Where Are You Going With Your Faith?

Title: Where are You going with your faith?

1 John 5:4b “…This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”

Introduction:

Where are You going with your faith?

Have you ever asked yourself that question? Have you ever stopped and wondered just what direction your spiritual life is going, or what direction your faith is aimed?

I’m not talking about questioning the veracity or the genuineness of your saving faith. No, you’ve got the God-given faith and have turned it over to Jesus, and Jesus has granted you the gift of salvation based on that faith. But my question is what are you doing with it now? What have you been doing with it since that glorious day when you first turned it back over to Him? Where are you going with your faith?

Here are some scriptures about faith. In these verses, you can see where these early believers in Jesus went with their faith. You can also see for what reason or reasons they took this direction. Judge for yourself whether or not they were selfless or selfish actions.

Matthew 8

5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 "Lord," he said, "my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering." 7 Jesus said to him, "I will go and heal him." 8 The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ’Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ’Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ’Do this,’ and he does it." 10 When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.

Matthew 9

20 Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. 21 She said to herself, "If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed." 22 Jesus turned and saw her. "Take heart, daughter," he said, "your faith has healed you." And the woman was healed from that moment.

Luke 17

11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us!" 14 When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed. 15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him--and he was a Samaritan. 17 Jesus asked, "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" 19 Then he said to him, "Rise and go; your faith has made you well."

Each one of us that have placed our God-given gift of faith in the Son of God, have been given a direction to follow. I want you to listen to a paragraph that I read recently…

I regard Christianity neither as an inclusive divine revelation nor as an historical phenomenon, but as a teaching which-gives us the meaning of life. I was led to Christianity neither by theological nor historical investigations but by this-that when I was fifty years old, having asked myself and all the learned men around me what I am and what is the meaning of my life, and received the answer that I am a fortuitous concatenation of atoms and that life has no meaning but is itself an evil, I fell into despair and wanted to put an end to my life; but remembered that formerly in childhood when I believed, life had a meaning for me, and that for the great mass of men about me who believe and are not corrupted by riches life has a meaning; and I doubted the validity of the reply given me by the learned men of my circle and I tried to understand the reply Christianity gives to those who live a real life. And I began to seek Christianity in the Christian teaching that guides such men’s lives. I began to study the Christianity which I saw applied in life and to compare that applied Christianity with its source.

Can I ask the question again, what direction are you taking with your faith? Are you still at the same point in spiritual development that you were when you first put your faith in Christ?