Faith

   

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FAITH 

A. THE BIBLE

INTRODUCTION

The Bible makes use of the term “faith” with five differing meanings.

1. Faith as a sort of glorified belief—as one might, in a nominal manner, say “I’m a Protestant” or “I’m a Catholic.”

2. Healing Faith. Faith as associated with the cure of disease or other natural phenomena.

3. Theologic Faith. Faith as designating one’s religious beliefs—the same meaning as creed, the gospel, your theology.

4. The Faith of Jesus.

5. Faith as one’s wholehearted convictions—saving faith just as presented in The Urantia Book.

I. FAITH AS A GLORIFIED BELIEF

1. Faith as a general belief in a mode of life.

“And without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

“By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, took heed and constructed an ark...

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance.”

“Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel...who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice.” Heb. 11:6-8, 32,33.

2. As pertaining to wisdom and the intellectual life.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives to all men...But let him ask in faith, with no doubting.” Jas. 1:5,6.

3. Faith as the dynamics of works.

“What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him?” Jas. 2:14.

4. An all-over attitude of believing.

“The father of the child cried out and said ‘I believe, help my unbelief!’” Mark 9:24.

5. Referring to the belief of large groups of people.

“And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.” Acts 5:14.

II. HEALING FAITH

1. The miracle-minded early Christians believed in prayer for the sick.

“And the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up.” Jas. 5:15.

2. Even Jesus associated faith with his healing episodes.

“Then he touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith be it done to you.’” Matt. 9:29.

3. Faith was symbolically related to even the material world.

“And the Lord said, ‘If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this sycamine tree “Be rooted up, and be planted in the sea,” and it would obey you.’” Luke 17:6.

III. FAITH AS THEOLOGIC BELIEF

The Gospel, your Creed, the Doctrines of the Church.

1. Faith as the teachings of the church.

“Strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” Acts 14:22.

2. The church—the household of faith.

“Let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Gal. 6:10.

3. The sum total of religious belief.

“One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all.” Eph. 4:5,6.

“Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God.” Eph. 4:13.

4. The gospel.

“Stand firm in one spirit...side by side for the faith of the gospel.” Phil. 1:27.

5. Doctrinal teachings.

“Nourished on the words of the faith and the good doctrine which you have followed.” 1 Tim. 4:6.

6. Covering the whole religious life.

“Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called.” 1 Tim. 6:12.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 2 Tim. 4:7.

7. All of truth and doctrine.

“Appealing to you to contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” Jude 3.

IV. THE FAITH OF JESUS

“Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” 14:12.

“My brethren, show no partiality as you hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Jas. 2:1.

V. FAITH AS PERSONAL DEDICATION

Faith as used in The Urantia Book.

1. Faith defined.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Heb. 11:1.

(The more familiar King James version reads: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”)

“Looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfector of our faith.” Heb. 12:2.

(King James version: “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.”)

2. Faith enhanced by learning.

“So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ.” Rom. 10:17.

3. Faith as a personal experience.

“The faith that you have keep between yourself and God.” Rom. 14:22.

(King James version: “Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God.”)

4. Saving faith.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God.” Eph. 2:8.

5. Final victory through faith.

“For whatever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith.” 1 John 5:4.

Christian Faith. There is a special type of faith associated with the Christian’s belief in Christ.

1. “We believe that Jesus died and rose again.” 1 Thess. 4:14.
2. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Rom. 5:8.
3. “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to him.” 2 Cor. 5:18.
4. “Christ also died for sins once for all...that he might bring us to God.” 1 Pet. 3:18.
5. “Believe in God, believe also in me.” John 14:1.
6. “Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.’” Matt. 16:16.

B. THE URANTIA BOOK

I. FAITH DEFINED

1. Faith defined.

“That faith is concerned only with the grasp of ideal values is shown by the New Testament definition which declares that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” (1091.7) 99:5.8 Heb. 11:1.

2. Faith has an eternal basis.

“The reason of science is based on the observable facts of time; the faith of religion argues from the spirit program of eternity. What knowledge and reason cannot do for us, true wisdom admonishes us to allow faith to accomplish through religious insight and spiritual transformation.” (1119.1) 102:1.2

3. The dual meanings of faith.

“Just as certainly as men share their religious beliefs, they create a religious group of some sort which eventually creates common goals. Someday religionists will get together and actually effect co-operation on the basis of unity of ideals and purposes rather than attempting to do so on the basis of psychological opinions and theological beliefs. Goals rather than creeds should unify religionists. Since true religion is a matter of personal spiritual experience, it is inevitable that each individual religionist must have his own and personal interpretation of the realization of that spiritual experience. Let the term ‘faith’ stand for the individual’s relation to God rather than for the creedal formulation of what some group of mortals have been able to agree upon as a common religious attitude. ‘Have you faith? Then have it to yourself.’” (1091.6) 99:5.7  Rom. 14:22.

II. THE CERTITUDE OF FAITH

1. We are justified by faith.

“The full summation of human life is the knowledge that man is educated by fact, ennobled by wisdom, and saved—justified—by religious faith.” (2094.3) 196:3.4 Rom. 5:1.

2. Faith, trust, and assurance.

“Religion is designed to find those values in the universe which call forth faith, trust, and assurance; religion culminates in worship. Religion discovers for the soul those supreme values which are in contrast with the relative values discovered by the mind. Such superhuman insight can be had only through genuine religious experience.” (2075.11) 195:5.8

3. Faith is man’s only sustenance.

“It is only natural that mortal man should be harassed by feelings of insecurity as he views himself inextricably bound to nature while he possesses spiritual powers wholly transcendent to all things temporal and finite. Only religious confidence—living faith—can sustain man amid such difficult and perplexing problems.” (1222.7) 111:6.8

4. Faith perceives the personal love of God.

“Even though material mortals cannot see the person of God, they should rejoice in the assurance that he is a person; by faith accept the truth which portrays that the Universal Father so loved the world as to provide for the eternal spiritual progression of its lowly inhabitants; that he ‘delights in his children.’ God is lacking in none of those superhuman and divine attributes which constitute a perfect, eternal, loving, and infinite Creator personality.” (28.1) 1:5.4 Prov. 8:31.

