Have Faith

Many people say that you must ‘have faith’ in Christ. Another similar saying is ‘be expectant’ of what the Lord is doing in your life. In talking with my father tonight, it occurred to us that those sayings may be misinterpretations.

How does a person exactly will themselves to ‘have faith’. Isn’t faith something that you either have or you don’t have? And isn’t that based upon the condition of your heart? You naturally ‘have faith’ when your heart is focused on God and His promises. You naturally ‘are expectant’ when your heart has been conditioned by Him to the point at which you know (by experience) that He is working in your life and exciting things are around the bend?

The point is that these types of sayings may not have true value to us as Christians, as we think they do. They are cliches, and should be replaced with something more empowering, something that actually brings us closer to Him.

The one thing that these two sayings in particular are based upon, and probably many more such sayings, is the condition of your heart. The condition of your heart, naturally, is deceitfully wicked, as the Bible puts it. It must be cleaned out, tilled into good soil, by the only One who can – our Lord and Savior. So, the logic concludes that the only way to ‘have faith’ and to ‘be expectant’ is to invite Christ to work on your heart, to sanctify you, on a daily basis, so that your heart may naturally produce this kind of fruit – where you will naturally ‘have faith’ and ‘be expectant’. Because we all know what happens when it’s up to us to try to will ourselves to do those things…