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Pastor · Sunday Schedule · FBC
News
2004
From the Pastor
BELIEF AND FAITH: A DIFFERENCE
To say, “I believe,” is not the same as having faith. I think this is an important distinction to be made as we consider our post Easter life. Believing, in the resurrection is different than having faith in a living Christ.
Beliefs are important but to me there is always something provincial about them. They are not absolute. They are the best articulation we have of our faith, and that is the point, beliefs are in service to our faith. Faith is prior. Faith is deeper.
Beliefs articulated through doctrine are our best effort to express what is really real. It is a way of sharing. It is a way of putting in words what is most real to us. But, it can only be understood as an attempt. It is not absolute. Our doctrines are like an artist’s painting; it points to a reality beyond itself but it is not that reality.
Faith, on th other hand, leads us into the experience of that reality. It embraces both the mind and the heart. It is that in which we place our trust and hope, whereas belief can only express what is real to us, faith is the experience of the reality. It is deeper, it is more profound that anything that words can say about it.
For Christians we can say, I believe Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, but it is our faith that touches that reality. It is the experience of that reality. It is different than simply attesting to the event of the empty tomb. It is at the deepest level of our experience the encounter with the Living Lord. It is knowing Christ in our heart.
It is one thing to preach about the resurrection. It is quite another to give witness to the experience of the Living Lord in our life.
You are made different, life is transformed for you, not because you can say, “I believe in an empty tomb, I believe that Christ was raised from the dead,” but because you have met the living Lord, Christ is real to you. You are the same as Mary Magdalene or any of the other disciplines - you have met the Living Lord.
In this post Easter season I would encourage you toward the greater nurturing and attentiveness of your faith. Ask yourself, where is God real to me in my life? Faith involves both mind and heart. The nurturing of it includes worship and prayer and perhaps long walks under the summer sun.
The Church is an Easter people. By that is meant not only that we believe in an empty tomb, but that our faith is in the risen Christ who is in our midst. We are an Easter people because of Christ’s presence. Our beliefs seek to articulate it, but our faith is the pathway. Our beliefs express it, but our faith reveals it - Christ lives!
Dr. David W. Andersen
          
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