Whose Faith Do You Really Have?

In your lifetime, if you haven’t already, you will experience a major crisis of faith. Whether it be a death in the family, an unexpected crisis, etc. Suddenly the beliefs that made sense yesterday are no longer relevant today, and our faith feels flimsy and fake.

When facing a faith crisis you will be either heading for a breakthrough or a breakdown

Today we will talk about having a personal faith in God, and is it authentically yours or could it be someone else’s that you’re living vicariously through?

How many of you can relate? Either you are currently having a faith crisis or have had one in the past?

There may be a time in your life when your faith in God will need to not only carry you, but others as well during hardships. Is your faith and relationship with God strong enough and grounded in His Word to do so?

Ryan and Josh Shook said in their book Firsthand: “What we thought was our faith wasn’t ours at all. Not completely. Mostly it belonged to our parents. Some of it belonged to the youth pastor or our friends. Sure, some of it was real for us too. But a lot of it wasn’t. Our faith was something we had inherited, and it felt like it was not originally intended for us. That wasn’t our parents’ fault. Or the youth pastor’s. Or the church’s.”

Piggyback Faith

Hand-me-down faith is more like clothes you wear when you get your older brother or sister’s hand-me-down clothes. You wear it when you need to, but in reality it’s not really yours.

Your faith and relationship with God is the same. It’s something you wear when you’re at church or with church friends, but in actuality, it’s not authentically yours!

It’s called “Piggyback Faith.”

As a kid, it’s normal for a parent to give piggyback rides around the house and out in public. But as a person becomes older, it’s not so normal. It’s actually really weird.

Piggyback faith is confusing a close relationship with someone you look up to, such as a parent, grandparent, pastor, youth pastor, mentor, even a spouse who has a close relationship with God, with actually being close to God yourself.

Biblical Examples of “Piggyback Faith

Solomon did not follow his faith as his father David did. He had 700 wives, 300 servant girls, and started worshiping other gods to appease his wives.

I Kings 11:4-6 (NLT)

In Solomon’s old age, they turned his heart to worship other gods instead of being completely faithful to the Lord his God, as his father, David, had been. 5 Solomon worshiped Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech, the detestable god of the Ammonites. 6 In this way, Solomon did what was evil in the Lord’s sight; he refused to follow the Lord completely, as his father, David, had done.”

Some of us are riding on the coattails of our senior pastor, spiritual leaders, or people we look up to here at Victory.

We may copy everything they do, how they worship, how they see the Bible but never branch out and have our own relationship and experiences with God in a way that’s authentically ours.

Some of us think that if I worship God how others worship or do the same things they do, I’ll have the same relationship with God that they have. That’s completely false. It’s ok to gleam from others, but in reality God is wanting to speak to you and you alone.

Do you have a relationship with certain people that you have an inside joke with, that only you and that other person know? God wants to have inside jokes or personal experiences only with you that no one else gets

He desires for you to have your own experiences with Him, and it may look completely different than any other person you look up to.

 

Paul and Demas

2 Tim. 4:10 (NLT)

Demas has deserted me because he loves the things of this life and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus has gone to Dalmatia.

LASB notes: Paul was virtually alone and probably lonely. No one had come to his trial to speak in his defense (4:16), and Demas had left the faith (4:10). Crescens and Titus had left, but not for the same reasons as Demas. Paul did not criticize or condemn them. Demas had been one of Paul’s coworkers (Colossians 4:14; Philemon 1:24), but he had deserted Paul because he “loves the things of this life.”

As you see, people that are with you in your life will leave and desert you at some point or another.

If, and when that happens, how will your relationship with God respond? Will you fall away or stand strong in your faith? Or can you look back on your life and see how you responded in the past and how it’s affected your walk with God now?

A handed-down faith that you’ve never owned or experienced for yourself doesn’t give meaning to your life. It will not get you through the crises that come from time to time in life.

You might sort of wear it like clothing when someone casually asks you about your faith, but it doesn’t say much about who you are as a person.

A question that everyone needs to ask themselves: “Could I be living someone else’s faith?”

You are more apt to care and nurture something that is completely yours. This includes your spiritual walk with God.

Piggyback faith doesn’t get inside your life or change anything about you.

Firsthand faith is centered deep in your own mind and heart. Sure, it requires some time, work, and effort but it’s yours, and it’s you!

Statistics:

60% of young people who were active in church as teenagers failed to translate that into an active spiritual commitment during their early adulthood.

89% of high schoolers claim to be affiliated with some religion in some way.

The number dropped to 75% once they got into their twenties.

So as you see, Piggyback Faith doesn’t get you very far.

Maybe you’re in your teens, 20’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, or 70’s and you still have piggyback faith, living off of someone else’s faith.

Today is the day to be a man, be a woman and venture into your own authentic relationship with God that is completely yours.

