Faith Proved Genuine

Faith Proved Genuine

Being on the outreach team in Santa Cruz has been one of the biggest blessings so far here on Summer Project. Getting to plan, lead, and taking part in all kinds of different outreaches throughout the city has definitely been a learning experience. Not only am I learning how to share Christ with others in the power of His Spirit, but I am also being slammed in the face by the proverbial tsunami of brokenness from the people here.  You can see a want for God around every turn, but equally present are god-replacements and spiritual band aids. It’s a very spiritual place, but it’s a place lacking in truth.

But from the many outreaches we’ve done and from the times I have just gone out into the city to share Christ on my own or with my discipler (Charles Itschner-He’s the man!), I have had a good number of conversations with people that have left me thinking (as I hope it has done the same for them). This post is I response to one of them.

My discipler and I went down to the wharf with the intent on talking to someone with the hope of sharing Christ with them. We stumbled upon (or rather God had us trip over) a fisherman named Victor. He was originally from the Ukraine but now currently lives in Sacramento and was in Santa Cruz visiting for the day. The conversation progressed and he eventually asked where we were from and why we were here, which allowed us to explain Campus Crusade (or CRU) and the purpose of our summer project. We asked if he wouldn’t mind talking to us for a little while about his beliefs as we were trying to get a better grasp of the spiritual climate in Santa Cruz. (I promise this sounded much less “Mormon-ish” in the moment) He agreed telling us that he was a Christian as well, having been raised in a Christian home. One of the questions Charles asked was, “If someone were to ask you how to become a Christian, what would you tell them?” To this Victor really didn’t have an answer. He mentioned that he had kind of inherited it from his parents, being raised in the church. He said that he could tell them the typical answers like belief in Jesus, but that just sounded kind of corny. (We live in a time among a church who often believes the truth is too corny to share – I could go on about this, but that’ll have to be another post for another day) So Charles and I proceeded to share and explain the Gospel to this man, with the hope of teaching how to better share his faith as well as giving him a clear understanding about who Christ really is. Throughout the entire conversation, Victor seemed really interested, despite the whipping wind on the wharf. Afterward his tone changed and the way he spoke to us shifted to a more serious a more honest voice. When we asked how we could be praying for him, he answered,

“In a world where so many people fake their faith, I worry about the genuineness of my own.”

And it’s that statement that really stuck with me from that conversation. We continued to talk with him, and we prayed over him, but I left with those words echoing through my head.

It’s a valid concern, truly. We live in a country where “Christian” seems to be the default status, where churches are often filled with people going out of obligation and appearance rather than any desire to know God more – Churches where lies are often sung as bookends to a sermon that people are just trying to bear through while wearing clothes too tight and binding all the while focusing instead on the best way to beat the traffic to a filling Sunday lunch. Genuineness is seldom seen and a noble thing to search and hope for. But how can we find it? How do we know what we have is real, and we aren’t just like all the other fakers out there? How do we keep it?

These are questions that rocked my Christian walk. Over and over I found myself praying the “sinner’s prayer” because after examining my life it didn’t look like I really meant it the last time. I kept messing up too badly and too often. “Real Christians” didn’t act like me. So as Victor’s words brought me back to that time in my life, I tried to remember how I had answered it. The answer, I remembered, was faith.

We find genuine faith in Christ, and we know that it is real because we trust in Him to keep it, to keep us. The thing I didn’t realize growing up was that my faith wasn’t mine to maintain by doing all these works to keep God happy and impressed with me. My faith was His to hold and pour into me. That’s how grace works. There was nothing I could have done to earn God, and there is nothing I can do to lose Him. I am simply His, forever. Trusting in that truth is how you begin to walk. Just like a new born learning to walk, you can do nothing on your own without your Father lovingly holding you up, and yes you fall and stumble, but your Father doesn’t scold you; He picks you back up and encourages you, helping you forward. But this is how it stays forever. It’s not that the more mature you become in your walk, your legs get stronger and you learn to hold yourself up. The more mature you get, the more you understand that you’ll never be able to hold yourself up alone, and the more you lean into the Father’s hand.

So please be praying for Victor as God shows him this, and continue praying for me as I am still learning and often trying to stand on my own.