True Faith Looks to God

All the defects of the faith of many people in our day can
be traced to a misunderstanding or lack of understanding of the
foundational doctrines of the faith they profess: the true state of
human nature, the truth of what Christ accomplished on the cross and the
transforming influence of the Holy Spirit. Here is the watershed
between nominal Christians and those who truly practice the faith that
Christ came to make possible. The difference is so critical that I will
attempt to further illustrate the problem.

Many people give no serious consideration to Christ and
spend their lives drifting along with the culture’s ideas of the good
life. Then, through some circumstance, these people experience a wake-up
call about their faith.

Maybe they have contracted a serious illness or
experienced the sense of loss that comes when a friend or loved one
dies. It could be that they experienced a reversal of fortune that
awakened them to the reality of the precarious nature of life.

Whatever the reason, they begin to look for some source of
meaning in their lives that will give them a more stable foundation. In
their search, they become aware that they have offended God by the way
they have lived. With this sense in their minds, they set out on a
course of personal reformation.

The Issue of Cultural Religion

Right at this point we see the tragedy of the common
understanding of cultural Christianity. These men and women might desire
to change, but they don’t have any understanding of what their real
problem is or of the only solution that is able to address it.

They might be aware that they need to make some changes in
their behavior and give up something they are doing, and they might
even have the idea that they should get involved in religion.

But lacking a sense of the radical problem of spiritual
death and the knowledge of the solution for this condition, which only
the work of Christ provides, they attempt to fix things by means that
never work.

It is not unusual for these men and women to fall back
into the habits they were previously enslaved by and to deceive
themselves into thinking that the small changes in behavior they have
made have fixed the problem. They might even assume that what they have
done makes them Christians.

It doesn’t take long for them to realize, however, that at
some level their performance does not match the standard Christ has set
for His followers. Unable to hit the mark, they tend to lower the
standard. Once they have reached a place where their behavior meets the
new requirements or vice versa, they settle into a state of contented
complacency regarding the issues of authentic faith.

Others go further than this. If they have come to grips
with some sense of the coming judgment and the serious business of sin,
they strive with all their effort to correct their behavior. Over and
over, they fail to meet the standard that they sense they must reach.

Finally, in total frustration they simply give up and quit
trying. Sometimes in their despair, they give in to the former
temptations, seeking some kind of comfort from the very actions that
have led to their sense of defeat.

Or, again out of despair, they might attempt to change
their thinking and argue against the demands of authentic faith, never
really believing what they are arguing about. These are men and women
who are pursuing the right goal but have mistaken the way it can be
accomplished. The path they are now pursuing is not the one made
possible by the work of Christ and will not lead them to the life they
are desiring nor the peace they crave.

They may turn to ministers and counselors for help with
their spiritual instruction. If these helpers have embraced the
prevailing religious system in our country, they will lead those in need
astray by assuring them that as long as they try to do the right thing,
they have nothing to worry about.

These ministers and counselors might even teach those in
need of instruction that they don’t need to worry because Christ has
died for their sins. They actually reinforce the faulty thinking that
all their counselees need to do is give it their best effort and trust
that everything will come out all right in the end.

But what they really need is to take seriously what the
Bible and the church say to those who find themselves in this dilemma.
They need to study and grasp the entire foundation of their confessed
faith.

This would include recognizing that the awareness of their
problem and their desire to do something about it are gifts from God to
get them started on their spiritual journeys. In response to this
awareness, they are instructed to bow before the cross of Christ in true
repentance and, turning from sin, place all their hope and confidence
in the grace of God and the work of Christ to get them on the right
track.

Believing in Jesus means we personally accept His work on
our behalf and open our lives to His indwelling presence by the Holy
Spirit. Those who are not familiar with the teachings of the Bible must
come to terms with the statement that they are required to “believe in
the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31, NKJV).

Submission and dependence are the appropriate responses to
the teaching of Jesus: “‘Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. No
branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can
you bear fruit unless you remain in Me’” (John 15:4, NIV).

All of it is a gift. As Paul says in the letter to the
church in Ephesus, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through
faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph.
2:8).

This is the central truth on which all authentic
Christianity rests. You cannot work your way to heaven. You cannot do
anything to earn the grace or forgiveness of God. Your good behavior
does not balance out the guilt of your sin.

The great distinction between Christianity and cultural
religion is that cultural religion believes all these things can be
obtained by our own efforts. True Christianity is looking for something
much greater.

