More thoughts on belief....

So I have been wrestling a lot with the concept of belief, and here are some of my latest thoughts...

At Cornerstone we have been reading through 1 Peter on our own, and a passage really stood out to me. Here is 1 Peter 1:3-9:

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

Please take a moment, or hopefully more than a moment, to really meditate on this passage. We really need to hear Peter. He speaks of "the salvation that is ready to be revealed", or the second coming of Christ and His ultimate salvation. He says we should rejoice in that greatly, or like he says in v.13, "fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." It is clear that he is imploring his readers to focus Heavenward, a future oriented hope.

He then goes on to say that "trials... come so that your faith... may be proved genuine." Wait, what? Why would faith need to be proved genuine? Well it seems that Peter is implying that some claims of faith are disingenuous, those that would not continue to hope in Christ's salvation in the midst of trials.

So then the question for you and I is this: how do we know that our faith is genuine? Just claiming to believe is not proof. And I'm not saying we need to prove it to anyone or to God, but I mean more so for ourselves to know if our faith is genuine, if we are really saved and will be in Heaven. It seems that is Peter's focus.

Well why would trials be the way that we see if our faith is genuine? I think the answer to that is within the context of the passage which we discussed already, Peter's imploring them to set their hope fully on the future salvation. Trials force us to let go of our hope in this world. Rejoicing in trials and suffering is predicated on a hope in something greater, something better to come. If I truly believe in Christ and His promises bought for me on the cross for the future salvation, then I will gladly endure trials because of what I know is coming. If I don't really believe in Christ and His promises, then I will continue to place my hope in this world and this life, and my so called "faith" will start to crumble and reveal itself as disingenuous during trials. As Peter alludes to, trials will "refine" and test what is really there, if anything.

Hebrews 11 gets at a very similar idea, as the writer speaks of faith and says that all of the great men and women of the faith in times past saw themselves as "strangers and aliens on earth" (v.13) and "were longing for a better country - a heavenly one" (v.16). The author implores us to do the same, to long for the heavenly Kingdom.

It is in this that we find faith to be genuine. Jesus speaks of it like this: "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it." The person who is willing to give up this life for the promise of a much greater one to come is a person who really believes in the promise. The person who is unwilling to give it up doesn't really believe. I think this is why Jesus makes the cost so high, so that faith would be proved either genuine or disingenuous.

We better be careful in our avoidance of trials and suffering. The culture in which we live trains us to avoid any type of suffering at all cost and instead seek comfort, which is quite possibly a big reason that the church is doing so poorly in America. We are a people who claim to believe in future glory and satisfaction, but so many self professing Christians in America are in direct contradiction of that claim by living for temporary glory and satisfaction. As Americans we are people who live for instant satisfaction, and it is just that which cripples our openness to the true gospel. Our avoidance of trials and suffering could very well be an indication that many (vast majority?) of the self-proclaimed belief in America is not real, and that so many of us are not really saved. At least we can say this: when are lives are filled with comfort and little suffering/trials, it is very hard for us to know if we are truly saved.

It is easy for me to say that my hope is fully "on the grace to be brought to (me) at the revelation of Jesus Christ" when my life is going great. It is another thing when I am called to suffer for this hope. I pray that my faith may be proved genuine in time... I don't think it has been yet... This doesn't mean that my faith isn't real, rather it means that it hasn't been fully proven yet. It could very well be real, and I feel strongly that it is, but I want it to be proved genuine as I undergo trials and suffering in this life. It will force me to see where my hope truly lies.