TRUSTING CHRIST FOR FAITH

The Lord Jesus is the Author and Finisher of our faith. This means He is the Creator of our faith. He, not us, creates our faith, initiates it, and stimulates our trust in Him. This does not negate our responsibility to exercise faith, nor can we excuse ourselves for not trusting in the Lord. Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, only means we cannot create our faith in God. It is a grace from the very One who calls us to trust Him.

It took a long time for me to understand this since I am a slow learner. But the problem isn’t my intellect. I learned the principle of where my faith comes from a long time ago, within three years after my conversion. But my stubborn pride prevented me from believing it. You can know something is true in the realm of the intellect but not understand experientially in your spirit. Something in all of us resists absolute trust in God, whether it be a felt need to impress the heavenly Father with our faith and service or a fear of not being in control. This something is the flesh.

The flesh deceives by hiding its impulse behind your knowledge of God’s truth. You do not see your heart because you can say, “But I know the truth, and therefore I am in compliance.”  You are convinced you are walking by the Spirit only because you know the commandment and its meaning. But knowing something to be true and doing it are not the same. Somehow, knowing and doing get garbled up as being the same. In my case, I know I can’t have faith in God without God’s granting faith and helping me to exercise it, but instead of looking to Christ, the Author and Completer of my faith, I look within to strengthen my faith and cause it to grow. The result is stress, frustration, and exhaustion.

Several years ago, the Lord once again enrolled me in the school of faith by putting me on a path of frustrating failures. I sensed that my help would come by reading John chapters 13-17. And so, on my knees, I began reading, slowly, prayerfully, Jesus’ discourse to His disciples on the eve of His crucifixion. When I got to chapter 15 and read the parable of the Vine, something clicked. I knew that within these verses was the answer I was seeking. Day after day, I would read the words of this simple illustration, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser . . . Abide in Me, and I in you . . . I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” The words washed over my starving soul like rainwater, removing the dust and filth of a long, dry, barren season. The Lord began to open my spiritual understanding to what my brain could recite and even preach with ease. But this time, it was mine—it was my truth; it was affecting my heart and not just my mind.

What became real to me? It was that I couldn’t even have faith in Christ without Him. There was nothing I could do without Him, including abiding. We are completely helpless in the realm of the spirit, and if it were not for Jesus, we would be hopeless.

After this, I remembered reading Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret. I recalled that I did not understand what the man was talking about. In theory, it sounded right, but I couldn’t make it happen. I would read well-intentioned brothers attack Taylor’s position on abiding in Christ as unbiblical passivity. I remember thinking that perhaps these detractors were right.

But after the Lord opened my eyes to understand, I saw it’s not passivity. It is no more passive than a branch is passive in the production of fruit. However, the agenda, ability, and energy to produce fruit come from the vine and not the branch. Here is what Taylor said.

When my agony of soul was at its height, a sentence in a letter from dear McCarthy was used to remove the scales from my eyes, and the Spirit of God revealed the truth of our oneness with Jesus as I had never known it before. McCarthy, who had been much exercised by the same sense of failure, but saw the light before I did, wrote, (I quote from memory): “But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One.” As I read I saw it all! “If we believe not, he abideth faithful.” I looked to Jesus and saw (and when I saw, oh, how joy flowed!) that He had said, “I will never leave you.” “Ah, there is rest!” I thought. “I have striven in vain to rest in Him. I’ll strive no more. For has He not promised to abide with me - never to leave me, never to fail me?” And, dearie, He never will! (Emphasis mine).

The title of this blog post may sound confusing: Trusting Christ for Faith. But really, it is quite simple. Instead of trying to trust, I rest in Christ to grant me the ability to trust. In other words, I ask Him to give me the faith I need for whatever His will is for me. I am convinced of this. I know this is more certain than the sun rising tomorrow. And He never fails. I still sometimes fail at this  and therefore fail Him, but “He remains faithful.” Truly, He is the Author and Completer of our faith. Without Him, we can do nothing, not even trust Him. And that is why the author to the Hebrews says, “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).

Looking unto, upon, and at Jesus is faith increasing. So, then, start looking!