Living Faith
The prophet Habakkuk lived during a dark season in Israel’s history. Violence, injustice, and corruption filled the land. As he looked upon the sin of Judah, he cried out for God to act. Yet when God answered, His response was not what Habakkuk expected. The Lord declared that He would raise up the Babylonians as His instrument of judgment. Habakkuk struggled to understand how God could use a nation more wicked than Judah to accomplish His purposes. In the midst of his questions, God reminded him that while the proud would surely perish, the righteous would live by faith. God’s people were to trust Him even when they could not fully understand His ways.
No life in Scripture illustrates this truth more clearly than the life of Abraham. He trusted God, not with natural eyes, but with spiritual eyes, for God breathed spiritual life into him. God awakened his heart to the reality of His existence, forever altering the course of his life. While the world lay in darkness, worshiping nature and man-made idols, Abraham beheld the living God who sustains all things by the word of His power, and his life would never be the same.
Saving faith is not something man produces by his own will, for Scripture clearly teaches that man is spiritually dead from birth. Rather, faith is the gracious gift of God according to His sovereign mercy. The Scriptures declare, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.” Faith is the supernatural work of God in the heart, causing those whom He calls to believe that He exists, that He is the Creator and Ruler of all things, and that He is the Provider and Bestower of eternal salvation through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
Abraham’s life would never be the same. According to the faith God worked within him, he left everything he had known in pursuit of knowing the God who had forever changed his life. Along the way, he endured many trials as God continued to strengthen him from faith to faith. He became the father of many nations and was known as the man who believed God. His life stands in Scripture as an example of saving faith because he obeyed the commands of God. Though his life was not marked by perfection, it was marked by genuine love for God and growing obedience, and God’s grace continually sustained him.
Thousands of years later, James, the half-brother of the Lord Jesus Christ, quoted the writings of Moses, saying, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” James then adds, “He was called the friend of God.” He goes on to show that Abraham’s faith was so living and active that he was willing even to offer his son Isaac upon the altar, believing that God was able to raise him from the dead. James wrote, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar?” James is not arguing that we are justified before God by our works. Rather, he is teaching that genuine faith is demonstrated by works. Abraham’s obedience did not produce his justification; it revealed the reality of the new heart God had already given him.
Long before this, Ezekiel, speaking as he was carried along by the Holy Spirit, declared God’s promise: “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” Saving faith results not merely in an outward profession of Christ, but in a life increasingly marked by repentance and obedience to the Word of God.
May the grace of God cause each of us to humble ourselves and examine our own hearts to see whether we are truly in the faith. There are many like Judas Iscariot who clothe themselves in the garments of religion for wealth and dishonest gain. Perhaps you are like Hamor and Shechem, who were filled with sexual immorality and desired to join Jacob’s family only for what they could gain. Listen to their words: “Will not their livestock and their property and all their animals be ours? Only let us consent to them, and they will live with us.” Or perhaps you seek power and prestige, even going through the outward ceremony of baptism like Simon Magus, against whom the Apostle Peter declared, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God.”
Throughout history, many have clothed themselves in religion. Outwardly, they appeared clean, but inwardly they were full of dead men’s bones. They professed to know Jesus Christ while remaining strangers to His saving grace. Those who die apart from saving faith in Jesus Christ will endure the eternal wrath of God. At the end of the age, will you be found wanting when you stand before the God of Abraham?
Habakkuk 2:4 (NASB 1995)