We can never see faith, or hear it, or touch it, or smell it, or taste it, because if we do then it is not faith. Faith is substance hoped for, evidence of things not seen. We cannot see it, we cannot sense it with our five senses. So one task of a true Believer, I believe, (and as I know from my own experience) is to begin to learn and to discern his own beliefs from his true faith. And that takes quite a bit of time and we keep learning it until we are able to say: “This is my faith,” or “this is not my faith, but I believe something here… but this there, well, I’m not sure.”
We will still have grey areas, we will not know everything perfectly or one hundred percent, but we will be able to distinguish between that which comes from our soul, and which many times we may call `wishful thinking’ or our own desires, movements of our own soul, as opposed to the faith which does not always satisfy our own self.
Now, it is important to say that, because I believe millions and millions of Christians are misplacing their own beliefs, the product of their own souls, with true faith. And I would say that from our (spiritual) beginning, there is no other way, because nobody has that discernment. The gift of discernment that the Lord gives us is a discernment of spirits. So that as a young (spiritual) child, a young Christian, I am able to say: “This priest, pastor, elder or this man is proud as a cock, he is arrogant”, or “This priest, pastor, elder or this man is a liar because he has the spirit of lying.” I am able to discern spirits, something in the spiritual world.
But I don’t have the discernment whether that baptist pastor or that evangelist or that pentecostal pastor, who is preaching from behind the pulpit and reading the Scripture, whether he is giving me gold, or dirt or a mixture, or what is gold and what is not, or what is true and what is false, because maybe even he himself may not know.
So we come now to another question, a very practical one. Every Believer who stops here and ponders things, may ask: “Well, what am I supposed to do?” Well, I can only say from my own experience, again, that I know one thing: everything depends on the intention of your heart! If your heart desires to know the Truth, if your heart desires to know the Lord and to love Him, the Lord will enable that heart. The Lord will lead you there. We don’t even know that while we are young Believers, young Christians.
What I remember is that when the Lord brought me to the church the first time, I was buying everything that came from behind the pulpit. And I know now that there was no other way. So you start buying and the Lord says: “Keep buying.” You buy 20 tons of dirt, and there may be only two ounces of gold. But buy 20 tons, buy 200 tons, there will be 20 ounces, 40 ounces of gold. You know how gold is mined. They don’t just send there a big machine and it digs out pure gold. It digs out tons of almost pure dirt and they are “lucky” if they find something in it. And if they do, it is measured in ounces.
So you keep buying anything that comes in, and the Lord says: “If your heart is right, I don’t mind if you buy a lot of dirt. But with it you are buying precious stones and diamonds and gold and silver. I don’t care in what quantities, but it is there. And later on I will sift it in you, I will sift it in your heart. I will sort things out, I will refine that gold in you and I will dispose of that dirt.” And, in fact, that is what was happening with me.
Now, gold, I might add, can be equated with faith, too, because pure faith is like pure gold. You may also say that you are buying “tons of darkness with grains of Light in it”, but that Light is very important. Because if I buy nothing I will receive nothing. I believe that this is how every new Christian goes, and this is how I remember going, and I believe generally that this is applicable to everyone.
We have to buy, we have to buy, we have to buy, (Pr.23:23) and then the Lord will sort things out. Because if we are thirsty and hungry, the Lord said in Matthew very clearly that He will feed us, that He will give us food to eat and drink. (Mt.5:6)
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To be continued next week
brother Hanola
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