5. Faith knows and never really doubts.

“If science, philosophy, or sociology dares to become dogmatic in contending with the prophets of true religion, then should God-knowing men reply to such unwarranted dogmatism with that more farseeing dogmatism of the certainty of personal spiritual experience, ‘I know what I have experienced because I am a son of I AM.’ If the personal experience of a faither is to be challenged by dogma, then this faith-born son of the experiencible Father may reply with that unchallengeable dogma, the statement of his actual sonship with the Universal Father.

“Only an unqualified reality, an absolute, could dare consistently to be dogmatic. Those who assume to be dogmatic must, if consistent, sooner or later be driven into the arms of the Absolute of energy, the Universal of truth, and the Infinite of love.

“If the nonreligious approaches to cosmic reality presume to challenge the certainty of faith on the grounds of its unproved status, then the spirit experiencer can likewise resort to the dogmatic challenge of the facts of science and the beliefs of philosophy on the grounds that they are likewise unproved; they are likewise experiences in the consciousness of the scientist or the philosopher.” (1127.1) 102:7.7

III. FAITH—THE METHOD OF RELIGION

1. Faith is the method of religion.

“Reason is the method of science; faith is the method of religion; logic is the attempted technique of philosophy. Revelation compensates for the absence of the morontia viewpoint by providing a technique for achieving unity in the comprehension of the reality and relationships of matter and spirit by the mediation of mind. And true revelation never renders science unnatural, religion unreasonable, or philosophy illogical.” (1106.1) 101:2.2

2. Faith alone can validate a God of salvation.

“Reason, through the study of science, may lead back through nature to a First Cause, but it requires religious faith to transform the First Cause of science into a God of salvation; and revelation is further required for the validation of such a faith, such spiritual insight.” (1106.2) 101:2.3

3. Faith is the proof of religion.

“Reason is the proof of science, faith the proof of religion, logic the proof of philosophy, but revelation is validated only by human experience. Science yields knowledge; religion yields happiness; philosophy yields unity; revelation confirms the experiential harmony of this triune approach to universal reality.” (1106.7) 101:2.8

4. Faith affirms religious experience.

“And it is just such a vital and vigorous performance of faith in the domain of religion that entitles mortal man to affirm the personal possession and spiritual reality of that crowning endowment of human nature, religious experience.” (1109.1) 101:3.18

5. Faith unites insight and values.

“Faith unites moral insight with conscientious discriminations of values, and the pre-existent evolutionary sense of duty completes the ancestry of true religion. The experience of religion eventually results in the certain consciousness of God and in the undoubted assurance of the survival of the believing personality.” (1105.3) 101:1.6

6. Faith validates true values.

“That religionists have believed so much that was false does not invalidate religion because religion is founded on the recognition of values and is validated by the faith of personal religious experience. Religion, then, is based on experience and religious thought, theology, the philosophy of religion, is an honest attempt to interpret that experience. Such interpretative beliefs may be right or wrong, or a mixture of truth and error.” (1130.4) 103:1.5

IV. FAITH AND BELIEF

1. Faith transcends all beliefs and convictions.

“Belief has attained the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the mode of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith; that is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of mind attains to faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living. Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not worship them; such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God alone, who is all of these personified and infinitely more.” (1114.5) 101:8.1

2. Faith is living and personal—God-knowing and man-serving.

“Belief is always limiting and binding; faith is expanding and releasing. Belief fixates, faith liberates. But living religious faith is more than the association of noble beliefs; it is more than an exalted system of philosophy; it is a living experience concerned with spiritual meanings, divine ideals, and supreme values; it is God-knowing and man-serving. Beliefs may become group possessions, but faith must be personal. Theologic beliefs can be suggested to a group, but faith can rise up only in the heart of the individual religionist.” (1114.6) 101:8.2

3. What faith does not do.

“Faith has falsified its trust when it presumes to deny realities and to confer upon its devotees assumed knowledge. Faith is a traitor when it fosters betrayal of intellectual integrity and belittles loyalty to supreme values and divine ideals. Faith never shuns the problem-solving duty of mortal living. Living faith does not foster bigotry, persecution, or intolerance.

“Faith does not shackle the creative imagination, neither does it maintain an unreasoning prejudice toward the discoveries of scientific investigation. Faith vitalizes religion and constrains the religionist heroically to live the golden rule. The zeal of faith is according to knowledge, and its strivings are the preludes to sublime peace.” (1114.7) 101:8.3

4. Faith transforms belief into saving experience.

“Faith transforms the philosophic God of probability into the saving God of certainty in the personal religious experience. Skepticism may challenge the theories of theology, but confidence in the dependability of personal experience affirms the truth of that belief which has grown into faith.” (1124.6) 102:6.4

5. Faith is the will that believes.

“In science, the idea precedes the expression of its realization; in religion, the experience of realization precedes the expression of the idea. There is a vast difference between the evolutionary will-to-believe and the product of enlightened reason, religious insight, and revelation—the will that believes.” (1122.9) 102:3.13

6. Faith progresses in eternal realities.

“Your religion shall change from the mere intellectual belief in traditional authority to the actual experience of that living faith which is able to grasp the reality of God and all that relates to the divine spirit of the Father. The religion of the mind ties you hopelessly to the past; the religion of the spirit consists in progressive revelation and ever beckons you on toward higher and holier achievements in spiritual ideals and eternal realities.” (1731.2) 155:6.4

V. FAITH AND FEAR—DOUBTS

1. Spiritual progress changes fear to faith.

“This same purposive supremacy is shown in the evolution of mind ideation when primitive animal fear is transmuted into the constantly deepening reverence for God and into increasing awe of the universe. Primitive man had more religious fear than faith, and the supremacy of spirit potentials over mind actuals is demonstrated when this craven fear is translated into living faith in spiritual realities.” (1124.1) 102:5.2

2. The faith struggles of progress.

“The religion of the spirit means effort, struggle, conflict, faith, determination, love, loyalty, and progress. The religion of the mind—the theology of authority—requires little or none of these exertions from its formal believers. Tradition is a safe refuge and an easy path for those fearful and halfhearted souls who instinctively shun the spirit struggles and mental uncertainties associated with those faith voyages of daring adventure out upon the high seas of unexplored truth in search for the farther shores of spiritual realities as they may be discovered by the progressive human mind and experienced by the evolving human soul.” (1729.6) 155:5.11

