At the waiting room of a clinic, I noticed that one magazine featured an article on a popular actress. The cover refers to how faith plays a “huge, huge role” in the life of the actress. Being a pastor, that caught my interest. So I picked up the magazine and read the article.
The actress does say that she believes in God, and even prays every night with her children. Yet, as it turns out, she has a generic kind of faith. The article describes how she “feels it’s important to teach children about each great figure who defines our religious landscape, be he Jesus, Muhammad, or Buddha.”
This generic kind of faith seems to be a perspective that many people share. Many claim that they have faith, or even that faith is very important. But it appears that faith, for them, simply means a vague kind of spirituality or religiosity that acknowledges a generic god or supreme being. In other words, as long as you have faith, you’re good.
Really? Faith requires an object. Merely to “have faith” without a clear reference to the object of that faith is meaningless. Such an understanding of faith makes faith nothing more than an emotion. It depends on the illusion that as long as we can feel faith, that is enough. Ultimately, we end up with nothing more than following our own personal preferences, which we falsely endow with spiritual value.
Biblical faith takes seriously the matter of the object of faith. On whom you place your trust matters greatly. It is not enough to claim to have faith in some god. Who that god is also matters. Scripture constantly warns against turning to false gods—entities given the status of deity but who do not have the attributes of true divinity. “For they were not gods but only wood and stone, fashioned by human hands” (Isaiah 37.19 TNIV). Paul describes such worship of “not gods”: “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised” (Romans 1.25 TNIV). Putting our trust on something or someone who cannot make good on that trust is a worthless—even dangerous—endeavor.
Only Jesus the Christ—the one who was crucified, but who now is the living Lord—is worthy of our absolute trust. “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1.16–18 TNIV). And when we put our faith in him and entrust our lives to him, we are assured that our “life is now hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3.3 NIV).
—Keith Y. Jainga