It is warming for the soul and settlement for the mind to give attention to faith in its principles and applications. We remember that basic to the understanding of Christianity is that God does exist and that he communicates. Hebrews 11:6 – Without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is [exists], and that he is a rewarder [communicator] of them that diligently seek him. Without those presuppositions we will not proceed to embrace Christianity in its primary meaning – for God to do a spiritual work in a person that is life changing, with the promise of immortality (hope) as end consequence. The initial experience of that new life is spiritual infancy. (Hebrews 5:12-14). There will be required considerable nourishment, growing and maturing to gain the full understanding and meaning of the spiritual life experience. Unlike the human experience, measured in years, spiritual maturity is measured in the dedication of the individual to grow spiritually. Some persons advance rapidly, some at a slower pace, and some seem to rest in their infancy, perhaps with slight growth, but never resting from the milk stage to solid food. This differential means that Christians need to be treated practically in deference to where they are on the continuum from personal spiritual life in infancy (childhood) to full growth (maturity). The effective Christian analyst can usually identify the growing (maturing) Christian in the commitment of the persons to seeking the way of God for their lives. The criteria for evaluation are found in Scripture (the Word of God), and in the experience (models) of its application. (Hebrews 12:1)
Faith, in the Christian meaning, is understood in two subdivisions in nature. One subdivision is spiritual and the other is natural. Natural faith is best perceived as found in trust. Infants early learn in their innocence to love/trust their parents, especially their mothers. That mother trust holds unless it is violated by the mother as judged by the child. It may be violated by the child, so changing the meaning of the infant trust. If the father trust is not violated, it tends to grow if nourished in a way that meets the desires and expectations of the child. All this is related to mutuality in other matters, to faithfulness in responsibility, to love and care, to order and expectations, even to role fulfillment – of parent and child. There is complexity in it related to communication, gentleness, perhaps some sacrifice. Parents who are hazy about human faith/trust related to family, likely without awareness related to their need to relate beliefs with conduct, are going to violate to some degree the context of faith/trust. The matter can be so serious as to disrupt family cohesion, loyalty, respect, leadership, and solidarity. At one time, in the not too distant past this context was so strong that a family member was not obligated to testify for or against a family member in a court case – either too strongly favoring the family member, or too vengeful in that family faith/trust had broken down. Truth may be hard to come by. Even with social secularization of the individual and weakening of family loyalty, feelings of the old system remain casually held. The naturalist/humanist as well as the Christian recognizes this faith and trust, which they often feel may be hard to come-by, so driving them to study and replication to establish genuineness and truth. The casting of truth and warning divides between reality and myth so addresses what is known (proved) and unknown (ignorance).
Spiritual rest also leads to trust – faith in God. Even with the similarities of human trust in nature, the differences are significant. Human trust is always diluted with the awareness that human beings may fail – even self-failure. God never fails, never takes away his love and care for his children. Human discipline is mixed. God’s discipline has meaning in it for good. (Hebrews 12:5-15) If there is ignorance at any point in the context, faith covers omissions. Faith not only serves as instructive for belief beyond nature, but changes a terminating context (death) with a continuing context (immortality). Christian faith is larger than human perception, rests on different presuppositions, achieves broader results and calls on different motivations than those found in nature only. For example, human awareness calls for care to the hungry, poor, abused, sick, and helpless. Christians accept the human burden based on values believed cultivated by some and diluted by others. The Christian takes the larger motivation – to serve because God orders it. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020