Our Faith

This past weekend, I went to the School of Christian Mission, as I mentioned earlier. In the "I Believe in Jesus" class, Dr. John Hardman was discussing what forms our faith:

• Believing in Jesus is a gift of God. This makes sense to me. On my own, could I believe that God is real, that he has power over the universe, that he sent his son to forgive my sins and to reveal God to me? I doubt it. But, with the spirit of God as part of me, around me, and helping me, I can believe it. Faith is a gift of God -- "prevenient grace."
• Faith is based in scripture. He says that the object of scripture is help us to believe.
• Faith is shaped by Christian community. I've known that, I think, but it was interesting to hear it described as something necessary to form our faith. I like the idea that we need community in order to work through what we believe. God gives us each other for many reasons, including as a means of grace to develop our faith.

Faith means that we live out our lives in "Christo" -- in Christ. He says that we don't believe in Jesus; we believe "into" Jesus. He is with us, so we can believe "into" him.

Image: The sky on the way to work today.