The Faith Journey

Christian Maturity

Nothing could be clearer: the aim and purpose of the whole impact of the Christian faith is to produce maturity. And nothing is more gloriously breathtaking than the pattern of that maturity; the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. ...

If I write of maturity from an experience stretching across half a century, learned among all nations of the world, I know that maturity does not come by accumulated experiences. It comes through basic responses to grace. I am as mature as my basic responses to grace. And no more mature. ...

So maturity is not a matter of age but of attitudes. And these changed attitudes can be sudden and lasting. But they may also be gradual. But in either case you become mature to the degree that you relate yourself to God, respond to God's grace, and work it out in life. Receptivity to grace is the secret of maturity.

Christian Maturity

(Introduction, viii, xi)

Belief

The Question That Halts Our Quest

Job 11:7-9; 21:15; 23:3-9; John 14:8

The facts of life are too much for us — the unemployment, the hunger of little children, the underlying strife in modern life, the exploitation of the weak and incapacitation of them by the strong, the apparently unmerited suffering around us, the heartlessness of nature, the discoveries of science which seems to render the hypothesis of God unnecessary — all these things, and more, seem to shatter our belief in God. We do not reject that belief; it simply fades away and becomes unreal.

Victorious Living

(Week 1, January 1)

Having Our Being in God

Hebrews 4:16; 6:9-12; 10:39

Belief is the habit of your life; you have to believe in order to live.

Abundant Living

(Week 6, Saturday)

Cease from Struggling

Philippians 4:6-7

It is quite clear. This new birth (John 1:12-13), which leads to a new life, is a gift accepted by faith, by those who "believed in his name." But that belief is not mere intellectual assent; it is believing with your life, self-committal to Another. It means letting down the barriers of your inmost being and letting him come in and take over, take over as Sole Owner.

The Way

(Week 11, Friday)

Finding the Good in the Evil

John 4:10-1

Jesus believes in people when they can't believe in themselves. So they have faith in his faith in them. Paul says, "I live by the faith of the Son of God" (Gal 2:20 KJV). One would have thought it was "faith in the Son of God," but it is "of." The faith that Jesus had in Paul made him respond with faith in him. Jesus faiths faith out of the faithless, believes belief out of the beliefless, and loves love out of the loveless. We must have faith in people if we are to influence them. Those who believe in us most influence us most. If we become cynical about people, we become powerless to help people.

How to Be a Transformed Person

(Week 39, Monday)

The Wicked Walk in Circles

Romans 5:1-5

For the Christian faith believes in progress, an eternal progress.

The non-Christian faiths never have believed in progress. It is interesting that the chakra, or circle, was developed in Greece, India, and China about the same time, as representing the belief that life is a circle, turning around on itself endlessly. In such a scheme, hope could have no place, for life perpetually turned back on itself, coming back to where it had been. In fact, hope was looked on as an evil.

Then comes the Christian faith with its belief in progress for the individual and for society. This brought to birth a new thing — hope. ... Augustine translates Psalm 12:8, "The wicked walk in circles." They do. They get nowhere. But a great many Christians "walk in circle"; they too do not get anywhere.

Growing Spiritually

(Week 14, Thursday)

The Simple Art of Drinking

John 7:37-39

Jesus said: "All who believe in me should drink" (John 7:38 CEB)!

The difference between believers is this: some just believe, and some believe and drink; they know how to take, to receive, to drink. Hence they never thirst. Some are always thirsty, for they just believe. They assent to Jesus, but they don't assimilate Jesus. Their minds believe, but their hearts do not receive.

Mastery

(Week 24, Sunday)

A Mature Faith: First Necessity

Ephesians 4:4-6

If we are to be mature we must get hold of a mature faith, or better, it must get hold of us. For the immaturities of our faith will soon show themselves in immaturities in our actions and our attitudes. The creed of today becomes the deed of tomorrow. Nothing can be more immature than the oft-repeated statement: "It doesn't matter what you believe just so you live right." For belief is literally by-lief — by-life, the thing you live by. And if your belief is wrong, your life will be wrong.

Don't misunderstand me. I don't mean to say that if you have a correct belief you'll necessarily have a correct life. That doesn't follow. The creed, to be a creed, must be a vital rather than a verbal one. For the only thing we really believe in is the thing we believe in enough to act upon. Your deed is your creed. But it does matter what you hold as the basic assumptions of your life.

Christian Maturity

(Week 1, Tuesday)

In Christ — Paul's Phrase?

[What happens when] Christianity becomes correct belief about Christ instead of a surrender to Christ, which puts you in him. This is the Great Substitute — the in has become about. Christianity becomes a theological system instead of a way of life — becomes good views, instead of good news.

In Christ

(Week 13, Sunday)

The Gift Creates Initiative

John 4:13-15

Your belief is your life. And your life is your belief. You believe in a thing enough to act on it, to live it. So you are what you believe, and you believe what you are. Your deed is your creed. And your creed is your deed.

The Word Became Flesh

(Week 5, Friday)

Conversion

What Is Conversion?

Psalm 86:11; Acts 2:37-38; 3:19; Romans 8:1-2

Jesus puts [conversion] within the content of the moral and spiritual as well as the psychological. ... [Conversion is the unifying] of the personality and bringing harmony into the center of life. All life says we must undergo a change.

Victorious Living

(Week 7, Monday)

The Social Order Converts the Individual

Hosea 4:1-3; Amos 8:4-7

In the interest of individual conversion, I am committed to the necessity of social conversion. If a person shows no interest in converting an unchristian social order, then by that very fact that person has little interest in individual conversion, for, apart from the Holy Spirit, the greatest single power to change the individual is...