Proclaimer Blog
The depth of faith
It’s been great to hear from Habakkuk this week with Peter Adam. At the moment, we’re deep into 2.4: ‘the righteous person will live by his faithfulness” – a translation, incidentally, that Mr Adam likes as faith can be the expression of a moment, whereas faithfulness is the continuation of faith.
Translations, aside, he’s been challenging us to think about what it means to live by faithfulness. Often, he says, we reduce this down to salvation. We might even reduce it down to a particular moment: ‘yes, I trusted Christ on 28 July 1981’ (which is when I did, by the way).
However, the righteous man or woman lives by faithfulness – the daily life of faith. How odd we often have faith in the God of salvation but not, for example, the God of creation or the God who sustains the world or the God who is head of his church. The true life of faith does not just trust God for our own journey to heaven but for all that he promises.
There is depth to faith which we often ignore. Pastorally we are so concerned that people get to heaven that we neglect to nurture faith in them in every area of life. And what is true pastorally is certainly true personally. The man of God, Mr Preacher, must cultivate in himself, with the Spirit’s help, a life of faith that impacts on every area of life and produces fruit in keeping with repentance.
Are you living by your faithfulness?