Difference between faith and personal responsibility.

Discussion in 'Questions?' started by Kenmtb, May 3, 2022.

  1. Kenmtb

    Kenmtb New Member

    Posts:
    16
    Likes Received:
    6
    Country:
    United States
    Religion:
    Anglican
    Hello-
    You often hear about "having faith". I am not exactly sure what that means.
    If I understand correctly, we are suppose to surrender and submit. That sounds awesome. How do you do that and navigate through life without making choices, decisions, calculations and actions?

    My question is, is there a line between having faith (GOD in control) and making sure things get done (Our responsibilities).

    Example: when someone does something and says that GOD will take care of the rest?!?!

    Thanks
     
    Extra Nos 84 likes this.
  2. Clayton

    Clayton Active Member

    Posts:
    178
    Likes Received:
    108
    Country:
    United States
    I think we can and should command our own responses to challenges, duties, opportunities, etc, but acknowledge that we can only control so much and that the eventual outcome or result is not, in the end, in our hands.
     
    Invictus and Kenmtb like this.
  3. Kenmtb

    Kenmtb New Member

    Posts:
    16
    Likes Received:
    6
    Country:
    United States
    Religion:
    Anglican
    Good thoughts. It looks like you can get in trouble if you try to rely on your so called abilities too much. On the other hand GOD is not here to do our work for us. Can you be trusting and at the same time constantly working and fighting to deal with issues yourself?
     
  4. Clayton

    Clayton Active Member

    Posts:
    178
    Likes Received:
    108
    Country:
    United States
    As the old saying goes, the Lord helps them that help themselves
     
  5. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

    Posts:
    4,188
    Likes Received:
    2,122
    Country:
    USA
    Religion:
    Christian attending ACNA
    Faith is believing in and trusting in God. So, what does it mean to act in faith or to walk by faith? ("For we walk by faith, not by sight.")

    Of course, when we talk about trusting in God, it doesn't mean God is a puppeteer pulling our strings and making us move (God is "in control," but not in that way). Nor does it mean doing nothing at all unless we've 'heard' God tell us to do something. Nor does it mean lying around waiting for money to fall from the sky into our hands and ripe grapes to fill our bowl. (You know all that already.)

    What it means is, doing what we know to do, yet deferring to God whenever He tells us (in his written word or by the indwelling Spirit) what to do. We aren't going to hear as much from the Holy Spirit as we are going to read in the Bible, though.

    So, for example (I'll pick an obvious illustration here), suppose you have to decide whether to dally with your neighbor's wife or not. Knowing from the Bible that adultery is displeasing to God, by faith you avoid all occasions to commit adultery, and you direct your mind to not dwell on the temptation.

    Suppose your child is very ill. Do you panic, get angry at God, have a breakdown? Hopefully not! You'd seek medical attention for your child, for that is "doing what you know to do" in the natural scheme of things. But there is a supernatural element, too. In faith, you would go to the Lord in prayer with your petition that your child make a complete and speedy recovery, but also acknowledging that, even though this appears to you to be the ideal outcome, God is the One who knows all things and only He knows what is truly best, so you resolve to continue trusting Him no matter what. "Not my will, but Thine be done." Then, in faith, you praise Him and thank Him for hearing your prayer and for looking after all of you in the way that only God can.

    Suppose you have to make a decision whether to accept a new job offer or stay in your old job. In faith, you pray and ask the Lord for His guidance, trusting that He who knows all future permutations and who has plans & purposes for your life (and the lives of those around you) will let you know whatever you need to know. You praise and thank Him for His love, grace, and assistance, and then (barring an audible voice from heaven or something) you go with the course of action that you feel peace about. You see, the Holy Spirit is the author of peace; He is not the author of confusion. Quite often He will guide you simply by providing a sense of peace when you contemplate doing what you should do, while thinking about doing the opposite will bring a sense of turmoil.

    I hope those examples give you some idea of the general proposition: what it means to act in faith. Faith says, "God, no matter what comes, I know you've got my back."
     
    eirna likes this.
  6. CRfromQld

    CRfromQld Moderator Staff Member

    Posts:
    429
    Likes Received:
    198
    Country:
    Australia
    Religion:
    Anglican
    There is a big difference between "having faith" and believing The Faith.
    You can have faith in New Age Mysticism, Pastafarianism, or fairies. Having faith in something that will not give you salvation might be comforting in this life but will prove very uncomfortable in the resurrection.
    Believing The Faith is believing in and following the doctrines taught by Jesus and the Apostles leads to salvation and eternal life with God. Many teachers today claim to be Christians but have departed from The Faith. We are warned about such false teachers in the New Testament and told to avoid them.