3. Faith surmounts all obstacles.

“The God-knowing individual is not one who is blind to the difficulties or unmindful of the obstacles which stand in the way of finding God in the maze of superstition, tradition, and materialistic tendencies of modern times. He has encountered all these deterrents and triumphed over them, surmounted them by living faith, and attained the highlands of spiritual experience in spite of them. But it is true that many who are inwardly sure about God fear to assert such feelings of certainty because of the multiplicity and cleverness of those who assemble objections and magnify difficulties about believing in God. It requires no great depth of intellect to pick flaws, ask questions, or raise objections. But it does require brilliance of mind to answer these questions and solve these difficulties; faith certainty is the greatest technique for dealing with all such superficial contentions.” (1126.6) 102:7.6

4. Faith functions in spite of doubts.

“When Jesus had listened to this recital, he touched the kneeling father and bade him rise while he gave the near-by apostles a searching survey. Then said Jesus to all those who stood before him: ‘O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I bear with you? How long shall I be with you? How long ere you learn that the works of faith come not forth at the bidding of doubting unbelief?’ And then, pointing to the bewildered father, Jesus said, ‘Bring hither your son.’ And when James had brought the lad before Jesus, he asked, ‘How long has the boy been afflicted in this way?’ The father answered, ‘Since he was a very young child.’ And as they talked, the youth was seized with a violent attack and fell in their midst, gnashing his teeth and foaming at the mouth. After a succession of violent convulsions he lay there before them as one dead. Now did the father again kneel at Jesus’ feet while he implored the Master, saying: ‘If you can cure him, I beseech you to have compassion on us and deliver us from this affliction.’ And when Jesus heard these words, he looked down into the father’s anxious face, saying: ‘Question not my Father’s power of love, only the sincerity and reach of your faith. All things are possible to him who really believes.’ And then James of Safed spoke those long-to-be-remembered words of commingled faith and doubt, ‘Lord, I believe. I pray you help my unbelief.’” (1757.2) 158:5.2  Mark 9:14-24.

VI. FAITH AND FEELING

1. Must have faith as well as feeling.

“But emotion alone is a false conversion; one must have faith as well as feeling. To the extent that such psychic mobilization is partial, and in so far as such human-loyalty motivation is incomplete, to that extent will the experience of conversion be a blended intellectual, emotional, and spiritual reality.” (1099.3) 100:5.5

2. Faith leads to knowing God.

“Faith leads to knowing God, not merely to a mystical feeling of the divine presence. Faith must not be overmuch influenced by its emotional consequences. True religion is an experience of believing and knowing as well as a satisfaction of feeling.” (1142.2) 103:9.11

3. Faith and insight vs. sight and feeling.

“Religion lives and prospers, then, not by sight and feeling, but rather by faith and insight. It consists not in the discovery of new facts or in the finding of a unique experience, but rather in the discovery of new and spiritual meanings in facts already well known to mankind. The highest religious experience is not dependent on prior acts of belief, tradition, and authority; neither is religion the offspring of sublime feelings and purely mystical emotions. It is, rather, a profoundly deep and actual experience of spiritual communion with the spirit influences resident within the human mind, and as far as such an experience is definable in terms of psychology, it is simply the experience of experiencing the reality of believing in God as the reality of such a purely personal experience.” (1105.1) 101:1.4

4. Faith and spiritual insight.

“Scientists assemble facts, philosophers co-ordinate ideas, while prophets exalt ideals. Feeling and emotion are invariable concomitants of religion, but they are not religion. Religion may be the feeling of experience, but it is hardly the experience of feeling. Neither logic (rationalization) nor emotion (feeling) is essentially a part of religious experience, although both may variously be associated with the exercise of faith in the furtherance of spiritual insight into reality, all according to the status and temperamental tendency of the individual mind.” (1110.12) 101:5.9

VII. FAITH AND EDUCATION—SCIENCE AND RELIGION

1. Faith not dependent on learning.

“The realization of religion never has been, and never will be, dependent on great learning or clever logic. It is spiritual insight, and that is just the reason why some of the world’s greatest religious teachers, even the prophets, have sometimes possessed so little of the wisdom of the world. Religious faith is available alike to the learned and the unlearned.” (1107.5) 101:2.15

2. Faith independent of worldly wisdom.

“Regarding the status of any religion in the evolutionary scale, it may best be judged by its moral judgments and its ethical standards. The higher the type of any religion, the more it encourages and is encouraged by a constantly improving social morality and ethical culture. We cannot judge religion by the status of its accompanying civilization; we had better estimate the real nature of a civilization by the purity and nobility of its religion. Many of the world’s most notable religious teachers have been virtually unlettered. The wisdom of the world is not necessary to an exercise of saving faith in eternal realities.” (1127.6) 102:8.2

3. Faith certainty of God-knowing mortal.

“If you truly believe in God—by faith know him and love him—do not permit the reality of such an experience to be in any way lessened or detracted from by the doubting insinuations of science, the caviling of logic, the postulates of philosophy, or the clever suggestions of well-meaning souls who would create a religion without God.” (1140.4) 103:8.4

4. Faith surmounts materialistic doubting.

“The certainty of the God-knowing religionist should not be disturbed by the uncertainty of the doubting materialist; rather should the uncertainty of the unbeliever be mightily challenged by the profound faith and unshakable certainty of the experiential believer.” (1140.5) 103:8.5

5. Faith, reason, and wisdom.

“When theology masters religion, religion dies; it becomes a doctrine instead of a life. The mission of theology is merely to facilitate the self-consciousness of personal spiritual experience. Theology constitutes the religious effort to define, clarify, expound, and justify the experiential claims of religion, which, in the last analysis, can be validated only by living faith. In the higher philosophy of the universe, wisdom, like reason, becomes allied to faith. Reason, wisdom, and faith are man’s highest human attainments. Reason introduces man to the world of facts, to things; wisdom introduces him to a world of truth, to relationships; faith initiates him into a world of divinity, spiritual experience.” (1141.4) 103:9.6

6. Faith dares to adventure with truth.

“Faith most willingly carries reason along as far as reason can go and then goes on with wisdom to the full philosophic limit; and then it dares to launch out upon the limitless and never-ending universe journey in the sole company of TRUTH.” (1141.5) 103:9.7

