At 21 years old, William Wilberforce began his first foray into politics after being elected to the House of Commons. While most men enter politics and quickly learn the art of the deal and compromise, Wilberforce attacked a particular issue with everything he had. This brought on multiple decades of political ostracization, but the man stood with true faith.
He had set his sights on ending the centuries-old slave trade in England. After several decades of continually raising votes to abolish slavery amidst the laughter and jeers of his political peers, Wilberforce finally won. He had swayed a nation to stand against wickedness.
Through faith, grit, and conviction, Wilberforce changed the pathway of the nation and countless numbers of lives through generations. He changed the world.
By the time abolition was passed, Wilberforce was 78, completely bedridden by sickness and health issues and worn out. He was so beaten down by his health that late in his struggle, he wore a metal girdle to keep himself standing as he continued to fight.
On the day the vote to abolish slavery passed, Wilberforce was bedridden and could not be present for the momentous occasion. A messenger ran to his house to let him know that abolition had passed.
3 days later, Wilberforce succumbed to his health issues and died. Thankfully, the man died in peace and was fully justified in his life’s work. His faith had been rewarded.
Have Faith
It takes faith to live out Wilberforce’s level of perseverance. Some might chalk it up to a stubborn nature of fighting to get what we want, and that may be the case, but without faith, no fruit shall grow. We must hold more than just hope when we dare to achieve great things.
In Mark 11, Christ goes to the temple to chase out the money changers. After he completes his cleansing of the temple, He and His disciples make their way back out of town. As they walked, they passed a fig tree Christ had cursed on the way into the city.
Scripture goes on to say, “As they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up. Being reminded, Peter said to Him, ‘Rabbi, look, the fig tree which You cursed has withered.’ And Jesus answered saying to them, ‘Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “Be taken up and cast into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you. Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions. [But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your transgressions.’]”
This passage remains a popular story about the power of faith in a Christian’s life. It gets used so much that one might argue it has become cliché.
But a small part of Christ’s discussion with the disciples tends to go unnoticed. While most of us will point to the necessity of faith and how powerful faith can be, we tend to fail to recognize something else Christ was saying.
Faith came before the movement could come. Complete faith was required for the action to occur, and Christ pointed out that not only must we have “faith in God”, but we must “believe that what we say is going to happen will happen,” for the mountain to move.
Complete faith stands as the prerequisite to the action and result. Not the other way around.
A Man’s Faith
Normally, faith would not be considered a virtue. Most people have boxed the word faith in to mean “Blind hope in God” or “Following a religious practice”. Our common definition of faith has morphed into something akin to “Blind hope”. We say we are either people of faith or don’t have faith. The word is now synonymous with religion.
It’s time to breathe a fresh breath of life into the world.
Our faith does not simply sit as a hope in a religious practice. It stands as a virtue component of a man’s character.
What do I mean by this?
Each day, our character determines our responses and reactions to life’s situations. We can choose whether to be honest or lie. We decide whether to be responsible or irresponsible. The options exist and we define our character over the long term of choosing the right or wrong situation.
If we look at virtues as a response ingrained into our being so deeply that it becomes our character, then we could easily say that faith sits in the same realm as truth/honesty, responsibility, discipline, or others.
Faith is a bedrock to proper action in an eternal sense. Mind you, faith can be used as a word that has nothing to do with the Lord. And that type of belief can be powerful and do great things. But that’s not the shallow nature of faith a Christian man is interested in.
For the Christian man, God’s creation is designed to interact with our level of faith. Think of moving mountains. Our participation in God’s physical creation rests heavily on how we live in faith. If we do not act on faith, then how can we say we have faith? The mountain does not move without faith.
True Faith
Imagine a friend telling you that they believe with all of their heart that vegetables are necessary for them. Yet, you never witness them eating vegetables. In fact, they go out of their way to remove vegetables from their plate.
Someone might say your friend has faith but doesn’t act it out. The problem is true faith determines action. If your friend never eats vegetables, then your friend is professing a lie about what they really believe. We act out our deepest beliefs whether we wish to or not. Your friend may believe that vegetables are good, but their actions speak differently.
True faith and true belief determine a person’s actions and life’s direction. Whether conscious of it or not, what a person truly believes will navigate their steps. If they believe they are a worthless person, they will treat their body and mind as though it is truly worthless. If they believe they have nothing of value, they will offer nothing of value.
It aligns with the old quote, “Whether you believe you can or you can’t, you’re right.”
A true man of faith who lives it out as a virtue has become so deeply reliant on his faith that his interactions with creation are actions of faith.
Just like an honest man will respond with the truth even when it is hard; a man who exhibits a true virtue of faith will respond in each situation with deep faith.
So, What do we Place Our Faith in?
Let’s go back to Christ’s words. After all, He gave us the recipe. He says, “Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.”
Think about that. You have to have complete faith and truly believe that what you say will happen BEFORE the event happens.
Most of us approach faith from the direction of hope. We get it backward. We throw up the prayer in hope, and if it happens, we retroactively say that we had “faith” that it would happen. We try to use the results to justify our actions.
Christ is telling us that this is backward. Faith is the expectation of what will happen. Faith is the heart position before the result. Faith is not hoping that the mountain may jump into the sea if you say the right incantation. Faith is knowing the mountain will jump into the sea because you believed Christ down to your core that God will see it done.
We need to inspect our faith. Do we put our deep, complete faith in the trustworthiness of God and His answer to our prayer or do we fly by the seat of our pants with some hope that we can somehow engineer a result?
We Live the Opposite of Faith
Instead of living drastic faith, we lower our risk profile by hedging against it. We live lives of caution, believing that if we attempt some drastic measure of faith and it doesn’t work out, that we will disprove God to others or ourselves.
Can’t we see that such a position is proof of a lack of faith? If we keep the risk profile low when it comes to faith, we’ve proven a lack of faith in God! We’ve shown that we can’t rise to the level of faith to trust Him. We actually amend our own view of His character to align with our misguided view of who He is.
Take a moment and process that: if we truly believe Christ is real and say what we read, then we are living out a lack of faith by hedging against Him. Our attempt at lowering our risk proves our distance from Him. Instead of going head-first into the deep well of faith, we dip our toes in the waters to see if it’s safe. That’s hope vs faith.
The truly faithful man steps into the risk believing with all of himself that God has the ability to fulfill the petition.
Our Faith is Power
What does it take for you to step up your level of faith in the Lord?
Take some time to really understand that the examples of faith in Scripture are there for our good. They inspire us, motivate us, and draw us closer to the potential of God.
We can rest assured that faith will have a drastic influence on our duties for the kingdom. Scripture tells us of Elijah stopping the rain for three and a half years and Jesus calming the storms on the sea. Perhaps we don’t need to affect the physical creation around us. However, we battle plenty of spiritual storms and mountains. The Lord can and will move Heaven and Earth to answer the prayers of a man of faith.
Even if he is bedridden and on death’s door when the prayer finally comes to fruition.
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