Walking By Faith

2 Corinthians 5:7 “for we walk by faith, not by sight.”

“Faith” defined is complete trust or confidence in someone or something.

I don’t know that many people have complete trust or complete confidence; as we live in a world of brokenness, broken people, broken promises. But I do know that if we exchange the term ‘faith’, which has mostly religious implications, with the term ‘trust’ – I would wager that every human being is trusting in someone or something. Important to note here that both someone and something are possibilities when it comes to what we can place our faith, or trust, in. Some. Thing. Or to put it another way – Any. Thing. Anything can become our object of faith, of trust, of worship.

In some sense, every human being is on a faith journey. A journey of discovering who or what exactly we are following or worshipping with our lives. To briefly survey American pop culture, things like sports and film and music are on the surface level of things to worship. Deeper still, and more dark, are hard pornography/softer sexualization via advertisements, drug use/alcohol use/partying. We can worship ourselves – excessive exercise or strict regimen when it comes to dieting. An obsession with our physical appearance. A clinging to our significant other.

The issue with all those examples is that they are fading away, and some things/some people are fading faster than others. This is where the above verse from 2 Corinthians is grounded. If we back up to the end of 2 Corinthians 4, we see in verse 16 that ‘our outer self is wasting away’. The self that is wrapped in flesh, that is attached to this world and the things of this world. Every thing that we can see, taste, touch, hear, and feel. All those…things…are fading away. Including us – we also are fading away.

This is part of the mystery of Christ and of the Christian’s walk. We are told that we have been delivered out of the kingdom of darkness and placed into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. The implication of this is that we no longer live for this world and it’s where 2 Corinthians 5:7 comes into clear focus: “for we walk by faith, not by sight.” 2 Corinthians 4:18 states, “for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” Transient meaning ‘temporal’, not lasting very long.

There’s a literal world that we have not yet seen; a world that I believe shares similarities with this world. As God, in the beginning, made everything good. I don’t believe that God made mistakes in creation, but made humans who- like sheep- have all gone away from that image in 8 billion different directions. But there’s a heaven to gain that we can’t even imagine, the scripture tells us. No death, no sickness, no tears. The fruits of the Spirit fully experienced, forever. No more sin. Can you imagine?

THIS is the foundation of walking by faith: we walk toward what we cannot see while rightly experiencing the things that we CAN see/taste/touch/hear/feel. Perhaps ‘rightly experiencing’ isn’t the best way to put it. But the scripture also makes clear that we’re not to adopt a ‘no taste – no touch’ policy as we live in the world as believers. God wants us to enjoy His creation, which includes skies and seas and rivers and waterfalls and beaches and mountains and birds chirping and hot cups of coffee and really good sex with our spouse. Cheering for a favorite sports team, exercising, enjoying a cigar or some alcohol, having a great meal or a wonderful conversation are all apart of enjoying our walk and are not bad or evil in and of themselves. But these things, in Christian faith, must be ordered rightly.

Why? Because, for the Christian, everything flows from what is to come in eternity – from the unseen. This doesn’t mean that we reject everything we can see, just that we order these things rightly by putting first things first. A faith in Jesus, a deeper understanding, appreciation, and utter awe at His gospel day in and day out. A deepening love in our relationship with Him. We can be as close or as far as we choose to be as God reveals himself as the welcoming father to his prodigal son(s) and daughters.

This walking by faith, this focusing on eternity, also fuels evangelism. If I really believe that a part of the ‘unseen eternity’ also includes hell for those who refuse Christ or don’t know Christ, then that should shape my heart and my conversation towards that individual. And whenever it does NOT shape my heart, whenever it does NOT take priority, 10 times out of 10, it’s because I’m focused on what I can see/taste/touch/hear/feel THAT day, in THAT moment. If all I’m focused on is what I have going on for my agenda today then I can be sure that I’m not walking by faith. If I’m so engulfed and wrapped up in finances or in sex, then I’m not walking by faith.

And finally, a consistent theme in the scripture is that walking by faith shines most brightly in times of affliction. Suffering should point the compass of our hearts in a right and true direction, that is, in a God-ward direction. Verse 17 of chapter 4 describes the afflictions we endure as ‘light and momentary’. I have found this true. When my view of God, of Jesus, is so small, the things of life that should be classified as light and momentary become ‘huge and epic’ – and God gets pushed to the background.

I’m so thankful that God is merciful. None of us deserve grace. None of us deserve anything good. We’ve all gone astray in our own hearts – giving ourselves over to the darkest of deeds, oftentimes without even batting an eye. And yet, “because the sinless Savior died – my sinful soul is counted free. For God the Just is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me.”

Those things that daily crowd our hearts and minds – where to live, where to send our children to school, the rising cost of food, the price of gasoline, our jobs, COVID-19, which political party is the best, the war in Ukraine, the senseless shootings in our city and amber alerts and car accidents and hurricanes and tornadoes, concerns about our own physical or mental health are ALL light and momentary when compared to eternity. There is no better news than the gospel of Jesus; no other person or thing is worthy of our complete trust and confidence but Jesus. For this salvation saves to the uttermost and saves forever.

May we learn to walk with Jesus by faith – turning away from self-reliance and self-endulgance.