The Nature of Faith
Greetings, brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series where we seek to
explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years, the heavenly
Father has made numerous revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them with you.
This morning we seek to understand the nature of faith.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Nature of Faith
"But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that
he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." "For by grace are ye saved
through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God." Hebrew, Chapter 11, Verse 6,
and Ephesians, Chapter 2, Verse 8.
Brothers and sisters, faith is that quality of reality given to us by the Father to compensate for our
spiritual immaturity. Faith is given in response to our desire for help. Incompleteness of status makes
spiritual insight inadequate to function. Faith, then, serves in the place of spiritual insight. When
combined with trust, faith leads to increased knowledge of he Father through His Son, Jesus.
Faith and trust are essential to spiritual development and thus must be experienced. That is they must
grow and develop. These qualities become increasingly real in response to our desires, and our
desires increase in direct proportion to the need for these qualities. Thus, the development of faith
and trust requires experience that call forth these slumbering qualities.
Supreme faith-trust makes it possible to recognize the Father on supreme levels. The first benchmark
of this faith-trust is the consciousness of having survived the mortal life. The experience of having
survived the mortal life creates a faith-trust in the soul that can be acquired in no other way. This
occurs because our consciousness cannot explain our survival through any other mechanism except
faith and trust in the Father, by believing in Jesus. Faith and trust thus become an unshakable reality
which lays the foundation for greater faith and trust as well as an increased appreciation of reality
and enlarged capacity for the same.
In the mortal life it is impossible for us to directly perceive truth, beauty, and goodness. We must
perceive then through faith-trust. When viewing the inconsistencies of mortal life, we must assert
that all things work together for good for those who love God and do His will. The results of this
faith assertion can be partially realized through experience and by faith as we look back over our
experiences and perceive the good that came out of those experiences.
From our mortal points of view, the worst thing that can happen to us is to lose our life. Everything
below death can possibly be managed, but the death experience discloses that the so-called "worst"
has become the best thing that could have happened to him up to that particular point in his life.
Jesus said, "in my Father's house are many mansions, I go to prepare a place for you. If it were not
so, I would have told you." So for those who love the Father, who trust and have faith in Him
through His Son, Jesus, can only expect the best, not the worst, irrespective of what the situation may
appear to be.
Armed with this experiential value of faith-trust-(knowledge), after ascending to the Mansions on
high, we are now able to directly perceive truth, beauty, and goodness in Heaven. Such a one will
no doubt believe that no matter what he experiences subject to the Father's will, only goodness will
result from it since that is what happened after his experience of mortal death. This knowledge
allows him to directly begin to unify spiritual values with material facts.
Through His Son, Jesus, the Father is in the process of revealing Himself to and through us. This is
essentially a revelation of divine values and meanings of His spiritual nature. It requires faith to
discover the revelation of the Father and trust to validate the revelation. Always will we know Him
because we trust Him. Since divine things have to be loved to be known, faith is the only avenue for
us to appropriate them.
Faith-trust is the complete revelation of the Father, but it will require an eternity of infinity to reveal
it to us. Always will there exist more of the Father to be revealed than can be comprehended. Faith-
trust stands for the unfinished revelation of the Father. That which we have experienced, we know,
but because it is our nature to experience we can never run out of experiences since the experiences
take place in time and space. We must receive the Father as a spiritual experience within our souls,
and since the Father is infinite and eternal, the experiencing of the Father can never really come to
an end.
Faith-trust is a reality, an awareness that when embraced serves alongside and in lieu of our inability
to grasp the reality of eternity and the infinity of the Father. When embraced wholeheartedly, faith-
trust stabilizes our souls as we traverse the sea of unending meanings and values. Faith-trust is the
Father's pledge to us by the Father of His reality. Faith-trust gives reality to our experiences with
divine values and meanings.
This concludes today's message on understanding the nature of faith. We hope you find something
in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day. Until next time, this is Dr. James
Perry.
Inspirational Messages
By Dr. James Perry
Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done!
The Nature of Faith
