Everyone has faith – what makes ours different?

Christians can feel helplessly situated in a world stymied by the embargoed Strait of Hormuz (if it's still closed by the time you're reading this) and Europe’s bleeding gash – the war in Ukraine.

At home, little sign of a let-up in the cost-of-living crisis only enlarges the aurora of neon gloom across British skies.

Should faith make a difference to how Christians feel and what they talk about in conversations with their worried neighbours? The Sunday school answer is an emphatic “yes”; and yet, if faith were a bicep, why have some Christians such puny "Mr Bean" muscles?

Where does faith fit into a world like ours?

What is faith?

Everyone has faith, that’s the first thing to say. Christians should not accept patronising put-downs about their enfeebled-by-faith minds. Do you lack confidence in Christianity’s position in the Mars Hill (Acts 17v16ff) of contemporary thought? ^[1]

Michael Polanyi – the British-Hungarian Jewish polymath who escaped Nazism and relocated to Britain – challenged what he saw as pseudo-intellectual naysaying against faith.

Trevor Hart captures Polanyi’s train of thought: “The branch upon which every doubt sits is belief.” ^[2]

Polanyi realised that everyone has beliefs, and everyone uses faith to build life foundations upon those beliefs; even scientists exhibiting extreme negaholism about religious faith (Richard Dawkins, for example) also know their bellicose doubts are simply other beliefs with bad attitude.

For example:

"I do not believe in God."
"Why?"
"Because if there was a God I ought to have evidence."
"So, you doubt or dismiss belief in God because you believe in the need for sensory evidence…?"
"Yes."
"Why do you believe in the need for sensory evidence to justify belief in a being who is Spirit?"
"Look, I just do!"

Everyone has beliefs that require faith; Christians stand on a level playing field.

What is more, thousands of people are looking for meaning “above the sun” (Ecclesiastes), i.e., in God. The Lord has placed Christians among them, who are called to: “Hold fast to, and [hold] out, the word of life" (Phil 2v16).

How Christians exercise faith

Jesus says faith can change the world: “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’, and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you" (Matthew 17v20).

Faith is not a muscle. Faith does not run on the fuel of excessive spiritual testosterone; nor is it morale to be whipped up through frenzied pulpit rants like football managers revving up players before cup finals. By contrast, Jesus picks small things – a child’s faith, a mustard seed – to explain how faith works.

Christian faith is believing in a Person who can make a difference and believing in this Person enough to ask for His help. That’s where the "smallness" quality comes in: Jesus isn’t asking someone to climb Everest, He’s asking a person to believe in Him enough to make simple asks! Jesus says: This is the mustard seed, the trusting disposition of a child, the faith that moves mountains.

Like a mighty wee mouse lifting a tonne-weight elephant, so a believer can move a mountain! A seemingly inconsequential spiritual act (a person believing in Jesus) has an exponential physical effect (a mountain moves, it shifts). Of course, Jesus lifts the mountains, like pebbles – Christians simply do the asking.

A concluding anecdote

A few years ago, I was seated at a wedding.

I watched Tom drink five pints of beer per hour without becoming stocious.

We chatted:

“So, the bride is your niece? I know your mother-in-law from church.”
“Yeah, I don’t go to church. I stay at home and make everyone dinner.”
“Well, we’ve got this course running in January called The Alpha Course. It’s on a Wednesday. You should come along.”
“I’ll see.”

The conversation ended; the wedding continued.

Four weeks later and half an hour early, Tom walked into Alpha.

On week three, he came running to Jesus by faith.

He entered Christians Against Poverty’s addiction programme and was set free from alcoholism.

Last week, Tom sent me a message: “I haven’t had a drink in ten years! And, you’ll never guess, I’ve just been appointed as full-time outreach associate at the church.”

Tom’s mother-in-law prayed for him, believing Jesus could move the mountains of alcoholism and a blasé heart. And Jesus moved those hefty mountains!

Faith is really believing in a person (the Lord Jesus) enough to ask Him to intervene.

During the early days of the war in Iran, Iranian Christians said: “We don’t need warriors, we need saints.” More than ever, this stymied world needs praying (or asking) saints! What have you asked Jesus for today?

Jesus can move your pebbles; but He would rather move your mountains!

1. Mars Hill was a place in Athens where philosophers and thinkers debated ideas.
2. Faith Thinking: The Dynamics of Christian Theology (1996), p.58.