Why is it I read the bible and pray every day and do not experience God in my life? Why do I go to church every week and God is not real to me? This are some of the most common questions I get from Christians. The real question is really “how do I experience God?” Sometime back, I wrote a book entitled The Salvation Equation specifically to deal with the issue. Perhaps it is worth revisiting at this point. The experience of God, His blessings, His freedom, His forgiveness, His love, His power and His healing are essentially what is encompassed by the GRACE of God. Christ died on the cross specifically so that we can experience these things. Salvation is not just about going to heaven after we die but to experience in this life the blessings of God. As stated in the Salvation Equation, Grace is something God does, it is something He gives to us. It is the part of the equation He alone is responsible for. But to come to experience Grace, there is something we must do. And that part is FAITH. Faith is our part of the equation, something we are required to do before we can experience Grace.
What then does it mean to exercise and grow in Faith? As discussed in the Salvation Equation, there are 4 aspects of Faith:
(1) Faith Appropriation – This is when we begin to claim the promises of the bible that God has given to us the full measure of His Grace when Christ died for us. His blessings, His intimacy, His freedom, His power, His love, His healing. All these things were given to us on the Cross. To appropriate them is to confess verbally that we have them, and to believe the same in our hearts. Our responsibility is not just to read the Word but to claim it for ourselves.
(2) Faith Surrender – To experience God’s grace, the next component of Faith is surrender. It is only when we empty ourselves of our flesh that the Spirit can fill us and bring us into the fullness of God. Like a cup, we must be empty before God can fill us. We must therefore die daily to our human judgments, our rights, our reputation and our ambitions and surrender ourselves fully to God. Our responsibility is therefore to daily allow the Holy Spirit and the Word to convict us of sin, and to repent when such conviction comes.
(3) Faith Intimacy – The next component of Faith is intimacy. Intimacy involves pursuing a close relationship and walk with God. Like Enoch, we “walk with God” everyday of our lives. In practical terms, this involves prayer, worship, resting and waiting on God and living consciously in His presence continually. It is in such intimacy that we grow in our faith in God and come to experience His Grace.
(4) Faith Community – The last component of Faith is the Faith Community. To grow in faith, we require the help of fellow believers in the church. We ere never meant to walk the Christian life alone. Each member of the church has been given complementary gifts to serve and edify the body so that we can all reach “unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph 4:13b). Faith Community therefore requires that we spend time in fellowship and service with other believers in the church, helping them build their faith and letting them help us build ours.
Placed in these terms, if we are not experiencing God, His blessings, freedom or power in our lives, then we simply have to check how we rate or are doing on each of the above four aspects of Faith. Perhaps the answer to our question is really not so difficult to find.