Faith: Truth or philosophy?

I have heard it said that faith is a philosophy. The dictionary defines philosophy as a set of beliefs. Is there a difference between the two? Over the past several years churches’ highly esteemed leadership has defined faith as believing and trusting. Has the church allowed faith to become a set of beliefs? Nearly all of our esteemed leaders preach a beautiful message of the Gospel and then tell us to ask Jesus to come into our life and believe he is there. The scriptures teach us we are to come by faith that does not come from ourselves but is a gift from God. Faith is a gift; believing is a choice, an act of obedience to a command he has given individually and personally. Our community has been called to revive this faith and develop a right relationship with him. He is our righteousness and through this we can find unity. He is our only source of faith.

Throughout the years Man has developed several methods for salvation that give the appearance of success but only opens the door to taking his name in vain. The most common method is asking Jesus into our life. He has been in our life since before we were born. He knocks on the door of our heart and invites us into his life. When we turn it around and invite him into our life, we, in effect, are telling him no and we want to keep our life just the way it is. Some teach us to just get baptized, as a symbol for repentance. Repentance is more than turning our backs on sin it is turning to faith and accepting the life he has given to us. Faith is the true opposite of unbelief.

I do not ask you to believe what I have written but I do ask you to seek God’s will and find your own understanding through his wisdom. Let each of us ask ourselves, is my faith based upon what I believe or is what I believe based upon faith, that which God has revealed in me? It is time to get back living in unity according to the revealed will of God, and live our lives by faith instead of a philosophy.

Alvin R. Burgess

Moses Lake