    However believing The Faith will not absolve you of responsibility or guarantee you prosperity in this life.
     
    Kenmtb and Rexlion like this.
  7. Invictus

    Invictus Well-Known Member

    Posts:
    2,678
    Likes Received:
    1,484
    Country:
    United States
    Religion:
    Episcopalian
    Sounds intriguing. :laugh:
     
  8. Niblo

    Niblo Member

    Posts:
    36
    Likes Received:
    22
    Country:
    Wales
    Religion:
    Islam
    You may have heard of this:

    It had been raining for days and days, and a great flood had come over the land. The waters rose so high that one man was forced to climb onto the roof of his house.
    As the waters rose higher and higher, a man in a rowboat appeared, and told him to get in. "No," replied the man on the roof. "I have faith in the Lord; the Lord will save me." So the man in the rowboat went away. The man on the roof prayed for God to save him.
    The waters rose higher and higher, and suddenly a speedboat appeared. "Climb in!" shouted a man in the boat. "No," replied the man on the roof. "I have faith in the Lord; the Lord will save me." So the man in the speedboat went away. The man on the roof prayed for God to save him.
    The waters continued to rise. A helicopter appeared and over the loudspeaker, the pilot announced he would lower a rope to the man on the roof. "No," replied the man on the roof. "I have faith in the Lord; the Lord will save me." So the helicopter went away. The man on the roof prayed for God to save him.
    The waters rose higher and higher, and eventually they rose so high that the man on the roof was washed away, and alas, the poor man drowned.
    Upon arriving in heaven, the man marched straight over to God. "Heavenly Father," he said, "I had faith in you… I prayed to you to save me, and yet you did nothing. Why?" God gave him a puzzled look, and replied "I sent you two boats and a helicopter, what more did you expect?"
     
    Kenmtb likes this.
  9. Ananias

    Ananias Well-Known Member Anglican

    Posts:
    842
    Likes Received:
    706
    Country:
    USA
    Religion:
    ACNA
    It's a question of agency and volition. (Not free will; no will is truly free but God's.) We have agency; we can move and do and work. We have volition, the ability to choose courses of action. We are not robots or little bunnies running along a steel track.

    I have faith that God will protect me and keep me and use me to further his Kingdom on earth, but that does not mean that I am passive. God works his will most often through human creatures (though he certainly can work miracles ex nihilo). When you act in the world, and do so in a Godly manner and according to his commands, you act as an agent of God himself. God also works through the fallen and even the evil -- all things serve the lord. His will cannot be frustrated.

    But how does faith come to us? We cannot move one centimeter to save ourselves; we are dead in sin. It is the Holy Spirit who first moves externally to bring us to the Lord, and after baptism invests us and fills us with new life and a desire to carry out the will of God through Jesus Christ.

    A Christian has a duty to protect -- not just his own body and soul, but that of others. Protection not just from external threat and harm, but also from corruption, vice, immorality, and so on. Protection -- of oneself as well as others -- requires action in the world. As James tells us in his epistle, works are evidence of saving faith; faith without works is dead. Works alone do not save us, mind you; salvation is by faith alone. But one who is truly saved will endeavor to live as Christ lived, and to follow Christ's commands. This requires our action in the world. Works flow from faith. Once we are invested by the Holy Spirit, we become God's agents in the world, the tools he uses to work his mighty Will.

    Faith is not just a blind hope. It's not a guess, or a bet. In Hebrews chapter 11, we read this:

    Faith is conviction that God is our Sovereign Lord, imbued in us by the Holy Spirit. Works in the world flow out of that faith.
     
  10. Ananias

    Ananias Well-Known Member Anglican

    Posts:
    842
    Likes Received:
    706
    Country:
    USA
    Religion:
    ACNA
    <<REMOVED - posted in the wrong thread>>
     
  11. Extra Nos 84

    Extra Nos 84 New Member

    Posts:
    17
    Likes Received:
    20
    Country:
    France
    Religion:
    Reformed
    Before posting a direct answer to your post, I would like to make sure I say some about faith and works.

