Who am I?
Someone may ask, so how about the experiences I have already had? You have probably tried to live by faith only to fall and lose hope in it. Living by faith can be likened to a young child learning to ride a bike. They start out and fall, they get bumps and bruises and may even bleed a little, but they get back on the bike and try again and again, not because they have done it before, but because they have been told that they could do it, and have seen others do it, as well. Their experience isn’t what makes the difference: it is their belief. By continually acting on their belief, their experience finally matches their faith.
In his book “The Normal Christian life”, Watchman Nee gives the following illustration: “You probably know the illustration of Fact, Faith, and Experience walking along the top of a wall. Fact walked steadily on, turning neither to the right nor left and never looking behind. Faith followed, and all went well so long as he kept his eyes focused upon Fact; but as soon as he became concerned about Experience and turned to see how he was getting on, he lost his balance and tumbled off the wall, and poor old Experience fell down after him.”
You see, the issue of living by faith can be summed up in the idea of keeping your eyes on God’s word instead of the circumstances you are under. As we face decisions in our life, faith asks, “What does God show me to do in His Word?”, while the flesh says “What can I figure out?” Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” The flesh wants to see and feel how to respond; Faith responds as the Bible directs even when it doesn’t make sense to the flesh.
We live in a day when people operate almost exclusively on their feelings.
Feelings will deceive you because feelings are usually based on our past way of thinking and training, which was according to the flesh. Your feelings are a result of your past, which was in death. You now are to operate on God’s feelings. When someone offends you, you are to forgive them, even when you don’t feel like it. When you do wrong, you are to repent and do right even when you don’t feel like it. You see our lives are now to operate by faith, and our feelings are to be put aside. This does not mean that they go away. It means that we choose not to act on them in the same way that we did when we were identified with the old man.
The Bible illustrates this in many ways. Consider Abraham, the father of faith. He was told by God to go to a country he had never seen. He didn’t even know where it was! Look what God told him in Genesis 12:1 “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:” Notice the end of this verse, “unto a land that I will shew thee.”
Abraham didn’t receive a map, or GPS coordinates, just the instruction to go. The flesh would say, “I can’t do this”, but faith said, “Obey God”. The Bible says in Romans 4:3, “For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”
We know that Abraham had no experience with this new endeavor, but he kept his eyes on the promises of God, and with faith, his experience finally matched his position with God. Walking by faith made the difference in his life.
