For This Reason 35

[HKHaugan]

If you want a clear picture of what true, complete and ultimate faith looks like, think Jesus. Everyday of His life, His mind, His heart and Spirit was living for His Father. His heart, mind and Spirit were in His Father. He was the temple of faith for His Father. His mind, His heart and His Spirit were submitted in obedience to His Father’s will. His mind was the Holy Place and His heart was the Holy of Holies. His Spirit moved within to energize the Word in Him.

It is that picture Jesus presented when He “…put together a whip out of strips of leather and chased them [the money changers] out of the Temple, stampeding the sheep and cattle, upending the tables of the loan sharks, spilling coins left and right. He told the dove merchants, "Get your things out of here! Stop turning my Father's house into a shopping mall!" That's when his disciples remembered the Scripture, "Zeal for your house consumes me. But the Jews were upset. They asked, "What credentials can you present to justify this?" Jesus answered, "Tear down this Temple and in three days I'll put it back together. It took forty-six years to build this Temple, and you're going to rebuild it in three days?" But Jesus was talking about his body as the Temple. Later, after he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this. They then put two and two together and believed both what was written in Scripture and what Jesus had said (John 2:17:21 The Message).”

He was faith’s final definition and therefore The Temple of faith. What He was as a temple of faith is what He wants each of us to be, temples of faith moved by the Holy Spirit. That was His intention for each of us (1Cor.6:19) . And together each of us makes up His Body, the Body of Christ, and the Body of Christ is His temple in this world (1Cor.3:16-17). When Jesus returns we will be in the Eternal Temple, His Presence (Rev.21:22). In that Temple He is the Priest whose once-for-all-times sacrifice has brought us into His Temple. We, and all who have known Him in faith, are together in faith. This is why we observe Advent with hope and expectation empowered by faith. Faith is the opposite of fear. His return is not something to fear but, in faith, looking forward with excited anticipation.

Faith brings to light what lies in the heart of God because God is faithful by nature. As Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God is a God faith. Through faith He is revealing Himself in every next moment. Being faithful is taking a part in God. Faith is a shared nature. When we are being faithful we are actually at one with God.

To begin with we see the Trinity of faith. Let’s start with Jesus. To know what faith looks like when it is practiced is seen in Jesus. He is the living definition of faith,---faith in the mind, faith in the heart and faith in the Spirit. Faith as a reality is seen in Jesus. How we know what faith is appears in the person of Jesus. He became man to demonstrate what faith is, what it does and where it takes us. So when Jesus says the He and the Father are One and that when you see Jesus you see the Father, what we see is that the Father is a Father of faith.

The Father extended His faith in His Son when He sent him to live in a human body. The Father’s faith was faith extended to the limit beyond our comprehension. Consider how He staked the destiny of the entire universe on His Son’s willingness to limit Himself to living in a human body with all its limitations. Further He trusted Him to be obedient to His will and submissive to His Word as He grew in ‘wisdom and stature among men.’ That was not only growing but also growing and responding perfectly every day. Then to have Him believe, trust and have faith sufficient to bear the sins of all mankind while He died on a brutal Cross when he had never done anything wrong. He believed for us when we couldn’t believe for ourselves. He trusted for us when we couldn’t trust for ourselves. He had faith for us when we couldn't have faith for ourselves.

Then we need to see the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of faith, the motivator and energizer of faith. It is the Holy Spirit who is right there correcting our course, convicting us, encouraging us, filling us in every next moment as we walk by faith. It is the Holy Spirit showering us with spiritual gifts that are faith gifts to help our brothers and sisters as they move in faith. It is the Spirit working in us who brings the person of Jesus and the will of the Father into our hearts through faith. It is the Spirit who makes the Word come alive as we believe with our minds, trust with our hearts and have faith in our spirits.

Faith is our maturing agent. Maturity is not a static point of arrival. It is not something we complete or can we ever say ‘we’ve arrived.’ Maturity is acting in faith every next moment. We never stop maturing. We are always a work in progress. No one ever is really mature. We can say we are maturing. We can only always become more mature. More on maturity to come.