Devotion - Beautiful Eulogy, Art Azurdia

What is authentic faith?

The cultivation of an optimistic outlook on life with a kind of spirituality

attached to it?

A holy hoping for the best?

Is this how you think of faith?

Authentic faith is the confident assurance in events not yet seen

Faith is not a call to believe in things when common sense tells you not to

Faith is not a mindless stab in the dark

It is not a crossing of the fingers and hoping for the best

It is not a leap into apparent nothingness

It’s a word that speaks of reasoned, careful, deliberate, intentional thought

Thought upon what?

God and his promises

If you are absolutely gripped by the coming realities that have been promised

to you by God, then how you live your life in the present will be radically

different than if you did not possess that certainty

This is what faith is, my friends!

Positive certainty expressed in action

Authentic faith is not merely believing in God.

It is believing God

Taking God at his word, living in obedience to his revelation whatever the cost

because you know down deep in your bones that God will always do what he says,

that his speaking is his doing

It is an abiding assurance in God and his promises that animates you to

persevere in your obedience to Him

Do you wish to be a more consistently obedient, steadily persevering Christian?

A stronger Christian?

A more courageous and outspoken Christian?

Then you need to strengthen your faith!

Your faith instinctively strengthens in direct proportion to the expansion of

the object of your faith!

You expand your understanding of the object of your faith and faith itself will

obediently follow

The object of your faith--if indeed you are a Christian--is Jesus Christ and

all of his promises

Is your faith weak?

It is owing to the fact that you don’t know the object of your faith well enough

But when Jesus Christ becomes progressively bigger, or better yet,

your understanding of who he is progressively conforms to reality,

your faith will become increasingly stronger

But how does that happen?

By immersing yourself in the faith-arousing Word of God

Read of Jesus Christ!

The same powerful Word that long ago brought the universe to life is the same

Word that can bring you to life and furnish you with a faith that is truly and

authentically Christian