Imagine a young boy, maybe 7 or 8 years old, asleep on the second floor of the family home. The boy awakens in the middle of the night to the strong smell of smoke. He knows what that means, there is a fire somewhere in the house. The boy stumbles to the door and opens it to a raging inferno. The young boy quickly slams the door against the flames and runs to his bedroom window, only to stare down into thick billowing smoke and the darkness of night.
The young boy replies, "But, Daddy, I can't see you."
The father replies, "It's all right, Son, I can see you. Jump!"
So the young lad jumps into his father's arms. Safe at last in his father’s embrace.
What does this scenario have to do with faith? It's a part of faith for that young lad to believe his father was there, even though he couldn’t see him. It's another part of faith to trust and believe in his father, to feel that his father was able to catch him. It's the essence of faith to throw himself into smoky blackness, falling into his father's waiting arms.
That's what it means to believe on Jesus Christ. It's a part of faith to believe Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment for your sin. It's another part of faith to believe God is able and willing to forgive you and give you the promise of eternal life. It's the essence of faith to abandon yourself to God, trusting Him completely and allowing Jesus Christ to be your Savior and the ruler of your life.
Faith... how it forms and grow in us, how we become dependent on it, is a wondrous thing that only God can bring to full measure in us. First there is the grace of God, then there is as the writer of Hebrews said in chapter 11 verse 1... Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
Belief that brings us to completeness in God is as simple and life-changing as throwing yourself into His waiting arms.
God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' Acts 17:27-28