7. Faith as related to fundamental assumptions.

“Science (knowledge) is founded on the inherent (adjutant spirit) assumption that reason is valid, that the universe can be comprehended. Philosophy (co-ordinate comprehension) is founded on the inherent (spirit of wisdom) assumption that wisdom is valid, that the material universe can be co-ordinated with the spiritual. Religion (the truth of personal spiritual experience) is founded on the inherent (Thought Adjuster) assumption that faith is valid, that God can be known and attained.” (1141.6) 103:9.8

8. Faith in relation to science and philosophy.

“The highest attainable philosophy of mortal man must be logically based on the reason of science, the faith of religion, and the truth insight afforded by revelation. By this union man can compensate somewhat for his failure to develop an adequate metaphysics and for his inability to comprehend the mota of the morontia.” (1137.5) 103:6.15

9. Faith transcends science and philosophy.

“Science is sustained by reason, religion by faith. Faith, though not predicated on reason, is reasonable; though independent of logic, it is nonetheless encouraged by sound logic. Faith cannot be nourished even by an ideal philosophy; indeed, it is, with science, the very source of such a philosophy. Faith, human religious insight, can be surely instructed only by revelation, can be surely elevated only by personal mortal experience with the spiritual Adjuster presence of the God who is spirit.” (1137.6) 103:7.1

VIII. ABRAHAM’S FAITH

1. Abraham’s faith was counted for righteousness.

“And Melchizedek made a formal covenant with Abraham at Salem. Said he to Abraham: ‘Look now up to the heavens and number the stars if you are able; so numerous shall your seed be.’ And Abraham believed Melchizedek, ‘and it was counted to him for righteousness.’ And then Melchizedek told Abraham the story of the future occupation of Canaan by his offspring after their sojourn in Egypt.” (1020.6) 93:6.3 Gen. 15:1-6.

2. Terms of the Melchizedek covenant.

“This covenant of Melchizedek with Abraham represents the great Urantian agreement between divinity and humanity whereby God agrees to do everything; man only agrees to believe God’s promises and follow his instructions. Heretofore it had been believed that salvation could be secured only by works—sacrifices and offerings; now, Melchizedek again brought to Urantia the good news that salvation, favor with God, is to be had by faith. But this gospel of simple faith in God was too advanced; the Semitic tribesmen subsequently preferred to go back to the older sacrifices and atonement for sin by the shedding of blood.” (1020.7) 93:6.4 Gen. Chap. 15.

3. Melchizedek teaches justification by faith.

“And thus did Melchizedek prepare the way and set the monotheistic stage of world tendency for the bestowal of an actual Paradise Son of the one God, whom he so vividly portrayed as the Father of all, and whom he represented to Abraham as a God who would accept man on the simple terms of personal faith. And Michael, when he appeared on earth, confirmed all that Melchizedek had taught concerning the Paradise Father.” (1017.2) 93:3.8

IX. SAVING FAITH—ASSURANCE

1. “Your faith has saved you.”

“When Simon and his friends who sat at meat with him heard these words, they were the more astonished, and they began to whisper among themselves, ‘Who is this man that he even dares to forgive sins?’ And when Jesus heard them thus murmuring, he turned to dismiss the woman, saying, ‘Woman, go in peace; your faith has saved you.’” (1652.2) 147:5.5  Luke 7:50.

2. Saving faith the gift of God.

“Your sonship is grounded in faith, and you are to remain unmoved by fear. Your joy is born of trust in the divine word, and you shall not therefore be led to doubt the reality of the Father’s love and mercy. It is the very goodness of God that leads men into true and genuine repentance. Your secret of the mastery of self is bound up with your faith in the indwelling spirit, which ever works by love. Even this saving faith you have not of yourselves; it also is the gift of God. And if you are the children of this living faith, you are no longer the bondslaves of self but rather the triumphant masters of yourselves, the liberated sons of God.’” (1610.2) 143:2.7 Eph. 2:8.3.

3. Salvation by faith.

“One evening at Shunem, after John’s apostles had returned to Hebron, and after Jesus’ apostles had been sent out two and two, when the Master was engaged in teaching a group of twelve of the younger evangelists who were laboring under the direction of Jacob, together with the twelve women, Rachel asked Jesus this question: ‘Master, what shall we answer when women ask us, What shall I do to be saved?’ When Jesus heard this question, he answered:...

“‘Salvation is the gift of the Father and is revealed by his Sons. Acceptance by faith on your part makes you a partaker of the divine nature, a son or a daughter of God. By faith you are justified; by faith are you saved; and by this same faith are you eternally advanced in the way of progressive and divine perfection. By faith was Abraham justified and made aware of salvation by the teachings of Melchizedek. All down through the ages has this same faith saved the sons of men, but now has a Son come forth from the Father to make salvation more real and acceptable.’” (1682.5) 150:5.3 

4. Despair dispelled by one brave stretch of faith.

“To the unbelieving materialist, man is simply an evolutionary accident. His hopes of survival are strung on a figment of mortal imagination; his fears, loves, longings, and beliefs are but the reaction of the incidental juxtaposition of certain lifeless atoms of matter. No display of energy nor expression of trust can carry him beyond the grave. The devotional labors and inspirational genius of the best of men are doomed to be extinguished by death, the long and lonely night of eternal oblivion and soul extinction. Nameless despair is man’s only reward for living and toiling under the temporal sun of mortal existence. Each day of life slowly and surely tightens the grasp of a pitiless doom which a hostile and relentless universe of matter has decreed shall be the crowning insult to everything in human desire which is beautiful, noble, lofty, and good.