Authentic Christianity

True Christians look to God to restore the image of God to
their souls but know that this is not something they are able to
accomplish. All their hopes of attaining this rest on total reliance on
the Holy Spirit who comes to indwell them when they open their lives to
Jesus Christ.

Notice the critical order here. Our change of behavior
does not precede our reconciliation to God and somehow become the
cause of God’s favor; it follows our coming into relationship with God
and is its effect!

It is by faith in Christ only that a man or woman is made
right in the sight of God; is delivered from God’s judgment and the hold
of Satan; is adopted into the family of God; becomes an heir of God and
a joint heir with Christ, entitled to all the privileges that belong to
this high relation; is partially renewed to the image of the Creator in
this life; and is totally renewed to the perfect likeness of Christ in
the life to come, when we will experience God’s eternal glory and love
forever.

Having entered into this relationship, the true Christian
then seeks to grow in his or her spiritual life by studying the Bible in
order to understand the doctrines of the faith. In studying and
contemplating the life of Christ, the true Christian attempts to model
his or her behavior after that of Jesus.

It is the neglect of study of the Bible and reflection on
the life of Christ that is at the heart of the practical errors of the
majority of confessing Christians. Mere morality is dwarfish compared to
the results of true faith. Morality as an answer to the pitiful state
of the human condition reveals a total misunderstanding of the enormous
problem of the fallen human condition.

This is a problem so massive that God gave His Son to die
on the cross to solve it. When we think we can atone for our sin by
becoming good, it is like a slap in the face of Christ. The cold sense
of obligation and the grudging attitude of any act of service that
accompanies cultural Christianity is completely inconsistent with the
fact that a true Christian “is the temple of the Holy Ghost” (1 Cor.
6:19, KJV) and that our response to Christ is to demonstrate that we
have been “delivered…from the power of darkness, and…translated…into the
kingdom of his dear Son” (Col. 1:13).

All our behavior, as those who have entered into this
union with Christ, is to flow from these biblical truths. These truths
are to motivate us to serve God with joy, thankfulness and love. We are
to be a people who live with the experience of eternal gratitude.

If we are going to walk worthy of Christ, we have to
practice one central discipline. As the writer of Hebrews exhorts, we
are to fix our eyes on Jesus. We are to run our race looking unto Jesus
as our motivation.

This is the key. If we do this one thing, we will be
unable to treat our faith in the superficial way most cultural
Christians do in our time.

In looking unto Jesus, we:

• realize how logical it is to make an unconditional
surrender of our total beings to the will and service of God

• see how hateful sin is to the perfect holiness of God

• grow in the love of God and receive the motivation to
treat our fellow man with compassion

• become more humble

• develop the attitude that is required to be a true
servant of Christ on Earth

• learn to live by faith.

To the men and women who possess authentic faith in Jesus
Christ, the core truths of the gospel are the center of gravity
toward which all of life is in motion. They are the origin of all that
is excellent and lovely and the source of light and life.

The human mind cannot reason to these conclusions. But
when you read the Gospels, your eyes are unveiled and you can see “the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”
(2 Cor. 4:6). And as we behold His glory, we are transformed so that we
can reflect His glory in all we do and in all we are (see 2 Cor. 3:18).

William Wilberforce (1759-1833) has been described as
“the greatest reformer in history.” He was born in Hull, England, on
August 24, 1759, and soon after graduating from St. John’s College,
Cambridge University in 1780, he secured a seat in Parliament for his
birthplace. 

In 1783, he was elected a Member of Parliament for the
county of Yorkshire–one of the most powerful seats in the House of
Commons. Yet after his election, Wilberforce experienced a spiritual
crisis and began to question whether a Christian could serve God in
politics.

He sought out John Newton, the writer of the hymn
“Amazing Grace,” who helped him see that he could serve God in politics
and make a difference there. By 1787, Wilberforce had taken up the
charge for which we remember him today: the fight to abolish the British
slave trade.

Throughout his life, Wilberforce worked to foster moral
and cultural reform in Britain as well as to abolish slavery. He was
active in educational reform, prison reform and the promotion of public
health initiatives.

Wilberforce retired from political life in February
1825, having served his nation for nearly 45 years. Yet his efforts to
secure the emancipation of slaves throughout Britain’s colonies
continued until his death in 1833.

Adapted from Real Christianity by William
Wilberforce, copyright 1797. Revised by Bob Beltz, copyright 2006.
Published by Regal. Used by permission.