Let HIM speak to you Himself in a way that you know is Him.

How does God speak? His Word. If you’re not daily reading His word, you are not going to hear from Him.

Heb. 4:12 (NLT)
For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.

Psalm 119:105 (NLT)

Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.

2 Tim. 3:16-17 (NLT)

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 17 God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

Jer. 15:16 (NLT)

When I discovered your words, I devoured them. They are my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, O Lord God of Heaven’s Armies.

Just because God speaks one way to someone and speaks differently to another does not make one person more spiritual than another.

Parents, are we hindering our children or grandchildren from experiencing God for themselves?

Are we cramming religion down their throats to the point they are repulsed?

How can you effectively let your children and grandchildren have their own experience with God?

Their experience is not going to look like yours! Why? Because God has a tailored purpose for them and for you. They may have to learn the hard way….but it’ll be real for them in the end.

Questions that everyone should ask themselves:

• Can I stand firm in my faith when the storms of life hit unexpectedly?
• If a financial crisis occurred unexpectedly, would my faith be affected?
• What can I do NOW to prepare my faith for when a crisis hits?
• How can I develop my own personal faith to make sure it’s authentically mine?

Before you can get where you want to go, you’ve got to first start where you are!

Psalm 119:29 (NLT)

Keep me from lying to myself; give me the privilege of knowing your instructions.

Keep me from a fake relationship with God with no substance and truth.

How do you know that your faith is authentic?

By the fruit you bear:

Matt. 7:16-20 (NLT)

You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? 17 A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. 18 A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. 19 So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. 20 Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.

Fruit of spirit: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

How you love others:

John 13:34-35 (NLT)

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. 35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.

Being honest with yourself and examining where you stand in your relationship with God is crucial to having a real meaningful relationship with Him.

How to Make Your Faith Your Own

Personal faith always starts on the inside. Never on the outside.

A.W. Tozer The Pursuit of God:

“For it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself, and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience they are not the better for having heard the truth. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.”

John 7:38 (NLT)

Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”

What is flowing from within you, and is it alive?

Examine your faith and figure out what’s yours and what’s not. It starts with simply a fresh new relationship with Jesus and finding out who He truly is to you.

God may want to destroy the nice and tidy religion that you’ve pieced together yourself or from your upbringing or your culture.

I dare you to start from scratch and truly find Him and experience Him for the first time!

How personal is God?

Isaiah 49:15-16 (NLT)

I will not forget you. I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.

God, Who created the galaxies and infinite universe, has written your name on the palm of His hands! He knows your darkest secrets, your greatest fears, and unspoken dreams and He’s crazy about you! He cares deeply about every personal detail of your life.

He didn’t just doodle your name on heaven’s scratch pad-He ENGRAVED your name on His skin.

God has a permanent tattoo of your name on His hands!

God didn’t create a secondhand way of relating to us, it has always been personal. I believe He deserves a firsthand relationship from us in return!

How do you find out about someone in history? You read their biography.

Jesus’ biography is found in 4 books in the Bible called: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Best book I’ve read on the evidence of Jesus being who He claimed to be:

More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell

Case For Christ by Lee Strobel

Decide for yourself who Jesus is to you. You can fake it with people, but you can’t fake it with Jesus.

On judgment day, your spouse, parent, grandparent, or friend won’t be standing with you. It will be just you and you alone.

I Thess. 2:4 (NLT)

For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts.

Revamping the way you look at God

1. Ask God to clear your mind of all preconceived notions you’ve had about Him, to look past shallow, judgmental Christians and superficial religion.
2. Ask God to help you look past your bad experiences with church.
3. Start with the life of Jesus. Dig into the gospels of what He said and did.
4. Tell God you want to find the truth, and ask Him to help you find your way through your doubts and confusion through scripture.
5. Ask Him for personal experiences with Him.

2 Cor. 1:24 (NLT)

It is by your own faith that you stand firm.

Once you experience something yourself, no one can tell you anything different.

Question God! He’s not intimidated. Ask Him the hard questions that you’re thinking.

Psalm 34:8 (NLT)

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

How can you share something you’ve never experienced yourself?

See for yourself how good God is. Stop living vicariously through others.

Ask for the blinders to be taken off of your own eyes to see the truth.

2 Corinthians 4:4 (NLT)

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

A loving God will reveal Himself to those who search for answers.

Half of our problem is that we’re too lazy to search out answers ourselves.

God is more than an idea or a force. He is a God we can actually know personally for ourselves. He is a being that we can have a firsthand relationship with. There is no one to go through to reach Him such as a Pope or Priest….Jesus is our Priest, we go directly to Him!

Hebrews 4:14-16 14 (NLT)

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. 16 Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Starting today, you can begin to make your life with God a very real, very personal, and motivating experience.

That’s the kind of life you were created for, the only kind that lasts and the only kind Jesus came to give!