    Faith is not just cognitive affirmation of a set of truths, it is trust. The famous difference between Assensus and Fiducia. If we have faith in our Lord that means that we love Him, one cannot trust without love. If we love Him we obey Him. We do not obey to show love or to love him, we obey because we love Him.



    Allow me to post a couple or great texts:

    It hath been said, that faith is the receiving of Christ as a priest, and a lord, to be saved by him, and ruled by him. This sounds excellent well. Who is so vile that, endeavoring to believe, is not willing to be ruled by Christ, as well as saved by him? A faith that would not have Christ to be Lord to rule us, is that faith alone which James rejects. He that would be saved by Christ, and not ruled by him, shall not be saved by him at all. We are to receive a whole Christ, not by halves;—in regard of all his offices, not one or another. This sounds well, makes a fair show, and there is, in some regard, truth in what is spoken; but ‘Latet anguis in herba’ [a snake is hiding in the grass],—Let men explain themselves, and it is this: The receiving of Christ as a king, is the yielding obedience to him. But that subjection is not a fruit of the faith whereby we are justified, but an essential part of it; so that there is no difference between faith and works or obedience, in the business of justification, both being alike a condition of it … Others at length mince the matter, and say, that faith and works have the same respects to our justification that shall be public and solemn at the last day, at the day of judgment … How they will justify themselves at the day of judgment for troubling the peace of the saints of God, and shaking the great fundamental articles of the Reformation, I know not … It is true, then, we acknowledge, that faith receives Christ as a lord, as a king; and it is no true faith that will not, doth not do so, and put the soul upon all that obedience which he, as the captain of our salvation, requires at our hands. But faith, as it justifies (in its concurrence, whatever it be, thereunto), closeth with Christ for righteousness and acceptation with God only. And, give me leave to say, it is in that act no less exclusive of good works than of sin. It closeth with Christ in and for that, on account whereof he is our righteousness, and for and by which we are justified” [John Owen, “The Strength of Faith,” Works, vol. IX, pp. 24-26]


    “The differentiating quality of faith is that the nature and function of faith is to rest completely upon another. It is this resting, confiding, entrusting quality of faith that makes it appropriate to and indeed exhibitive of the nature of justification. It is consonant with its source as the free grace of God, with its nature as a forensic act, and with its ground as the righteousness of Christ. Faith terminates upon Christ and his righteousness and it makes mention of his righteousness and of his only. This is the Saviour’s specific identity in the matter of justification—he is the Lord our righteousness. And in resting upon him alone for salvation it is faith that perfectly dovetails justification in him and his righteousness. Other graces or fruits of the Spirit have their own specific functions in the application of redemption, but only faith has as its specific quality the receiving and resting of self-abandonment and totality of self-commitment. This is both the stumbling-block and the irresistible appeal of the gospel. It is the stumbling-block to self-righteousness and self-righteousness is the arch-demon of antithesis to grace. It is the glory of the gospel for the contrite and brokenhearted—if we put any other exercise of the human spirit in the place of faith, then we cut the throat of the only confidence a sinner conscious of his lost and helpless condition can entertain. Justification by faith is the jubilee trumpet of the gospel because it proclaims the gospel to the poor and destitute whose only door of hope is to roll themselves in total helplessness upon the grace and power and righteousness of the Redeemer of the lost. In the words of one, ‘cast out your anchor into the ocean of the Redeemer’s merits.’ Faith is always joined with repentance, love, and hope. A faith severed from these is not the faith of the contrite and therefore it is not the faith that justifies. But it is faith alone that justifies because its specific quality is to find our all in Christ and his righteousness” [John Murray, Collected Writings, vol. 2, pp. 216-17].


    Regarding your question, I would say a couple things: first, read acts 27 and see how the angel promises Paul that the crew in the boat will not perish and yet Paul tells the crew that if they do not remain in the boat they will perish. Second, as long as you do not sin in your decisions, those are valid decisions and God will grant success if it is His will and helps our sanctification.

    As far as how God works in us and how our will works by Him in us remains a mystery, Phil 2:13. As a convinced reformed person I would affirm this: Conversion comes from God, He opens our heart (acts 16:4) regenerates us and the will of our past nature that was enemy of the divine ( Rom 8:6-7) submits to God and He justifies us by faith alone.

    Regarding sanctification, even if all our good deeds are because of His grace and guide, we will be judged according to works in "the last day" for a better or a lesser reward (1 Cor 3:10-15)
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2022
    Kenmtb likes this.