Building Up Your Most Holy Faith

But ye, beloved, building up

yourselves on your most

holy faith, praying in the

Holy Spirit, keep yourselves

in the love of God, looking

for the mercy of our Lord

Jesus Christ unto eternal life

Jude 20-21

     The attempt in these latest blogs is to aid you to build up your most holy faith, to pray in the Holy Spirit, and to keep yourselves in the love of God, and all the while to continue looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ Who has promised eternal life. This is the hope, true established hope founded upon the sure faith revealed in Scripture. Authentic Christian Faith is not blind, it is not some hapless hope, it is a building upon the truth of Scripture and our continued building upon our relationship with Jesus Christ, our God and Savior. 

     The Trinity, God in Three Person, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is our foundational truth as revealed in Scripture. The fact that Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God was sent to earth to die for sin, and by His death and resurrection Jesus did what He came to earth to do, pay our debt for we cannot ever pay this debt, so God paid His own debt now we can receive the promise of eternal life. This is also our most foundational truth so that our faith in the unseen is not seen with our physical eyes but with our eyes of our minds, and by this our faith is established. This is the truth of faith and we can ensure ourselves that we have this faith by our obedience to the commands and precepts of God: "This is the will of God, even your sanctification" (1Thessalonians 4:3). This building up is work on our part, for in our nature is nothing good, oh, yes we can do good things but our good is selfish. The good we grow into in the Lord is a good that only comes by our obedience to Him and this is in opposition to our nature. We grow by doing! 

     Unfortunately, too often, when thing are going bad our faith wavers, or, we strive to do, to work out to overcome by our strength whatever is causing our faith to waver. Jesus did not allow panic, only a calm strength, no impulse, no wavering for He kept His eye on the Father. Some will point out that He was God, yes, but He was also fully man and met with the same problems we confront, only Jesus did not allow in His manhood to fall prey to sin. Jesus relied upon His Father by being obedient unto death: "And in figure having been found as a man, He humbled Himself, having become obedient unto death, even death of the cross" (Philippians 2:8). The temperament of Jesus Christ was on the line of God, and this we find is not always that of ourselves for in our natural life impulse, that trait of man, gets in the way of or life and relationship with Jesus Christ. This impulse that destroys, at least in some way, our faith hinders our development our life of a disciple. We must allow the Holy Spirit living within us to check this impulse, and this we do by continuing to build up our faith. This is done by study of God's word, by prayer, by association with like believers, to rid ourselves of self-realization and our attempt to vindicate ourselves when we do wrong or even think wrong. Impulse is disastrous for an impulsive man/woman begins to trifle in things of little significance, to do things that show to the world by his/her work that he/she is godly. We must train our minds, any impulse that is in opposition to God to be restrained before it gets a hold on us and this is done by discipline. 

     The grace of God given freely to His children to build them up in discipleship is not built upon impulsive people. We do not need the grace of God to stand crises, our human nature and pride are sufficient, we can face the strain magnificently: but to do it well requires the supernatural grace of God so that we can live 24 hours a day as a saint, to live a holy Authentic Christian Faith. We learn that we can live an ordinary, unobserved, ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus Christ. This is the truth of faith. This truth laying hold of our lives allow us to be holy in those means things of life, among mean people. To build up. and the Greek word for this is in the presence active therefore it is to be done daily, 24 hours a day, not just when trouble comes. This is not learned quickly, but it can be learned and practiced if one would apply the truth of faith to themselves. We have the truth of the Trinity, the truth of the Only Begotten Son, the truth of salvation, we have all we need, so then apply this faith to your lives and live. 

Call unto me, and I will

     answer thee, and show

thee great and mighty things,

     which thou knowest not.

                      Jeremiah 33:3

Apply true Authentic Faith to your life

Richard L. Crumb