I Believe, But Only if …
This side of faith rests on the character of God. We know who He is. We know what His Word says. We know that He wants to heal, save and deliver. The challenge with this side of faith is that we often add a whisper to it, a thought we’d probably never say out loud: “God can and will answer my prayer. And as long as He does, I will continue following Him.”
Though we may never say this, it shows up in the way we act. We pray for something, fully expecting it to happen. But if somehow the prayer isn’t answered in the way we wanted it to be or when we wanted it to be, we become victims of feel-good faith. Our resilience caves in. The life is sucked out of us.
What we thought was strength and confidence was actually a conditional faith. Whether consciously or not, we tell God, “I will follow You, but only if certain conditions are met “Only if my prayers are answered.” “Only if I feel good.” “Only if I don’t face too many challenges.”
Jesus encountered many people with this attitude. One said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family” (Luke 9:61). “Another disciple said to him, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father'” (Matt. 8:21).
These sound like reasonable requests. Why wouldn’t Jesus let a person say goodbye to loved ones or bury his father? In the first example, Jesus said, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). In the second, He said, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead” (Matt. 8:22).
Jesus wasn’t being coldhearted. He was trying to communicate that those who are spiritually dead should take care of carnal things, and those who choose to be alive spiritually should simply follow Him. That is what it means to put your hand to the plow and not turn back. In other words, Jesus said, “If you are wrestling with this, if you’re finding ‘good reasons’ for having second thoughts, you aren’t ready to come. If you think there is any good reason to not give up everything and follow Me with all of your heart, then you don’t understand who has invited you to follow.“
Too often we put conditions on our following Christ. When God meets our conditions, we promise to stick with Him; when He doesn’t answer when and how we want Him to, our passion wanes.
It’s this conditional following of Christ that is the real issue. If following Him is based on our conditions, what will we do when we face a real crisis? What happens when our prayer isn’t answered right away? What if we started with a different premise? What if the premise of our faith was that God is the rightful owner of the universe and the rightful owner of our lives?
With that kind of foundation in place, we could pray with confidence knowing that He is a good God who wants to heal or deliver or answer our prayers. We would be satisfied to know that when and how He answers our prayers is up to Him and not us. We would stand up—whatever the challenge. This leads us to the other side of the coin.
I Will Follow Even if …
The three Hebrew youths from Daniel chapter 3 made a key statement during their trial. They said our God “will deliver us from the king’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up” (v. 18). What happened here amazes me. They walked through the fire with “even if” faith—even if everything came apart at the seams, even if they ended up in the fiery furnace and even if they didn’t understand, they would not bow down.
Some might say the young men doubted God, because in one breath they said God would deliver them and in the next they said, “Even if God does not deliver us …” I disagree. Their words didn’t reveal doubt. Their faith allowed for the mystery of God. They knew no human could understand everything about God, yet they were confident that God could deliver them, and no matter what He chose to do, their faith in Him would not waver. They must have thought, “If for some reason we end up dying in the furnace and going to heaven, it won’t be such a bad deal.”
This even if faith is courageous. It has been the legacy of Christ followers from the beginning. Even if faith allows us to admit that we don’t know—and don’t have to know—everything. We would like every circumstance to come with an explanation, but those are conditions. Even if faith takes all the conditions off. It says, “I’m going to follow Him no matter what. Even if that the person I’m praying for doesn’t get healed, or doesn’t get healed instantly, I will follow Him. Even if something tragic happens that messes with my theology, I will follow Him.”
That’s what happened when Hannah crashed in the plane and four young men went to heaven. It flew in the face of my theology. Life hit me and my family squarely between the eyes. The evidence of our fallen world came crashing in around us. We were not the first followers of Christ to have such an experience, and we won’t be the last. In those excruciating days, we needed the attitude that said, “Even if we don’t understand what has happened, we will still follow You.”
First Cor. 13:12 says: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (KJV). In other words, we understand many things, but they’re not completely clear. We know a lot about the Lord, but we don’t know everything. We would like to demystify the God whom we follow, but we cannot. He is the God of the universe, the Creator of all that is good; He made the heavens and the earth and rescued us by sending His Son. We might like to know everything that is in His heart and mind, but we simply don’t.
Only if faith is the opposite of even if faith. Even if faith says, “Even if there are circumstances I don’t enjoy, I am going to follow. Even if someone I deeply admire lets me down, I’m going to follow. Even if a pastor or leader does something horrible, I’m going to follow God. Even if the person who led me to the Lord turns away from Christ, I’ll follow Him. Even if the loved one I’m praying for doesn’t get healed, God’s already been so good to me, I’m still going to follow. Even if I never receive another answer to prayer for the rest of my life, I will follow the God who has already answered so many of my prayers. I’m still on the receiving end of this relationship, and I’m still going to follow Him.”
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