The Perfecter of Our Faith
“…Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2, ESV). There are many things I sincerely hope for, but some are not initiated by God. For example, I hope with all my heart that our ministry will see thousands of more widows and orphans cared for this year and thousands more come to new life in Christ this year. God has not promised this to me, but still I hope and pray that he will bring the lost into his loving arms.
We all need to be careful about taking our hopes and making them into promises. We can only be assured something is a promise from God when it is confirmed through scripture, prayer, and sometimes fellow Christians.
It is possible for us to hear the voice of our own ambitions and mistake it for the voice of God. We may hope for certain things, including very good things; and yet God won’t give us those requests because they are born out of our own striving and flesh. “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James 4:3).
Instead, God perfects our faith by putting those things away. I am so glad the Lord does this. There are many things I wanted in my twenties, thirties, and forties that I’m glad he never gave me. In his mercy, God saw what I needed, and he didn’t allow the things I wanted. By perfecting our faith, the desires Christ initiates—those things born of him and not of ourselves—begin to rise up in our hearts.
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). As God purifies our faith, our confidence builds. We grow in discernment, saying, “Ah, yes, this is the word of the Lord, and that other word was not. He is confirming his promise to me through scripture, prayer, and the witness of my brothers and sisters.” Faith begins to settle the matter within us, so that we have confidence that what we hope for will actually happen.