What is Spirit-based faith?

(An excerpt from the article “In defence of the Christian faith” which is available on this website

under the category “Christian faith”)

True religious faith (that is, Spirit-based faith) begins with the recognition that there is a God who is Sovereign, Infinite, Omnipresent, Omnipotent, and Omniscient. True religious faith also acknowledges unreservedly that man is a finite and dependent creature. Not least, true religious faith recognises God as the fountain of Love, Joy, Peace and Forgiveness.

True faith is a level of spirituality which reconciles us to God (justification by faith – Rom. 5:1) and progressively transforms us into the image and likeness of the Son (sanctification –Rom. 6:22), and unshackles us from Satan’s world (deliverance – Col.1:13). Once we touch that level of spirituality, we also begin to experience a new freedom: “If Jesus sets you free you are free indeed” (John 8:36).

Not least, at that level of spirituality our Adamic egos are crucified and replaced by the Spirit of the Risen Christ, so that it is no longer “i” (the Adamic Ego) that is living, but the Christ (Gal. 2:20) and thereafter the Holy Spirit takes over and demonstrates the Christ through us.

Those who have reached that level of spirituality have severed their links to their earthly ancestry and have been born anew of the Spirit of Christ. Such persons no longer live to boost their egos but, through the power of the Holy Spirit, demonstrate the life of the Christ, on earth, here and now, through their daily lives.

Rather than produce strong emotions, true Spirit-based faith will unfailingly produce as its fruit an overwhelming Love, not the possessive or clingy love of our common experience, but the love that gives to the utmost, the love that loves not just family and friends only, but enemies as well, and even those who despise us. A Spirit-based love forgives endlessly and holds the other cheek, not once, not twice, but interminably.

Equally, a Spirit-driven faith will produce a Joy that keeps bubbling up like a fountain, regardless of circumstances, and a Peace, such as the world can neither give, nor understand.

A Spirit-based faith reintegrates and restores fragmented personalities and imparts to them a wholeness that therapies of the world can never give.

The ultimate test of a Spirit-based faith is a radical transformation of personality, not to be put on show just during a Sunday service, but to permeate the rest of the person’s life.

We have it on the authority of Jesus Christ that faith, even as small as a mustard seed, can move mountains. Obviously, Jesus was speaking metaphorically but He wasn’t lying either. What he was saying was that, in truth, a Spirit-based faith is the most powerful energy in the universe.

That was the level of faith that prompted Noah to build his Ark several miles away from the shore line, without a rudder to guide it, or masts for raising sails, and over a period of 120 years! That was also the level of faith that Moses demonstrated at the Red Sea when he turned round on his rebellious followers and shouted, “Stand ye still and see the salvation of the Lord”, and in response the Red Sea parted. That was the faith that the three Hebrew boys, Meshach, Shadrak and Abednego, had as they went into King Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace and emerged from it without even the smell of smoke upon them. That was the faith that Daniel demonstrated when he walked into lions’ den, not just hoping that the lions’ jaws will not close on him, but in absolute faith that they will not.

That was also the faith that sustained the great missionary efforts of the 18th and 19th centuries, that carried the Gospel to the four comers of the world, and still do, risking persecution, assassinations, and all manners of privations and atrocities that a pagan/Satanic world mobilises against them.

However, that level of faith cannot be attained by sudden flight, or through a strong resolve, and not even through piety or through virtue or by doing good works. That level of faith cannot be reached by studying theology or by reading books or by listening to sermons. No! Not likely! That level of faith is a GIFT from the Holy Spirit. It is an outpouring of GRACE from on high, in response to a genuine spiritual thirsting. It comes only after we have been broken on the anvil of life and have been driven to our knees in penitence and tears.