Faith Needs A Total Commitment From Us

Faith is a matter of life or death. In Romans 6:23 we are told that the wage of the sinner is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.

We either believe in God and walk with Him by faith throughout our lives, accepting Him as our Lord and Saviour and have eternal life after our life on earth is done or we live our lives not accepting Him and we die and spend the rest of our days in the company of Satan. That is the stark reality of it.

It saddens me greatly when I hear people professing that they have no faith at all and do not believe in God. It saddens me further to know that they do not accept the assurance of God’s love in their lives and neither do they know his comfort, his peace and the surety that God is with them throughout their lives and also into eternity, if they would but accept him as their Lord and Saviour.

In our secular lives we can find many examples of how we put our trust in things. When we sit down on a chair we have faith in that chair and we believe that it will hold our weight and not break into pieces when we sit on it! When we drive our cars we trust that the brakes will stop us and we believe that when we need to stop suddenly our brakes will work! If we fly from one country to another, we have faith in the pilot to fly the plane and we trust that it will carry us safely to our destination without crashing to the ground. Whenever we eat food, we trust that the food has been properly prepared and not poisoned. When we go into our houses, we rely upon the pillars and walls that hold up the ceiling and we believe that the house will not come crashing down around us. When we climbed a tree as a child and hung all our weight upon one branch, we trusted that the branch was strong enough to hold us. Every time we drive or ride over a bridge, we depend upon that bridge to hold us and not collapse into the water or the road below. When our friends tell us that they will meet us at 3 o’clock we take them at their word and believe that they will do what they have said they will do! I am sure that you can think of other examples of how we live by faith every day of our lives? But sometimes the brakes on our cars do fail and a people may have an accident. Sometimes aeroplanes do crash and lives are lost. Sometimes chairs do break when people sit on them. Sometimes there is something wrong with the food that we eat and it might make us sick! Sometimes the roofs on buildings do come crashing down. Sometimes branches do break when we climb trees. Sometimes our friends do not keep their promises. Faith is only as good as the object, person or thing in which it is placed! So I ask the question is it possible to have a trust in someone or something who will never fail us?

Today I want to spend a little time looking at three points:

Faith needs to be strong

Faith calls for us to give our lives to God

Faith brings us to eternal life

Faith needs to be strong

Does anyone know what the word funambulist means? It is a tight rope walker. Nearly 152 years ago to the day a fantastic feat was accomplished.

On June 30, 1859, a man by the name of Charles Blondin (1824-1897) crossed Niagara Falls on a 3" rope that was stretched 1,100 feet (1/4 of a mile) across the falls at a height of 160 feet. Not only that but in the ensuing days he also accomplished some amazing feats while crossing the falls: he executed a backwards somersault, crossed while blindfolded, while pushing a wheelbarrow, on stilts, in the dark with Roman candles flaring from the ends of his balancing pole, on a bicycle and on one occasion he even stopped half way across and cooked an omelette on a portable stove and lowered it to a boat below him. As a finale to his great achievement he asked if anyone would be prepared to get into the wheelbarrow and be pushed across the falls. No one was prepared to put that much trust in him. Then, again over Niagara Falls, on September 15, 1860, he accomplished his most amazing feat of all. Before crossing the rope on that particular day Blondin turned to the crowd and said, "Do you believe I can carry someone across the rope on my back?" The crowd roared its approval, "Yes, we believe you can!"