And if you like to urge people to have faith, as if it is something that can be achieved simply by repetitious exhortation, again, read Faith is Nothing.
Trouble is, we ever so subtly undermine the logic of faith when we too glibly exhort a person to ‘have faith’.... We pay lip service to grace and then call people to drum up faith, to work with all their might to squeeze out enough of it to make their lives worth saving. We convert faith, in other words, into a work.That's good, but now check this out:
If one were to ask Luther how she ought judge her faith, he would flatly reply that she should do no such thing, instead looking to the one judged in her place. Rather than getting caught up in diagnostics of faith (note the clinical expertise with which we can say ‘you don’t have enough faith!’), Luther would have us simply re-direct our attention to the object of faith, Jesus. Jesus is the mirror in which, by faith, we see ourselves, those women and men dead and raised to new life by the power of the Spirit.Read the whole thing for more of same.
HT: Daniel Hames.
2 comments:
Great stuff. Reminds me of what Tozer says in "The Pursuit of God" (sorry for the length):
"Faith is the least self-regarding of the virtues. It is by its very nature scarcely conscious of its own existence. Like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied with the Object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all. While we are looking at God we do not see ourselves–blessed riddance. The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do.
Faith is not in itself a meritorious act; the merit is in the One toward Whom it is directed. Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus. Sin has twisted our vision inward and made it self-regarding. Unbelief has put self where God should be, and is perilously close to the sin of Lucifer who said, `I will set my throne above the throne of God.’ Faith looks out instead of in and the whole life falls into line."
Thanks for the Tozer quote, Brian. It's outstanding (as Tozer always seems to be) and perfectly appropriate.
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