Do You Have A Stable Faith?

Everyone who lives in America has been watching the tragedy unfold with the condo collapse in Miami, Florida. This is so tragic. I do not want to make light of this situation because so many lives were snuffed out in an instance on that warm Miami morning as they were safely asleep in their comfortable beds.

What caused the collapse? They are still sifting through all the wreckage for a conclusion. However, it is very clear to everyone that it had something to do with the building’s foundation. The building became unstable because something with the foundation gave way. Many people find themselves on this unstable footing spiritually and tragically if they don’t come to the bedrock faith of Christ the unstable footing of their sin will be exposed.

The Christian has the great honor and privilege of avoiding this issue. This article will show how the systematic order of the Christian faith gives the ability to study and practice Christian doctrine. Christ provides us with the ability to live a meaningful and fulfilled life.

Colossians 2:5. “I say this so that no one will deceive you with persuasive arguments. For even though I am absent in body, I am nevertheless with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your orderly manner and the stability of your faith in Christ.”

The first step to have your worldview change is repentance and belief in Jesus Christ in order to ground you in reality. Paul is saying in the above text that all born-again believers have one overarching gift dwelling in all of us: the Holy Spirit. Therefore, even though we are absent from each other, the same spirit binds all believers together. We will follow the flow of the text in the next three points and circle back around on how to loosen the grasp of the deceptively persuasive arguments of our culture at the end to make sure we apply everything properly.

1. Order is important. Here is why:

What do a well-run company and a highly effective military have in common? Order. Everyone knows what their objectives are, they know who is in command, and how the commander is going to achieve the objectives, and the role they play in the grand scheme of everything. Order in the Christian is what partly has always separated it from the world.

If you want to know what a true Christian believes, who his commander is, and what role they play in the big scheme of things you have to look no further than the Bible. From the Bible, the unbeliever and believer will run into a systematic belief in God, Man, and Creation; however, the believer has allowed the truth to change him. In short, the believer has allowed the Bible to systematically inform what he believes on the big issues on life—where we have come from and where we are going—and why he believes it.

                  A. Order is good because it shows what you believe and why you believe it.

If you are a believer or an unbeliever, I want to ask you a question; have you ever poked and prodded what you believe and why you believe it? Has it stood the test of honest scrutiny? The one true living God is a God of order and He reveals Himself in the very same way. If you doubt me, let me whet your appetite with the following four scriptures.

Genesis 3:15. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring[e] and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Deuteronomy 18:18. “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.”

Isaiah 61:1. “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Because the Lord anointed me To bring good news to the humble; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim release to captives And freedom to prisoners.”

Luke 4:20-21. “And He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all the people in the synagogue were intently directed at Him. Now He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

What is the thread of order that we see in the above four texts? What system of theology can we pull from them? Man sinned, and there will be a battle between Satan and Adam’s offspring; however, God is going to intervene by sending Jesus to set us free from our captivity of sin. If you are an unbeliever, how do you deal with the brokenness you see all around you and in your life if you are honest?

        2. Order helps you have confidence in your study and application of the truth.

God was kind to us! These four verses are just the tip of the iceberg. God has orderly and systematically revealed himself in the scriptures. It is up to us to study and apply the truth. Buddhists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Hindus, and Muslims don’t have that privilege. Why? They reject the truth God has relieved to all of us and believe lies about God, and worship idols instead.

Psalm 96:5. “For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heaven.”

The most loving thing to do is show them the disorder, inconsistencies, and arbitrariness of their belief system. If you want to learn more, either subscribe to our YouTube Channel or order our PDF curriculum on Cults and False Beliefs.  

A. The order (habit) of studying and practicing (applying) the truth

Know that you see how kind God is and how beautifully ordered his word is. Now you and I must study and practice applying the truth every day of our life. This is a lifelong process that will have valleys and mountain tops. Still, the discipline of learning, memorizing, and applying God’s word is vitally important to your growth as a Christian living in a broken, fallen world and to the benefit of the advancement of God’s kingdom on this broken and fallen world.

You are a pilgrim living in a Godless, unholy land that is slowly being subjected to your majesty’s reign and holy life through you. You are God’s ambassador in this broken world. In your study of God’s Word, you must form healthy habits and work on applying the truths you gleaned from your healthy habits into your life.

B.  As you study, healthy habits will begin to form and when applying truth two things are revealed.

A few healthy habits are reading your Bible daily, praying, and sharing Jesus regularly. We have written a curriculum to help you work these healthy habits into your life. Order the PDF curriculum here.  When these healthy habits begin to form, you will start to apply the truth you are studying in your life, and you will, over some time and many ups and downs, begin to grow in Christ-likeness. It is at that time that the object of your faith shows you two things.

                  i. The object of your faith progressively makes you a stable and grounded person.

You are no longer tossed back and forth like the world. You are anchored in the person and work of Jesus and the present active work of the Holy Spirit in your life. The people in this broken world need you; they are grabbing on to anything. It is something different every month, helping them feel better about themselves or supposedly enriching their life. They need the anchor that you have in your life. Jesus!

                  ii. As you begin to mature, you find out that it’s not you but the life of another.

Your life is changing, and now you obverse everything differently. Art, music, T.V, social media, and Movies. You begin to embrace what the Holy Spirit is doing in your life and point others to what Jesus can do in their life. The world starts to lose its grip on you. As the old hymn writer, Helen H. Lemmel, in 1922, wrote, “The things of this earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.”

The object of your faith grows to such a point that the grasp of those persuasive arguments that Paul talks of in Colossians 2:5 begins to weaken. Remember, their spiritual foundations—world views—are faulty, and they will tragically crumble around them like those poor unsuspecting people in Miami, Florida. Let’s be motivated to reach them before it is too late. The third part of this article will be for our champion partners. I will show how their faith in Jesus makes them stable. I will share how unbelievers’ persuasive arguments start to lose their grasp when you begin to examine them.  If you want to find out how to be a champion partner to get extended articles, podcasts, and videos to help you become better at sharing your faith, click here.