“But such is not man’s end and eternal destiny; such a vision is but the cry of despair uttered by some wandering soul who has become lost in spiritual darkness, and who bravely struggles on in the face of the mechanistic sophistries of a material philosophy, blinded by the confusion and distortion of a complex learning. And all this doom of darkness and all this destiny of despair are forever dispelled by one brave stretch of faith on the part of the most humble and unlearned of God’s children on earth.” (1118.1) 102:0.1

5. The birth of saving faith.

“This saving faith has its birth in the human heart when the moral consciousness of man realizes that human values may be translated in mortal experience from the material to the spiritual, from the human to the divine, from time to eternity.” (1118.3) 102:0.3

6. The evolution of faith.

“The work of the Thought Adjuster constitutes the explanation of the translation of man’s primitive and evolutionary sense of duty into that higher and more certain faith in the eternal realities of revelation. There must be perfection hunger in man’s heart to insure capacity for comprehending the faith paths to supreme attainment. If any man chooses to do the divine will, he shall know the way of truth. It is literally true, ‘Human things must be known in order to be love, but divine things must be loved in order to be known.’ But honest doubts and sincere questionings are not sin; such attitudes merely spell delay in the progressive journey toward perfection attainment. Childlike trust secures man’s entrance into the kingdom of heavenly ascent, but progress is wholly dependent on the vigorous exercise of the robust and confident faith of the full-grown man.” (1118.4) 102:1.1

7. Faith and reason in philosophy.

“Though reason can always question faith, faith can always supplement both reason and logic. Reason creates the probability which faith can transform into a moral certainty, even a spiritual experience. God is the first truth and the last fact; therefore does all truth take origin in him, while all facts exist relative to him. God is absolute truth. As truth one may know God, but to understand—to explain—God, one must explore the fact of the universe of universes. The vast gulf between the experience of the truth of God and ignorance as to the fact of God can be bridged only by living faith. Reason alone cannot achieve harmony between infinite truth and universal fact.” (1125.1) 102:6.6

8. The thief on the cross.

“One of the brigands railed at Jesus, saying, ‘If you are the Son of God, why do you not save yourself and us?’ But when he had reproached Jesus, the other thief, who had many times heard the Master teach, said: ‘Do you have no fear even of God? Do you not see that we are suffering justly for our deeds, but that this man suffers unjustly? Better that we should seek forgiveness for our sins and salvation for our souls.’ When Jesus heard the thief say this, he turned his face toward him and smiled approvingly. When the malefactor saw the face of Jesus turned toward him, he mustered up his courage, fanned the flickering flame of his faith, and said, ‘Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ And then Jesus said, ‘Verily, verily, I say to you today, you shall sometime be with me in Paradise.’” (2008.8) 187:4.1 Luke 23:39-43.

X. SCOPE AND POTENTIALS OF FAITH

1. Faith makes secure in the kingdom.

“And then long into the night Jesus propounded to his apostles the truth that it was their faith that made them secure in the kingdom of the present and the future, and not their affliction of soul nor fasting of body. He exhorted the apostles at least to live up to the ideas of the prophet of old and expressed the hope that they would progress far beyond even the ideals of Isaiah and the older prophets. His last words that night were: ‘Grow in grace by means of that living faith which grasps the fact that you are the sons of God while at the same time it recognizes every man as a brother.’” (1656.6) 147:8.5

2. Dynamic religious faith.

“The relation between the creature and the Creator is a living experience, a dynamic religious faith, which is not subject to precise definition. To isolate part of life and call it religion is to disintegrate life and to distort religion. And this is just why the God of worship claims all allegiance or none.” (1124.3) 102:6.1

3. Faith in a personal God of love.

“The religionist of philosophic attainment has faith in a personal God of personal salvation, something more than a reality, a value, a level of achievement, an exalted process, a transmutation, the ultimate of time-space, an idealization, the personalization of energy, the entity of gravity, a human projection, the idealization of self, nature’s upthrust, the inclination to goodness, the forward impulse of evolution, or a sublime hypothesis. The religionist has faith in a God of love. Love is the essence of religion and the wellspring of superior civilization.” (1124.5) 102:6.3

4. Faith creates a God of salvation.

“Faith transforms the philosophic God of probability into the saving God of certainty in the personal religious experience. Skepticism may challenge the theories of theology, but confidence in the dependability of personal experience affirms the truth of that belief which has grown into faith.” (1124.6) 102:6.4

5. Faith dares to say “I know.”

“Convictions about God may be arrived at through wise reasoning, but the individual becomes God-knowing only by faith, through personal experience. In much that pertains to life, probability must be reckoned with, but when contacting with cosmic reality, certainty may be experienced when such meanings and values are approached by living faith. The God-knowing soul dares to say, ‘I know,’ even when this knowledge of God is questioned by the unbeliever who denies such certitude because it is not wholly supported by intellectual logic. To every such doubter the believer only replies, ‘How do you know that I do not know?’” (1124.7) 102:6.5

6. Faith discovers the God of certitude.

“To science God is a possibility, to psychology a desirability, to philosophy a probability, to religion a certainty, an actuality of religious experience. Reason demands that a philosophy which cannot find the God of probability should be very respectful of that religious faith which can and does find the God of certitude. Neither should science discount religious experience on grounds of credulity, not so long as it persists in the assumption that man’s intellectual and philosophic endowments emerged from increasingly lesser intelligences the further back they go, finally taking origin in primitive life which was utterly devoid of all thinking and feeling.” (1125.3) 102:6.8

7. Religious faith identifies man with the Infinite.

“Religion effectually cures man’s sense of idealistic isolation or spiritual loneliness; it enfranchises the believer as a son of God, a citizen of a new and meaningful universe. Religion assures man that, in following the gleam of righteousness discernible in his soul, he is thereby identifying himself with the plan of the Infinite and the purpose of the Eternal. Such a liberated soul immediately begins to feel at home in this new universe, his universe.” (1117.1) 101:10.7

8. Faith triumphs over all.

“When you experience such a transformation of faith, you are no longer a slavish part of the mathematical cosmos but rather a liberated volitional son of the Universal Father. No longer is such a liberated son fighting alone against the inexorable doom of the termination of temporal existence; no longer does he combat all nature, with the odds hopelessly against him; no longer is he staggered by the paralyzing fear that, perchance, he has put his trust in a hopeless phantasm or pinned his faith to a fanciful error.

