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Commentary on "Celebrating Spiritual and Physical Fitness"

GABRIEL PROKSCH

 

Day 3: Monday, April 12, 2010

 

Overview

Today’s lesson is dedicated to what is perhaps the most abused and misunderstood religious concept: faith. Even from the title the impression left is that faith is something having power in itself, having “muscles” that can atrophy. The lesson contrives a parallel between unused faith and the physical process in which muscles which are immobilized by injury lose power. Faith, like muscles, the lesson teaches, also must be exercised in order to grow and to gain strength, taking risks based on faith in God’s promises. If the faith is not exercised regularly, the believer may lose this wonderful gift of God which is best appreciated perhaps only by those who lived a lot of their life without God and without hope. Daily, in little things, faith must be exercised in order to be able to sustain it when big things require faith even more intensely.

 

Observations

One may wonder why, if faith is acknowledged as God’s gift, it needs human effort to really be operative. It is a strange thesis that faith might lose its power to the point of being lost. It appears even more strange in view of Adventism’s appeal to James 2 in general and verse 17 in particular: “faith without works is dead”. Without entering into much detail, it is sufficient to understand that “dead faith” cannot save anyone (James 2:14), and a faith that is separated from works is a dead faith, a false faith (James 2:26). It’s not a faith that lost its power, like a muscle which is not used for a long time; it’s a dead faith—but no Adventist would say God’s gift of faith could be non-existent. Either faith is genuine and produces good works, or it is not genuine and is devoid of good works. Either people make daily decisions based on their faith in God and his promises, or they do not. It’s a zero game; some (those who have been born of the Spirit) have faith, and some (those who are still natural humans) don’t. It’s true that faith may be weak, and the remaining sin in a believer’s life may plague the believer with doubts and cause crises of faith when the believer may question the existence of faith itself, but genuine faith is always in the regenerate, no matter how weak it may appear.

Faith is an instrument in God’s hands to keep believers safe until resurrection (1 Peter 1:5). God sustains His gifts, and faith is the instrument God uses in order to preserve his believers in unity with Christ. He shares these gifts with believers according to their needs. According to 1 Corinthians 10:13 every temptation comes to believers with the way of escape from it already prepared by God. Trials requiring faith in God’s promises are given with the accompanying gift of faith necessary to go through them. In this sense it’s hard to think that believers can train themselves for such times of temptations by building their “faith musculature” by accumulating strength in the present for future things. It’s true that in the future God will bring to the memory His word imprinted today; nevertheless, no amount of study and memorization will make faith stronger. Believers have no direct control over their faith, faith comes by hearing the word of God (Romans 10:14-17) and they need to hear the word of God, the gospel, preached in season and out of season. Relying on today’s discipline for future ability is a subtle shift of focus from God’s care and sustenance to man’s ability to sustain his faith by himself. Since basically faith is trust in God, it is the opposite of trust in man; it is God centered, not man-centered. It has God as both source and object. His promises are all “Yes” in Christ (1 Cor. 1:20).

In conclusion, faith, while accompanied by faithfulness, is not in itself faithfulness. God will repay faithfulness in little things with greater responsibilities in greater things. Nevertheless, trust in Him, receiving what He has for us in the gospel and in all the blessings that are promised with it, stands apart from giving ourselves in His service, serving Him and our neighbor, loving others with the love He loved us. By faith we are recipients, in faithfulness we are givers.

 

Summary

  1. Faith is a gift of God.
  2. We do not strengthen faith by exercising it; God Himself gives and sustains faith.
  3. Either a person has faith as a result of being born of the Spirit, or he remains dead in his sin and has no faith.
  4. Faith is God’s instrument to keep believers safe until the resurrection.
  5. Faithfulness is not the same as faith.
  6. Faithfulness is our offering of ourselves to God for His service.
  7. Faithfulness stands apart from faith.
  8. By faith we are recipients of God’s grace and goodness.
  9. In faithfulness we give ourselves to God for His purposes.

 

GO TO DAY 4

 

Copyright 2010 BibleStudiesForAdventists.com. All rights reserved. Revised April 8, 2010. This website is published by Life Assurance Ministries, Glendale, Arizona, USA, the publisher of Proclamation! Magazine. Contact email: BibleStudiesForAdventists@gmail.com.

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