Faith Makes You Victorious

There is a faith that falls short, one that is much smaller than a mustard seed; one that does not know how to wait, that grows restless, that becomes frightened by the blows dealt precisely by the experiences we weave for ourselves because we are so stubborn and continue placing our trust in ourselves, or in that person, Christian or Gentile, who is just as sinful as we are. A faith that grows faint, that is situational because it comes to you at certain moments and is not always there to give you courage, because it rises to the surface of your senses when the storm smells of terror and your thoughts rear like unbroken horses that have snapped their harnesses and run off to the four winds, directionless…without God. That kind of faith defeats you, leaves you ruined inside, inert, apathetic, defeated before you even think about the battle, much less undertake it. The saddest thing of all is that we have already drunk plenty of the unadulterated spiritual milk that is the Word of God, and long ago ceased to be children in the faith. Nevertheless, we walk with Christ as though we were on crutches; we do not move forward, we do not catch up with Him, we do not exalt Him. That faith, my brothers and sisters, does not come from God.

If you belong to Christ, if you are among those chosen by the Most High to occupy a position of honor in the hosts of the Lord of all Lords, faith cannot be merely a nightgown to wear as you go through the nights from prayer to prayer, asking a thousand favors of the God of your salvation; for if He saved you, you must know that you already possess an excellent measure of faith that you need to make grow through intimacy with Him. Only through intimacy with God, through your personal devotion, through your measure of passion for knowing His eternal power and perfect attributes, can faith—which is also a fruit of the Spirit—lead you to conquer the unimaginable.

God does not believe in the added value you may offer Him, but in your heart covered with faith; He wants you to believe in Him at all times and in every place, not only on peaceful mornings when, without your seeking it, His peace comes to you and His love floods you, but also when the evil lion, always roaring, sinks one of his rending bites into you in order to test…your faith.

God hates sin, but loves the sinner; the devil loves for us to sin and hates us for the simple fact that we are children of God. Against that visceral hatred, saving faith—neither intellectual nor occasional—is the perfect antidote to keep us from being inoculated with the venom of the fallen angel. This is the spiritual warfare to which we Christians are subjected every day, and that war is won through faith in Christ, our Savior and the perfecter of faith. If you have believed in Him, when you look back, do not go searching through your failures, but look instead to the Cross; there the most wonderful act of love and faith took place so that today you may look confidently toward the future, trusting in the One you love today because He loved you first, from that moment on. Offer Him your faith, bound to hope and to love for Him and for your neighbor. That is the essence of a life of trust in the One who did not shrink from dying to give us the gift of eternity, if our submission and obedience go hand in hand, intertwined by the unbreakable and vigorous thread of faith. Cast aside your crutches, for faith, my brother and my sister, makes you a victor! God bless you!