Faith Is Hard Work
So often people have come up to me and said: “Brother, just believe.” Is that all there is to it? Faith sounds so simple, when expressed this way, but I have found faith to be quite difficult. Now, before your blood pressure starts rising, let me make it clear. Salvation is a free gift. We don’t have to work for it. Ephesians 2:8 says: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” We have been saved by grace. Grace is defined in various ways. One definition is that it is unmerited favor; another is that it is the power of God enabling us to do His will. However we define grace, it comes from God and not from us. So, grace is easy. It does not depend on us. Faith, on the other hand, is our response to grace.
I remember the night I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I had been running from God for a long time. My life had taken a spiral descent into the world of drugs and crime. I had exhausted all my resources and found myself on the streets of Paris, France, without a passport and with no money. It was Christmas, and everything was closed, so I just had to wait until the holidays passed for the embassy to open again. When the embassy reopened, they helped me get another passport and then I hitched a ride to Germany, where my uncle had told me of a youth center that would take me in. This center was run by a Christian organization and they were having a Christian Winter Youth Camp at the time. I sure was not in the mood to be “evangelized”, so I found a Bible and sat in a corner, pretending to be spiritual. There is something about the Bible, when you read it, it reads you.
Being at this center as a guest, I was expected to participate in the meetings. It was New Year’s Eve, the year 1971, and took a seat at the back of the meeting hall. I had studied German and could understand the message, but I don’t remember what the preacher said. All I remember was that the Lord was speaking to me. He was convicting me of my sin and offering me forgiveness and salvation. At the end of the message, the preacher gave an “altar call”, that is, an appeal for those desiring to be saved to come forward. Grace was being offered to me, but I needed to respond. I started to sweat. I wanted to go forward, but there was something holding me back. I left my seat and headed for the front. It was the hardest 20 meter walk I had ever done. Grace is easy, but faith is hard.
Abraham is considered to be the father of all those who believe. (Romans 4:16-18) His faith is an example for us all, yet Abraham didn’t have an easy life. By faith, Abraham left his father’s home and country to live “as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land.” (Heb. 11:8-9) I’m sure that was not easy. He believed he would have a child, by Sarah, even though she was sterile and they both were well advanced in years. I’m sure that was not easy. And, then, when Sarah finally bore him a son, the Lord told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on an altar. That, for sure, was not easy. Faith is hard work.
We all have faith. Faith is like a muscle. A baby has the same amount of muscles that an adult has; they are just not developed. As a child grows and exercises his muscles, he becomes stronger and larger. To be really strong, you must exercise a lot. It requires a lot of work to grow strong muscles. So it is with our faith; “faith without works is dead”. (James 2:26) It is not easy to believe, it is not easy to let go and trust God, and it is not easy to obey. The more you respond in faith to God, the more grace you receive from Him, and the easier it becomes.
Scriptures to meditate on:
James 2:18-26; Romans 4:11, 16-18; Eph. 2:8-9; Heb. 11:8-9, 17-19