“Now, rather, are the sons of God enlisted together in fighting the battle of reality’s triumph over the partial shadows of existence. At last all creatures become conscious of the fact that God and all the divine hosts of a well-nigh limitless universe are on their side in the supernal struggle to attain eternity of life and divinity of status. Such faith-liberated sons have certainly enlisted in the struggles of time on the side of the supreme forces and divine personalities of eternity; even the stars in their courses are now doing battle for them; at last they gaze upon the universe from within, from God’s viewpoint, and all is transformed from the uncertainties of material isolation to the sureties of eternal spiritual progression. Even time itself becomes but the shadow of eternity cast by Paradise realities upon the moving panoply of space.” (1117.2) 101:10.9

9. Creative potential of faith.

“When my children once become self-conscious of the assurance of the divine presence, such a faith will expand the mind, ennoble the soul, reinforce the personality, augment the happiness, deepen the spirit perception, and enhance the power to love and be loved.” (1766.8) 159:3.12

10. Faith releases the potentials of the “divine spark.”

“Faith acts to release the superhuman activities of the divine spark, the immortal germ, that lives within the mind of man, and which is the potential of eternal survival. Plants and animals survive in time by the technique of passing on from one generation to another identical particles of themselves. The human soul (personality) of man survives mortal death by identity association with this indwelling spark of divinity, which is immortal, and which functions to perpetuate the human personality upon a continuing and higher level of progressive universe existence. The concealed seed of the human soul is an immortal spirit. The second generation of the soul is the first of a succession of personality manifestations of spiritual and progressing existences, terminating only when this divine entity attains the source of its existence, the personal source of all existence, God, the Universal Father.” (1459.6) 132:3.6

XI. HEALING FAITH

1. Saving and healing faith.

“Then came forward Simon Zelotes to remonstrate with Norana. Said Simon: ‘Woman, you are a Greek-speaking gentile. It is not right that you should expect the Master to take the bread intended for the children of the favored household and cast it to the dogs.’ But Norana refused to take offense at Simon’s thrust. She replied only: ‘Yes, teacher, I understand your words. I am only a dog in the eyes of the Jews, but as concerns your Master, I am a believing dog. I am determined that he shall see my daughter, for I am persuaded that, if he shall but look upon her, he will heal her. And even you, my good man, would not dare to deprive the dogs of the privilege of obtaining the crumbs which chance to fall from the children’s table.’

“At just this time the little girl was seized with a violent convulsion before them all, and the mother cried out: ‘There, you can see that my child is possessed by an evil spirit. If our need does not impress you, it would appeal to your Master, who I have been told loves all men and dares even to heal the gentiles when they believe. You are not worthy to be his disciples. I will not go until my child has been

“Jesus, who had heard all of this conversation through an open window, now came outside, much to their surprise, and said: ‘O woman, great is your faith, so great that I cannot withhold that which you desire; go your way in peace. Your daughter already has been made whole.’ And the little girl was well from that hour. As Norana and the child took leave, Jesus entreated them to tell no one of this occurrence; and while his associates did comply with this request, the mother and the child ceased not to proclaim claim the fact of the little girl’s healing throughout all the countryside and even in Sidon, so much so that Jesus found it advisable to change his lodgings within a few days.” (1735.1) 156:1.5  Mark 7:24-30.

2. Faith cures spirit of infirmity.

“Abner had arranged for the Master to teach in the synagogue on this Sabbath day, the first time Jesus had appeared in a synagogue since they had all been closed to his teachings by order of the Sanhedrin. At the conclusion of the service Jesus looked down before him upon an elderly woman who wore a downcast expression, and who was much bent in form. This woman had long been fear-ridden, and all joy had passed out of her life. As Jesus stepped down from the pulpit, he went over to her and, touching her bowed-over form on the shoulder, said: ‘Woman, if you would only believe, you could be wholly loosed from your spirit of infirmity.’ And this woman, who had been bowed down and bound up by the depressions of fear for more than eighteen years, believed the words of the Master and by faith straightened up immediately. When this woman saw that she had been made straight, she lifted up her voice and glorified God.” (1835.5) 167:3.1 Luke 13:10-19.

XII. SPIRIT CONSCIOUSNESS—FRUITS OF FAITH

1. Faith the validity of spirit consciousness.

“Reason is the act of recognizing the conclusions of consciousness with regard to the experience in and with the physical world of energy and matter. Faith is the act of recognizing the validity of spiritual consciousness—something which is incapable of other mortal proof. Logic is the synthetic truth-seeking progression of the unity of faith and reason and is founded on the constitutive mind endowments of mortal beings, the innate recognition of things, meanings, and values.” (1139.5) 103:7.13

2. Faith consciousness of sonship.

“The gospel of the good news that mortal man may, by faith, become spirit-conscious that he is a son of God, is not dependent on the death of Jesus. True, indeed, all this gospel of the kingdom has been tremendously illuminated by the Master’s death, but even more so by his life.” (2002.5) 186:5.4

3. The social faith fruits of the spirit.

“Belief may not be able to resist doubt and withstand fear, but faith is always triumphant over doubting, for faith is both positive and living. The positive always has the advantage over the negative, truth over error, experience over theory, spiritual realities over the isolated facts of time and space. The convincing evidence of this spiritual certainty consists in the social fruits of the spirit which such believers, faithers, yield as a result of this genuine spiritual experience. Said Jesus: ‘If you love your fellows as I have loved you, then shall all men know that you are my disciples.’” (1125.2) 102:6.7 John 13:35.

4. The amazing performances of faith.

“Through religious faith the soul of man reveals itself and demonstrates the potential divinity of its emerging nature by the characteristic manner in which it induces the mortal personality to react to certain trying intellectual and testing social situations. Genuine spiritual faith (true moral consciousness) is revealed in that it:

“1. Causes ethics and morals to progress despite inherent and adverse animalistic tendencies.

“2. Produces a sublime trust in the goodness of God even in the face of bitter disappointment and crushing defeat.

“3. Generates profound courage and confidence despite natural adversity and physical calamity.

“4. Exhibits inexplicable poise and sustaining tranquility notwithstanding baffling diseases and even acute physical suffering.

“5. Maintains a mysterious poise and composure of personality in the face of maltreatment and the rankest injustice.

“6. Maintains a divine trust in ultimate victory in spite of the cruelties of seemingly blind fate and the apparent utter indifference of natural forces to human welfare.

“7. Persists in the unswerving belief in God despite all contrary demonstrations of logic and successfully withstands all other intellectual sophistries.

“8. Continues to exhibit undaunted faith in the soul’s survival regardless of the deceptive teachings of false science and the persuasive delusions of unsound philosophy.

“9. Lives and triumphs irrespective of the crushing overload of the complex and partial civilizations of modern times.

