5 minutes a day 5 days a week - a year of Bible Wisdom

Are there degrees or measures of religious faith?  Is faith a gift from God, or do we generate faith from our own soul and heart?  Why do some people seem to have more faith than others?  Thank you.

Sincerely,
Learning To Be Loyal

Dear Learning To Be Loyal,

The ability to be saved through faith is a gift from God (Eph 2:8), but faith is something we are responsible for.  Faith comes from hearing what God says and then acting upon it (Rom 10:17).  Jesus rebuked the disciples for their lack of faith (Matt 14:31)… which means the amount of faith we have is our responsibility.

Some people have no faith (Rom 3:3), others have little faith (Matt 6:30), and some have great faith (Matt 8:10).  Some people have more faith than others because they have worked harder to cultivate faith in God.  It is our duty to increase in faith and service to God.  One of the simplest ways to measure our faith in God is by looking at our behavior (Jas 2:18).  How we live is a reflection of our loyalty to the Lord.  It is impossible to please God without an active and practiced faith in Him (Heb 11:6).  We must study, learn, and apply God’s Word daily.

5 minutes a day 5 days a week - a year of Bible Wisdom

I am a Jew and was invited to a friend’s church, and I went out of respect.  Wonderful people, but I was blown away with the preacher’s bottom line of "convert or burn in hell".

Jews believe there are righteous gentiles (non-Jews), but it appears from going to this church that there is no such thing as righteous non-christians.

Do all churches teach this?  Is this love and mercy?  It is hard to understand when the priest who read Adolf Lekman his last rites was asked after he purified himself with Jesus for one minute if he was now in heaven, and he replied, “Yes, he is”, and when asked about the 1.5 million Jewish children who were murdered he said, “May God have mercy on their souls”, meaning they are doomed.

Does this not cause division and pit one group of good people against another?

Sincerely,
Of A Friendly Faith

Dear Of A Friendly Faith,

As a Jew, you must appreciate the importance of the Messiah as much as we do.  Every Hebrew has anxiously searched for and waited for the coming of the Savior of Israel for thousands of years.  If that Savior came, and you rejected Him… you would be rejecting your own religion.  The coming of the Messiah is the single most important element of Judaism… even your own rabbis state this.  The only difference between you and us is that we believe that Messiah has already come.

Jesus is the Christ (Jhn 20:31).  Jesus professes that He is the only way to God (Jhn 14:6).  God’s definition of being a ‘good person’ is when we follow and obey His Son (Jhn 12:26).  Jesus is a stumbling block to many Jewish people (1 Cor 1:23), but that has always been the case.  Jesus even said that His coming would bring division (Matt 10:34-36).  If Jesus is a liar, we should desert Him, but if He is the Word of God (Jhn 1:1), any other religion cannot stand beside His (Eph 4:4-6).

5 minutes a day 5 days a week - a year of Bible Wisdom