Faith vs. The Force

.... As simple as the concept of faith may seem, many who labor in teaching it have misunderstood it entirely. As a result they’ve misdefined it’s meaning, role and purpose to our sorrow. For the ‘faith’ they have preached has little or nothing to do with submitting to God or even relating to Him at all, and it is better defined as an arrangement; and sadly to say, in other ways it is even worse. Through such fundamental errors, true faith is becoming lost in a sea of confusion:

.... "Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?"

(Luke 18:8)

.... The enemy, who is called the deceiver, has played a very active role in this deception. He knows that if he can derail our faith in God, or misdirect it through erroneous teachings, we will find it impossible to please Him (Hebrews 11:6). His usual substitute is to offer a perversion of faith that is almost completely backwards though it retains a form of godliness, for it is all about pleasing 'self' rather than pleasing God (2 Timothy 3:5). And that's what we'll discuss in this article.

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.... To rightly discern the teachings on faith or any other questionable matter, we must always look beyond the hype to see what it actually amounts to. We must consider its underlying structure, nature and intention with a clear eye. When we do this, we'll see that our modern misconceptions have set a new god on the throne. 'Faith' itself has become the ultimate power of the universe; for even God (so they say,) has merely learned to harness this higher power by speaking and not doubting that His word will come to pass. Therefore faith, and not God, is the ultimate source of all power.

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.... But there is more. Their teaching goes on to say that we may all tap into the mighty power of ‘faith’, simply by speaking and not doubting that our words will create the expected outcome. This may even be true when faith is used by unbelievers for selfish and evil purposes. As such, the ultimate power of 'faith' has a light and a dark side to it, a ying and a yang so-to-speak, so that we might find it analogous to ‘the Force’ in the old Star Wars series:

"There is no ‘try’; only ‘do’." (Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back)

.... Under the delusion of this modern teaching, by it's actual nature, God is portrayed in a role that is similar to the ultimate Jedi. He has learned to thoroughly master the use of 'faith', having harnessed it's power in creation and in all other ways. As such, He has become an example to us all -- but let’s stop and think of what else that means:

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.... If God Himself must resort to ‘faith’ in order to wield power, then the true power actually lies beyond Him – for even He must look to it with hope. It would also mean that God’s own understanding is limited, because faith is the evidence of things unseen:

.... "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

(Hebrews 11:1)

.... To sustain this concept of ‘faith’ in the church, you may have heard someone quote the verse that says we should have "the God-kind of faith." The problem with this quotation is that no such verse has ever existed! (See 2 Peter 2:3). In fact, nowhere does the Bible even hint that God operates by faith of any kind, but rather, that He does all things by His own power and according to the counsel of His will:

.... "You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created."

(Revelation 4:11)

.... Furthermore, if God is simply our example of faith, and we may connect with the same ‘higher power’ for ourselves, it does nothing to foster a dependent relationship with Him. In fact, the ultimate intention would be to get Him out of the way as soon as possible and ascend to the stars of heaven for ourselves, to become comparable to Him (and doesn’t that sound familiar?-- Isaiah 14:13-14). This very concept goes back to another non-existant scripture, that supposedly says we've been "created in God's class."
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.... But in the eyes of those who teach this perspective on faith, God is not the true point at all and He never has been. From the beginning, their focus has been on mankind (2 Timothy 4:3). God is only being mentioned in order to give their teaching a form of godliness, to make it seem more acceptable and palatable to those who have a Christian background (2 Timothy 3:5). Their perspective isn't about knowing the Lord at all, it's about exploring self. We will continue this discussion in our next posting.

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Daily Bible Reading: Romans 12