“10. Contributes to the continued survival of altruism in spite of human selfishness, social antagonisms, industrial greeds, and political mal-adjustments.

“11. Steadfastly adheres to a sublime belief in universe unity and divine guidance regardless of the perplexing presence of evil and sin.

“12. Goes right on worshiping God in spite of anything and everything. Dares to declare, ‘Even though he slay me, yet will I serve him.’” (1108.3) 101:3.4 Job. 13:15.

XIII. DYNAMIC FAITH

1. Dynamic power of living faith.

“‘But fear not; every one who sincerely desires to find eternal life by entrance into the kingdom of God shall certainly find such everlasting salvation. But you who refuse this salvation will some day see the prophets of the seed of Abraham sit down with the believers of the gentile nations in this glorified kingdom to partake of the bread of life and to refresh themselves with the water thereof. And they who shall thus take the kingdom in spiritual power and by the persistent assaults of living faith will come from the north and the south and from the east and the west. And, behold, many who are first will be last, and those who are last will many times be first.’” (1829.2) 166:3.5 Luke 13:30.

2. Faith is the open door to God’s love.

“Jesus made plain to his apostles the difference between the repentance of so-called good works as taught by the Jews and the change of mind by faith—the new birth—which he required as the price of admission to the kingdom. He taught his apostles that faith was the only requisite to entering the Father’s kingdom. John had taught them ‘repentance—to flee from the wrath to come.’ Jesus taught, ‘Faith is the open door for entering into the present, perfect, and eternal love of God.’ Jesus did not speak like a prophet, one who comes to declare the word of God. He seemed to speak of himself as one having authority. Jesus sought to divert their minds from miracle seeking to the finding of a real and personal experience in the satisfaction and assurance of the indwelling of God’s spirit of love and saving grace. (1545.9) 138:8.8

3. By faith we become God-conscious.

“‘And now you should give ear to my words lest you again make the mistake of hearing my teaching with the mind while in your hearts you fail to comprehend the meaning. From the beginning of my sojourn as one of you, I taught you that my one purpose was to reveal my Father in heaven to his children on earth. I have lived the God-revealing bestowal that you might experience the God-knowing career. I have revealed God as your Father in heaven; I have revealed you as the sons of God on earth. It is a fact that God loves you, his sons. By faith in my word this fact becomes an eternal and living truth in your hearts. When, by living faith, you become divinely God-conscious, you are then born of the spirit as children of light and life, even the eternal life wherewith you shall ascend the universe of universes and attain the experience of finding God the Father on paradise.’” (2052.3) 193:0.3

4. Faith and the remembrance supper.

“When Jesus had thus established the supper of the remembrance, he said to the twelve: ‘And as often as you do this, do it in remembrance of me. And when you do remember me, first look back upon my life in the flesh, recall that I was once with you, and then, by faith, discern that you shall all some time sup with me in the Father’s eternal kingdom. This is the new Passover which I leave with you, even the memory of my bestowal life, the word of eternal truth; and of my love for you, the outpouring of my Spirit of Truth upon all flesh.’” (1943.2) 179:5.9 Luke 22:19,20.

5. The perversions of faith.

“And then Jesus discoursed on the dangers of courage and faith, how they sometimes lead unthinking souls on to recklessness and presumption. He also showed how prudence and discretion, when carried too far, lead to cowardice and failure. He exhorted his hearers to strive for originality while they shunned all tendency toward eccentricity. He pleaded for sympathy without sentimentality, piety without sanctimoniousness. He taught reverence free from fear and superstition.” (1673.4) 149:4.4

XIV. FAITH AND VICTORY

1. Faith—the victory over the world.

“The consciousness of a victorious human life on earth is born of that creature faith which dares to challenge each recurring episode of existence when confronted with the awful spectacle of human limitations, by the unfailing declaration: Even if I cannot do this, there lives in me one can and will do it, a part of the Father-Absolute of the universe of universes. And that is ‘the victory which overcomes the world, even your faith.’” (59.5) 4:4.9 1 John 5:4.

2. The working of victorious faith.

“‘The Supreme Spirit shall bear witness with your spirits that you are truly the children of God. And if you are the sons of God, then have you been born of the spirit of God; and whosoever has been born of the spirit has in himself the power to overcome all doubt, and this is the victory that overcomes all uncertainty, even your faith.’” (1601.3) 142:5.3 Rom. 8:16.

3. The assurance of everlasting life.

“‘Said the Prophet Isaiah, speaking of these times: “When the spirit is poured upon us from on high, then shall the work of righteousness become peace, quietness, and assurance forever.” And for all who truly believe this gospel, I will become surety for their reception into the eternal mercies and the everlasting life of my Father’s kingdom. You, then, who hear this message and believe this gospel of the kingdom are the sons of God, and you have life everlasting; and the evidence to all the world that you have been born of the spirit is that you sincerely love one another.’” (1601.4) 142:5.4 Isa. 32:15-17.

4. The transformations of faith.

“‘This transformed woman whom some of you saw at Simon’s house today is, at this moment, living on a level which is vastly below that of Simon and his well-meaning associates; but while these Pharisees are occupied with the false progress of the illusion of traversing deceptive circles of meaningless ceremonial services, this woman has, in dead earnest, started out on the long and eventful search for God, and her path toward heaven is not blocked by spiritual pride and moral self-satisfaction. The woman is, humanly speaking, much farther away from God than Simon, but her soul is in progressive motion; she is on the way toward an eternal goal. There are present in this woman tremendous spiritual possibilities for the future. Some of you may not stand high in actual levels of soul and spirit, but you are making daily progress on the living way opened up, through faith, to God. There are tremendous possibilities in each of you for the future. Better by far to have a small but living and growing faith than to be possessed of a great intellect with its dead stores of worldly wisdom and spiritual unbelief.’” (1653.2) 147:5.8  Luke 7:36-50.

