Faith Journey

In October 2017 I thought it may prove to be useful at some point in time to some people to prepare this summary.

1) It starts with being awakened to awareness of what God the Father has done for you through Christ Jesus on the cross to reconcile you to Him despite your sinfulness – this is done by the Holy Spirit, as we cannot be convinced to cross the line of faith by people/alone. This is referred to as being ‘Born Again’, as you start understanding this for the first time, and start seeing everything in a new light, and start learning what is important and right and wrong in life all over again (from God’s perspective).

• This is a gift of God as a result of His love for us, His grace and mercy. Grace = unmerited favour. Mercy = compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.

• You believe this through a leap of faith. Hebrews 11:1 advises “Now faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.”

• The Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation – see John 8:9 “…being convicted by their conscience…” Confidence is the feeling or belief that one can have faith in or rely on someone or something. Conviction (a strong persuasion or belief) is seen to be the same as assurance biblically, whereas to be convinced is to be completely sure or committed to a belief or way of doing things.

• Trust in the Lord requires faith , which is that thing we do even though we cannot see God. In order to trust in God we must first believe that He is.

2) As a response to this belief, you then decide to repent = to change your mind (and pray for forgiveness and for Jesus to be your saviour and lord of your life) and change so that your intention and motivation is to return love to our Father, and not to be selfish or do anything against our Father’s wishes. You become transformed from within (Being born again triggers a process of transformation over time, like growing up from being a child again).

3) We then receive salvation from damnation (eternal life in the presence of God, as opposed to being permanently separated from Him), which cannot be taken from us – we can only lose it if we denounce God and/or we were never truly convinced (convicted by the Holy Spirit) to begin with – through purely a logical thing, as opposed to an emotional (faith) experience. The name ‘Jesus’ means “God is salvation”. Christ or Messiah means “the anointed”. Hence Christ Jesus = God’s anointed deliverance/salvation for us.

4) We then grow in our relationship with God (in our faith and trust in Him). This is done through

• God’s Word, which increases your confidence in your conviction

• Fellowship (small/life group)

• Worship (Sunday meetings)

• Serving and taking action to reflect a new lifestyle.

5) Caution: In Revelation 3:16, Jesus says “Because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” This does not mean losing salvation. It is a figure of speech indicating disgust, which results in you receiving less of God’s blessings.