Christianity is a religion of faith—we must put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, “for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). In faith we rest in Christ, trusting that his work and not our own has brought reconciliation between man and God.
And while there must be a onetime act in which we express faith in him, faith is also an ongoing reality in which we trust that God’s ways are better than our ways, and that God’s instructions direct us to the truest and best ways to live. Thus Sinclair Ferguson says that to be Christians who are thriving and growing, we must have “a willingness to live according to the Word of God.”
But there is more to the equation. We must also have “a willingness to take whatever consequences emerge as a result.” We put our faith in Christ to be saved and then enter into a lifetime of faith, a lifetime of trusting that God’s ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:9).
