By Alain Nkanira
Theme: Which faith that glorifies God?
Reference scriptures: Romans 4:1-25
So many things we do in life are because of some trust we have in things – deliberately not mentioning faith – you go on a highway and drive, you have some ‘faith’ that the car will not break down; you sow seeds in farm and trust that one day the seeds will blossom and give a way to a great harvest. Believers should have a faith that glorifies God.
But which kind of faith that glorifies our God?
1. Faith in things that cannot be seen
Abraham was staying in a community that believed in circumcision for getting closer to God, they considered it as the righteousness God was looking for. Abraham, however, was not called righteous because he obeyed the law, it was way before he even got circumcised. God granted that name because he believed in God’s word.
Abraham had faith in things that would normally not be to trust and have faith in. He believed God until sacrificing his own son, Isaac.
God also visited Abraham as angels came to his house, he prepared for them and received God’s promise. Believing one will get a child at 100 years old was not a normal thing to believe.
What prevent people to have such a faith?
- People try to understand things with their own logic
God’s promise has nothing to do with our intellectual capacity, with our capabilities, with human logic. It is rather about God’s unlimited, unnatural powers that are manifested in our lives. Example of the choice and anointment of David. His father thought about everyone else but David to be the one to be anointed. The small boy running after the cattle. God had seen him with a very different eye. (1 Samuel16: 10)
- People are tempted to believe their own desires
Jonah is a perfect example. He failed to obey God and thought he would flee God and His mission by simply boarding a boat and going far from the place God had sent him to.
- People are tempted to believe in what that the masses say
When Moses departed in the wilderness to pray for 40 days and 40 nights, voices around spoke about his disappearance and tried to convince Aaron to let them create their own gods from their jewelry. That resulted in a very dangerous sin – engineering their own gods.
2. Faith that is fueled by obedience
God called Abraham to leave his father’s land and go to some unknown place. He didn’t not reason much about the destination. Through the love he loved God, he simply followed God with zero assurance about what would happen to him.
Jesus serves as the best example of obedience as He accepted to leave everything behind in heaven and came to die for mankind (Philippians 2:5&6).
Why obedience must be in our faith?
- Obedience is proof of faith
Faith must come from hearing God’s word and then obey what the scriptures say we have to do (Romans 10:17).
- Faith is the realization of God’s command
Faith must be shown in actions because it’s not from someone’s own thinking. It is developed from God’s word and promise over time. “But you are willing to recognize, you foolish [spiritually shallow] person, that without [good] works is useless?” (James 2:2o).
In short, Abraham’s example should be the base of our own faith as God called him the forefather of those who believe in God. So, as believers, we should have a faith that is beyond what can be seen and also a faith that goes hand in hand with obeying our Lord.
