's name,...

Pertinacious Faith

Per.ti.na.cious.

adjective

Latin pertinac-, pertinax, from per- thoroughly + tenac-, tenax tenacious, from tenēre

1 a: adhering resolutely to an opinion, purpose, or design b: perversely persistent2: stubbornly tenacious

Faith

noun

Middle English feith, from Anglo-French feid, fei, from Latin fides; akin to Latin fidere to trust

1 a: allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty b(1): fidelity to one's promises (2): sincerity of intentions2 a(1): belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2): belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b(1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2): complete trust3: something that is believed especially with strong conviction