How is Your Faith Quotient?

What will faith do for you as a follower of Jesus when you are going through a rough season in your life? Here’s the short answer – faith will help produce right living.

We could say righteous living. That is living right or righteously before the Lord and others as compared to spinning out of control and into obvious sin. Righteousness in the bible is used to show an attribute of God. He is righteous. The biblical word righteous also carries with it the idea of being just. God is just.

As a matter of fact, Romans 3: 25 – 26 says that God demonstrated His righteousness through the blood of Christ on the cross “so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”

Here is what I know – when we are going through times of testing and trials, I know that these tribulations are working something in me. For one, they are testing my faith. Do I believe God will take care of me. Will my faith in Jesus hold me or will I begin to drift.

When we go through challenges our faith is forced out into the open so to speak. We are coerced into showing our true colors. Like, is there anything in there? Faith cannot simply be an idea that is separate from our everyday life.

Again, here is what faith will do; it will produce in us right living. We will not throw in the towel, so to speak, and just walk away from the Lord and our Christian values. We will walk in faith believing that God is at work in our situation. We will believe that there is nothing outside of God’s control concerning us and then rest in that knowledge and keep moving forward.

In James 1: 2 – 3 he says that we should consider it pure joy when we face trials of many kinds. Hmmm…. Trials of many kinds. Temptations of many kinds. These two words, trials and temptations, can be used interchangeably. No matter how spiritual you are you will be tested and tried. What we know is that as we face them, we acquire something – experience.

When the devil tempts us, it is to get us to sin. God does not tempt us to sin. However, a temptation is also a time to strengthen our faith and trust the Lord. This is why we rejoice because our faith is strengthened. Isn’t that what tests do? The test is a check. It pushes on what we know to see if it will hold. It asks, is what I believe genuine?

The biblical idea of being tested is not to break you but to prove you! Temptations and tests are working and developing godly character in you. Hold steady.

Dan Boyd