“You just need to have faith in God.”
Has anybody ever said that to you? Or have you ever said that to someone else? Sometimes, it may be appropriate to say that. At other times, it’s merely a religious cliché. Or, perhaps it’s a sign of our immaturity about faith.
We must not be so quick to use our concept of faith as a means of assessing another person’s relationship with God. Some Christians seem to think that when you fail to achieve your goal, it’s always because of unbelief. Or your failure to be healed is a result of a lack of faith. Assessments like those can be oversimplifications of a person’s experience with God.
Here are some realities about faith. Faith in God does not preclude us from having struggles in life. Faith does not guarantee the absence of failure. You can have genuine faith and still become seriously ill. You can have faith and still see disappointments in life. Having faith does not make every bad situation magically become good.
The Impact of Having Faith in God
There is no denying that faith in God is a powerful thing. Jesus said, “All things are possible to him who believes” (Mark 9:23, NASB).
Think about that. We tend to see our potential in life through the lens of our personal circumstances. But as we embrace these words of Jesus, they will revolutionize our outlook on life. We are not limited by the color of our skin. Nor by the side of the track on which we were born. Nor by our level of education, etc. Rather, by our faith in God.
Now hear me clearly on that point. I did not say that those personal circumstances mentioned above don’t offer challenges. Of course, they do. But I am saying that when our faith is in God, we can overcome things like that. Faith in God does not ignore reality. But when we live by faith, we become more influenced by what we believe than by our personal circumstances.
Judging the Faith of Others
Nevertheless, the fact remains that faith is not subjective. We are not experts of another believer’s faith-journey. Job was the most righteous man of his day. But he suffered more than anyone else in his generation. His friends were quick to wrongly judge him without mercy. Let us not be guilty of the same.
According to Jesus’ words above, our true potential in life is a function of our faith in God. That’s why we should daily cultivate our faith through reading the Word of God and putting it into practice. But at the same time, let us refrain from judging the faith of our brother or sister in Christ.
Copyright © 2022 by Frank King. All rights reserved.