5. Faith wins perfection of purpose for ascenders.

“Faith has won for the ascendant pilgrim a perfection of purpose which admits the children of time to the portals of eternity. Now must the pilgrim helpers begin the work of developing that perfection of understanding and that technique of comprehension which are so indispensable to Paradise perfection of personality.” (290.4) 26:4.14

XV. THE FAITH OF JESUS

1. Jesus’ courage was born of faith.

“His courage was magnificent, but he was never foolhardy. His watchword was, ‘Fear not.’ His bravery was lofty and his courage often heroic. But his courage was linked with discretion and controlled by reason. It was courage born of faith, not the recklessness of blind presumption. He was truly brave but never audacious.” (1103.3) 100:7.15

2. Jesus’ faith was wholehearted.

“Jesus enjoyed a sublime and wholehearted faith in God. He experienced the ordinary ups and downs of mortal existence, but he never religiously doubted the certainty of God’s watchcare and guidance. His faith was the outgrowth of the insight born of the activity of the divine presence, his indwelling Adjuster. His faith was neither traditional nor merely intellectual; it was wholly personal and purely spiritual.” (2087.1) 196:0.1

3. Jesus’ faith made God a living reality.

“Jesus did not cling to faith in God as would a struggling soul at war with the universe and at death grips with a hostile and sinful world; he did not resort to faith merely as a consolation in the midst of difficulties or as a comfort in threatened despair; faith was not just an illusory compensation for the unpleasant realities and the sorrows of living. In the very face of all the natural difficulties and the temporal contradictions of mortal existence, he experienced the tranquility of supreme and unquestioned trust in God and felt the tremendous thrill of living, by faith, in the very presence of the heavenly Father. And this triumphant faith was a living experience of actual spirit attainment. Jesus’ great contribution to the values of human experience was not that he revealed so many new ideas about the Father in heaven, but rather that he so magnificently and humanly demonstrated a new and higher type of living faith in God. Never on all the worlds of this universe, in the life of any one mortal, did God ever become such a living reality as in the human experience of Jesus of Nazareth.” (2087.3) 196:0.3

4. The unique faith of Jesus.

“Theology may fix, formulate, define, and dogmatize faith, but in the human life of Jesus faith was personal, living, original, spontaneous, and purely spiritual. This faith was not reverence for tradition nor a mere intellectual belief which he held as a sacred creed, but rather a sublime experience and a profound conviction which securely held him. His faith was so real and all-encompassing that it absolutely swept away any spiritual doubts and effectively destroyed every conflicting desire. Nothing was able to tear him away from the spiritual anchorage of this fervent, sublime, and undaunted faith. Even in the face of apparent defeat or in the throes of disappointment and threatening despair, he calmly stood in the divine presence free from fear and fully conscious of spiritual invincibility. Jesus enjoyed the invigorating assurance of the possession of unflinching faith, and in each of life’s trying situations he unfailingly exhibited an unquestioning loyalty to the Father’s will. And this superb faith was undaunted even by the cruel and crushing threat of an ignominious death.” (2087.5) 196:0.5

5. No fanaticism in Jesus’ faith.

“In a religious genius, strong spiritual faith so many times leads directly to disastrous fanaticism, to exaggeration of the religious ego, but it was not so with Jesus. He was not unfavorably affected in his practical life by his extraordinary faith and spirit attainment because this spiritual exaltation was a wholly unconscious and spontaneous soul expression of his personal experience with God.” (2088.1) 196:0.6

6. The faith of a unified personality.

“The all-consuming and indomitable spiritual faith of Jesus never became fanatical, for it never attempted to run away with his well-balanced intellectual judgments concerning the proportional values of practical and commonplace social, economic, and moral life situations. The Son of Man was a splendidly unified human personality; he was a perfectly endowed divine being; he was also magnificently co-ordinated as a combined human and divine being functioning on earth as a single personality. Always did the Master co-ordinate the faith of the soul with the wisdom-appraisals of seasoned experience. Personal faith, spiritual hope, and moral devotion were always correlated in a matchless religious unity of harmonious association with the keen realization of the reality and sacredness of all human loyalties—personal honor, family love, religious obligation, social duty, and economic necessity.” (2088.2) 196:0.7

7. Jesus had a well balanced faith.

“The faith of Jesus visualized all spirit values as being found in the kingdom of God; therefore he said, ‘Seek first the kingdom of heaven.’ Jesus saw in the advanced and ideal fellowship of the kingdom the achievement and fulfillment of the ‘will of God.’ The very heart of the prayer which he taught his disciples was, ‘Your kingdom come; your will be done.’ Having thus conceived of the kingdom as comprising the will of God, he devoted himself to the cause of its realization with amazing self-forgetfulness and unbounded enthusiasm. But in all his intense mission and throughout his extraordinary life there never appeared the fury of the fanatic nor the superficial frothiness of the religious egotist.” (2088.3) 196:0.8

8. Jesus lived a faith-conditioned life.

“The Master’s entire life was consistently conditioned by this living faith, this sublime religious experience. This spiritual attitude wholly dominated his thinking and feeling, his believing and praying, his teaching and preaching. This personal faith of a son in the certainty and security of the guidance and protection of the heavenly Father imparted to his unique life a profound endowment of spiritual reality. And yet, despite this very deep consciousness of close relationship with divinity, this Galilean, God’s Galilean, when addressed as Good Teacher, instantly replied, ‘Why do you call me good?’ When we stand confronted by such splendid self-forgetfulness, we begin to understand how the Universal Father found it possible so fully to manifest himself to him and reveal himself through him to the mortals of the realms.” (2088.4) 196:0.9 Matt. 19:17.

9. Jesus’ faith was truly child-like.

“The faith of Jesus attained the purity of a child’s trust. His faith was so absolute and undoubting that it responded to the charm of the contact of fellow beings and to the wonders of the universe. His sense of dependence on the divine was so complete and so confident that it yielded the joy and the assurance of absolute personal security. There was no hesitating pretense in his religious experience. In this giant intellect of the full-grown man the faith of the child reigned supreme in all matters relating to the religious consciousness. It is not strange that he once said, ‘Except you become as a little child, you shall not enter the kingdom.’ Notwithstanding that Jesus’ faith was childlike, it was in no sense childish.” (2089.2) 196:0.12

10. Jesus wants us to believe as he believed.

“Jesus does not require his disciples to believe in him but rather to believe with him, believe in the reality of the love of God and in full confidence accept the security of the assurance of sonship with the heavenly Father. The Master desires that all his followers should fully share his transcendent faith. Jesus most touchingly challenged his followers, not only to believe what he believed, but also to believe as he believed. This is the full significance of his one supreme requirement, ‘Follow me.’” (2089.3) 196:0.13