It is the law of the spiritual life that every act of trust makes the next act less difficult, until at length, if these acts are persisted in, trusting becomes, like breathing, the natural unconscious action of the redeemed soul. You must therefore PUT YOUR WILL INTO BELIEVING. Your faith must not be a passive imbecility, but an ACTIVE ENERGY. (emphases bloggers)The only thing I could add to this would be to put it into slightly more modern language. My question would be one which I have pondered on and off since I was 16. Is it enough to call myself a Christian merely because I call Jesus savior? Must I not also consider Him Lord if I am to be truly saved? Perhaps calling Him savior will allow me into heaven by the skin of my teeth. I will escape eternal death with zinged pants. But what of the abundant life?
Perhaps I am too selfish to be able to enter completely into the abundant life this side of heaven. Perhaps I am selfish to even desire it. I am A.W. Tozer's picture of most evangelical Christians . . . .
Most of us walk the tight rope between God's way and man's way. God's way is too costly, so we refuse to follow it completely. But we're afraid to go our own way. So we go partly God's way and partly our own way. We allow God to trouble our way, but we also trouble God's way. The obvious result is a confused and weakened sort of Christian life. (check out urbana.org for the full article)"The obvious result is a confused and weakened sort of Christian life." The obvious result?!? The obvious result?! But we live with the obvious result. We accept it. We do not even know to long for a richer fuller life. Most of our books tend toward this interpretation. That it is not possible or they tend toward a life so full of "working" that instead of striving for belief, I am continually striving for righteousness. What is the balance?
Something seemed missing to me at 16 from the bland faith I witnessed about me and in my own life. I recall asking my youth pastor if the gospel we were preaching was really all there was to it. I was a "Sunday Christian" in the sense that I went to church and was active in my youth group, but I was or felt no different from any of my "secular" classmates. Was I different? I was saved from hell but was that all there was to it?
At 18, I had had enough. I didn't even know if I really believed that God existed. I attempted to X Him from my life. Yet, all along there was a still small voice and a longing in my soul to long for my Creator even if I didn't want to long. I remember praying every night for the desire to want God. I was known as "the Christian" but I felt the exact opposite. I didn't have faith, I did not even know Christ.
At 19, on a missions trip to Honduras I began to see that there was the possibility for a different life. How could people with nothing material and many with physical ailments be so joyful in their walk with God? Why weren't they complaining? Why were they blessing me? How were they able to bless me?
At 21, I entered Bible College and listened to talk of DL Moody, CS Lewis, Nate Saint, Brother Lawrence, George Mueller . . . I wondered why it seemed like no one in our century or country was striving for faith. All about, we were endlessly striving but we were weary and disconnected. Or I saw "perfect" Christians, who did not drink, smoke, do drugs, fornicate, curse, etc etc etc, the list goes on, but who were also harsh, unkind and arrogant in their treatment of others (myself included much of the time or either swinging dangerously between the two extremes). Was being Christian merely the absence of those obvious vices or was not being a Christian also about having the fruit of the Spirit?
At 23, I attempted to strive to be found in Christ alone and to have a faith like George Mueller. I even have a record in my Bible of a confession I made that I realized my quest for perfection of faith was sin. Yet, I was already running hard. Like Tozer says in his article, it's quite impossible to literally crucify ourselves. At 24, I found myself in a mental institution.
At 28, reading Hannah Whitall Smith, William Wilberforce, John Piper, I find myself still pondering the same questions. Jesus afterall did not merely forgive people their sins when He walked this earth, He freed them from its power. Why should I not expect and believe He is doing the same for me? Do we not experience such because we doubt much? Are we like the people that Smith talks about, we walk about in glum saying "Well, I've tried everything I could. Now I only have prayer." Should we not turn this the other way and begin every endeavor, every thought with the Lordship of Christ?
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