Walking Toward Mature Faith
February 12, 2025
In my early walk with Jesus, music by Mustard Seed Faith and others were a real blessing to me by helping me to understand what exactly I was “into.”
That cut was one of those encouraging tunes. However, recently, fifty years later, I stumbled over this phrase: “but just one sin is enough to cause you death.” My reaction was that that seemed a bit extreme. However, I quickly realized that my doubt was influenced by my reading of so many writers who were questioning God’s love. You see, and offered not as an excuse but as a reason, what we hear in our ears can corrupt what we already know in our brains to be truth…
Still, that sin they are talking about isn’t just some incidental mistake, and notwithstanding that, just one intentional sin does separate us from God.
Anyone is entitled to ask, “But why?!?”
If nothing else, one sin is a simple indication of what we do have,in our natural state, that of a sinful, fallen nature, a bent towards disobeying God. I think it is quite obvious that we all bend toward a continuation in doing hurt and harm to both ourselves and to others… and doing such hurt and harm is what God in the Bible calls “sin.”
Now, my wife just pointed out to me that sin can just be in our thoughts. Maybe we hold our sinful thoughts to ourselves, but they are still exposing our sinful nature by our inner thoughts about doing hurt or harm — maybe to get back at someone for “doing us dirt.” “Round and around it goes. Nobody knows where it will go.”
All of that doesn’t matter. You see, notwithstanding attempts to justify ourselves, God knows what is going on inside us, and doesn’t particularly like what He sees.
What is the apostle John’s teaching?
“Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. — 1 John 3:15, NIV.
Here is another verse that is relevant to my point:
“The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” — Genesis 6;5, New International Version (NIV).
Look. What is on the surface indicates something more going on underneath, doesn’t it? Don’t you think something should be done about this sickness?
“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” — 2 Peter 3:9, NIV.
Now, here is another important concept in the Bible which I have written about before, expressing my findings that faith is a verb, not a noun. Faith came to be used in a much different way apart from the Bible.. In common use, it identifies to which church you belong. For example, “I grew up in a Presbyterian Church.” That is what people would nowadays call my “faith” — Presbyterian.
That is its usage as a noun.
Still and all, the Bible usage is as a verb, an action — in fact, a series of actions often referred to as a walk. Jesus not only called people to repent, turning from our own ways to God’s ways, but also demanding following Jesus in His teachings. That is called “discipleship” as indicated in this verse:
As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him. — Matthew 4:18–20, New International Version (NIV).
Later Jesus confirmed His purposes in calling His disciples when He sent them out, saying:
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” — Matthew 28:19, NIV.
Furthermore, these men were not blindly jumping off their boats to get on board with Jesus. After all, these men were practical working class citizens not given to foolishness.
Remember, Jesus’ fame had quickly spread among the common folk — from His public call to repentance with John the Baptist, to the wedding at Cana where Jesus had turned water into wine, a cleansing of the Temple, and a healing of an official’s daughter…
Despite the faithful testimonies from the Disciples,about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and which was written down by the authors Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, people have continually expressed many doubts, repeating the same objections as during Jesus life concerning all those experiences… from claims Jesus never existed, or that He wasn’t who He claimed to be, or that He either didn’t really die or more distinctly that He never came back to life, let alone that he ascended back into Heaven!
All kinds of documents and opinions raising doubts and alternate teachings are presented. But guess what? All such attempts to discredit the Gospel and Jesus Himself have been perpetuated ever since He was born in Bethlehem!
Discrediting God, Jesus, and the Bible have gone on since Creation itself!
Think!
Today, there are people who know faith as being the same as their church memberships. There is some benefit to the status of the morality and ethical standards of Society guided by the Churches, but it does fall short of the Biblical standard.
When I was a child, a dear friend and neighbor who lived across the street would mail “Our Daily Bread” — a Christian devotional booklet — to everyone she knew. She would successfully pray for people who would then choose Jesus, becoming Born Again Believers. Her personal testimony was that sitting in her church pew one day, she suddenly realized Jesus had come into her life for a certainty — it wasn’t just church membership.
Her experience was much more normal than the great distance I had to travel, but it was just as real and had the same results of Jesus’ grace giving newness of life.
People do travel different roads through life, but the path to God is only one road, and it is narrow. Jesus warned:
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. — Matthew 7:13–14, NIV.
