We Walk by Faith

We live by faith, not by sight. (2 Cor. 5:7 NIV)

There is possibly no other verse in the Bible that despite its brevity influences so greatly our understanding of how to live the Christian life than this one. What an incredible treasure to us this verse is!

The NIV chose to translate the Greek verb, peripatoumen, as “live,” but its real meaning is “to be treading around,” or “to be walking.” It describes not how we enter into life but rather how we live each day. We enter into life by the call of God upon our hearts through the gospel and by His Spirit — as Christ said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44) — but our essential response is one of faith, or simple belief. We believe what the gospel says about us and about Christ, that we are in need of grace and need to repent, that Christ is God’s answer to our sin, that He died in our place and rose from the grave, that He is Lord. In an instant we are saved and enter into the new life in Christ.

But to live each day for Christ requires the same response of our hearts — faith in Christ. Faith that is based upon the promises of God is to be our emphasis, our guide, our motivation, our comfort, our encouragement, and our supporting reality.

We experience many wonderful things as we follow Christ. We see God answer prayers in our lives — I can think of several times in my life as a minister when we were in dire need of financial support, when I prayed to the Lord earnestly and sincerely asking for Him to meet this need, and God did — often through quite miraculous means. We may look back upon these experiences and other times God showed us His power in the material realm — healings, movings of His Spirit, incredible “coincidences” that could come only from God, changed hearts and lives, etc. — and thank God for His faithfulness and His power.

Sometimes I hear people say something like, “I know God is faithful because He has shown me His power,” referring to some answered prayer. But if I understand this scripture above, we may take comfort in answered prayers, but we still trust in God by faith. And I have found personally, that no matter how many prayers God answers for me, no matter how many times He shows me His power and greatness, I still must believe on Him based on the revelation of who He is in His Word. “The LORD is my shepehrd, I shall not be in want” (Psalm 23:1), embraced in faith will do more for our souls than all the quaint memories we can conjure of past answered prayers.

We all return to the reality of faith to live each day, and the words of the simple children’s hymn, “Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so,” is the reality of each Christian — no matter how long we have followed Christ, no matter how often He has revealed His power to us. Sight may bring comfort and be a cause for the rejoicing of the saints, but it is by faith that we live. And faith must always rest upon a revelation of God — it must always depend on what God’s Word says.

In addition to trying to live by sight, we may try to live by our feelings, that when we feel good, when our health is good and our situation is pleasant we may feel more victorious in Christ. But this also is a ruse, a false foundation for life. God is there whether I feel like He is or not. The blood of Christ washes away my sins not because I feel like it does but because God has decreed that it does for those who believe — and I believe.

We also have deep experiences with God’s Spirit, when God brings such assurance to our hearts that we rejoice inwardly. But we are not to live by our past, even those past experiences of great movements of God in our hearts. We are to live by faith.

So the Christian does not look down upon his earthly reality to determine whether God is faithful, nor does he look back upon his past experiences, he does not look upon his own inner soul to check his emotions, rather he is to look at God’s promises and rest in them, resting thereby in God Himself.

I remember a woman who was with me on one of my trips to Israel, who, in the cool fall weather we were enjoying, said that she felt closer to God. She wondered if everyone just did not feel a bit closer to God when they came to Israel. I reminded her that though many have that sensation of feeling closer to God, that Israel was also the place of great unbelief, and it was the place where Christ was rejected and crucified. It is faith, and not how we may feel about the weather, that we are to live by.

So, are you living today by faith, by the simple trust in God and what His Word says?