Five Reasons We Fall Short in Our Faith

April 17, 2018

OUR PROBLEMS ARE THE SAME AS ADAM AND EVE’S Faith is the main thing in the Christian life. Scripture says:

“Without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6
“The righteous shall live by faith.” Romans 1:17
“We walk by faith and not by sight.” 2 Corinthians 5:7

Faith is demonstrated by obeying God when there is something to do (love your neighbor as yourself), and resting in God when there is something to believe (my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus). We know this, but at the same time, there is often a gap between knowing it and doing it. Incomplete obedience and incomplete peace are indications of this gap. So why do we fall short in our faith in God? Going back to Adam and Eve, we tend to hold back from complete obedience and resting in God because we are unsure of God's readiness to meet our needs. So we try to make up the difference with self-effort. This is the universal problem for all God’s children seen first in the Garden of Eden:

Step #1 - Doubt: Satan came along and asked Eve, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden?’” His goal was to plant doubt in Eve's mind that God had her best interests at heart. He said that if she ate from the forbidden tree, "You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be open, and you will be like God…"
Step #2 - Take control: Eve took the bait. She accepted the insinuation that God did not have her full and best interests in mind. So she decided she needed to take control of her own destiny, and she ate the fruit, then gave it to Adam, and he ate.
Step #3 - Pay the price: We cannot break the laws of God. We can only break ourselves against them when we violate them. So Adam and Eve paid the price for their lack of faith, with horrific consequences following their decision.

In retrospect, we might be tempted to wonder how Adam and Eve could be so gullible. Yet, this is the same pattern of deception that Satan uses with all of us, and we often fall for it, just as Adam and Eve did.

We doubt that God really knows what we need to be happy.
We conclude that if we are going to be happy, we will have to take control of our own lives.
When we do, we suffer the consequences.

Having inherited Adam and Eve's tendency toward doubt and self protection in our own responses to God, we often struggle with five common problems in our efforts to live by faith.

Ignorance

Jesus said, "you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32). Knowledge isn't everything, but everything rests on knowledge. To the degree that we do not know the truth, we are vulnerable to ignorance and deception. We cannot do something until we know or understand it. If we do not have a mature understanding of God’s truth, it limits our capacity to live by faith.

Difficulty

It is easier to drift than to sail. It is easier to relax than to work. There is a natural tendency to want to take the easy way out. The hitch, of course, is that – in the end - drifting and relaxing are not the easy way out. They appear to be the easy way out at first, but down the road there's always a greater price to pay. Diligence is harder up front but easier down the road. Drifting and relaxing are easier up front but harder down the road.

Fear of the unknown

We naturally fear the unknown. Shakespeare said, “We prefer to bear those ills we have rather than to flee to others that we know not of.” We wonder what would God do to us if we gave ourselves over to doing whatever He might ask of us? Would he send us to some dreadful corner of the world to live a life of misery and deprivation? Would he afflict us with some dreadful malady? Would he make a monk, missionary, or misfit out of us?

Fear of the known

It may not be a fear of the unknown, but of the known, that holds back our faith. We might actually know that if we give ourselves fully to God, we would have to surrender something that we currently hold dear. It might be a moral issue, it might be an addiction, it might be misplaced priorities, and we don't want to give them up. Or, it may be otherwise harmless things we enjoy, putting them before service to God and others. We may be convinced that the things we want to hang onto will make us happier than the will of God. They won’t of course. But that’s what we may believe, nevertheless.

No clear strategy

We simply might not know what to do if we committed to pursuing God fully. What would it mean? How would we go about it? What's the plan? We may be uncertain what we would do tomorrow if we gave ourselves fully to obeying and resting in God today. Conclusion It is not uncommon for Christians to fall short in their faith. That is the focal point of spiritual growth, and God is committed to helping us grow in our faith (2 Peter 3:18). It is not something that should discourage or defeat us. But to recognize it, to admit it, is an important step in putting us on the pathway to growth. Next week, we will look at how to overcome each of these five problems. But for this week, we conclude with the call for a mind-set of fully trusting in God.

Our goal is to grow to the point at which we trust God enough to obey Him when there is something to do, and to rest in Him when there is something to believe. God will gladly lead us and help us as we call on Him.

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