How Faith in Christ Changes Us
Faith is powerful
— Faith produces joy and peace (Rom 15:13).
— Faith gives us love for others (Gal 5:6).
— Faith results in obedience (Heb 11:8).
— Faith extinguishes every flaming dart of the evil one (Eph 6:16).
— Faith conquers the sinful pull of the world (1 John 5:4).
But how does faith in Christ do this?
It’s not by saying: “Since faith in Christ produces joy, I’m going to choose to rejoice.”
That’s like saying: “Since grape branches produce grapes, I’m going to choose to staple these grapes onto this branch.”
But grape branches really do produce grapes, when they are attached to the vine. And faith really does produce joy, when it’s attached to Christ.
How does that work?
It does not work if my faith is just agreeing with truths about Christ, or just trusting Jesus to forgive my sins.
But it does work if my faith involves trusting all that God promises to be to me in Christ Jesus — especially God’s promise that Jesus Christ is my heart-satisfying treasure.
How does faith produce joy?
When you trust Christ as your heart-satisfying treasure, He will make Himself so real to you that you will be completely satisfied with joy in Him (John 4:13-14; John 6:35; John 7:37-38).
For me this usually takes a fight — the fight of faith. But time and again, as I have earnestly prayed and set my heart upon God’s Word, I have experienced the Holy Spirit giving me heart-felt joy in Christ.
This is not willing myself to feel happy, or finding joy in looking on the bright side. This is heart-felt joy that comes from seeing, feeling, tasting the infinite glory of Jesus Christ.
How does faith produce peace?
When you trust Jesus you not only taste His all-satisfying joy — you also know that He will cause everything in the future to give you even more of that joy (Rom 8:28; 2Cor 4:17-18). Which means that no matter what happens your future will mean all-satisfying joy — the joy of knowing and beholding Christ. When you understand that you will feel complete peace (Psa 112:7).
This is not you finding peace by not-thinking about problems. This is you fighting the fight of faith until you feel the Holy Spirit changing your heart so you feel Jesus as your all-satisfying joy, and trust that He will rule everything in your future to bring you even more of that joy.
How about love?
What gets in the way of love? My emptiness — when I’m empty I want others to serve me. And my pride — when I’m proud I want others to recognize me. Both kill love.
But when I fight the fight of faith, the Spirit fills my emptiness with the love of Jesus, and humbles my heart with the mercy of Jesus.
And when my heart is full and humble, love pours out like water over Niagara Falls.
And obedience?
When by faith in Christ I understand that I have a secure future of eternal joy in beholding Christ, and when I understand that obedience will bring me even more joy in Christ, I will want to obey (Mat 13:44).
That sounds easy. But it’s not. At all.
You will need to fight to trust Jesus. You will need to fight to feel that Jesus is more satisfying than porn or fame or comfort. But God will give you everything you need to fight. And the joy of beholding Jesus is worth it all.
How about temptations and flaming darts?
Faith conquers them too (1 John 5:4; Eph 6:16). How?
Faith conquers temptations by helping us taste that the joy of Jesus is infinitely more satisfying than whatever the temptation offers (Jer 2:13).
And faith extinguishes each flaming dart. It can do this because each flaming dart is a lie from Satan denying God’s promises. But faith enables us to feel the certainty and beauty of God’s promises. When that happens — flaming darts are extinguished.
God helps those who …
Who help themselves? Who rely on their own will-power to obey? Who depend on their positive mental attitude for joy?
No. God helps those who trust Jesus. Because when we fight the fight of faith to trust all that God promises to be to us in Christ Jesus — the Holy Spirit changes our hearts so we have joy, peace, love, and obedience — and so we can conquer temptations and extinguish flaming darts.
That’s how faith in Christ transforms every part of our lives.
But there’s something that can hinder this transformation.
Do you …
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I have a question for you if you have time. I believe Jesus was the Son of God born died and rose again…However I have noticed a change in me but my problem is I don’t see too much change in my life with anger and lust…It seems no matter how often or hard I pray I can’t control either…Then I read what the fruits of the Spirit are and I feel like maybe I’ve never been a Christian…I don’t know how to put 100% faith in anything I guess…maybe that’s the problem I don’t know…I do know I am getting very very discouraged to the point where I think God doesn’t hear me..I am terrified if I died I’d be in hell…Any help is greatly appreciated
Hi Lance,
Here’s one thought. Don’t worry about having to put 100% faith in Christ. Come to him as the man in Mark 9:24 — “I believe, help my unbelief.”
Turn to Jesus Christ as you are. Look to Him to forgive you, welcome you, help you. Ask Him to strengthen your faith. Then, since faith comes from hearing the word of Christ (Rom 10:17), open God’s Word and pray and think deeply over passages showing you Jesus and the Father.
John 1 is powerful. So is Mark 5 where Jesus frees a man from a legion of demons. John 4 shows you Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well. Rev 21:1-3 is powerful on heaven. Rom 3:21-26 is powerful about the Cross. Romans 8 is encouraging regarding God’s love.
Keep praying and pondering these passages, confessing any known sin, looking to Jesus to help you. In His perfect time, He will. You will feel the Holy Spirit strengthening your faith, and you will start to see and feel the glory of Jesus Christ, as described in John 6:35 and 2Cor 3:18 and 2Cor 4:6.
As that happens your heart will be deeply filled and satisfied, which will shrink the power of anger and lust.
And are you part of a church which has some godly men who could pray with and for you? That would be very encouraging to help you through this process.
Let me know what God does, and I will pray for you right now.
In Christ,
Steve Fuller
Steve, will you please help me? How do I stop believing my mind that I’m too offended to look to Jesus and want to justify myself? Help! I wept at this thought just weeks ago and now it preys on my mind all the time. How do I look to Jesus over my mind saying I don’t want to? I need eyes to see that looking to Him is better than anything, even satisfying my flesh and pride! Yet that knowledge and feeling comes *after* I turn to Jesus and trust him, right? So how do I get out of this trap of believing I don’t want to turn?! I am so anxious when I try to think on truth because I know my mind is going to rage against it and I won’t be able to trust Christ over my thoughts. I feel like I’ve tried and failed and gotten so much worse that I have no sense left! Please pray for me and ask for spiritual wisdom on how I can get out of this mindset that life is better when you satisfy flesh. I need to see the goodness of life in christ, yet my mind is so crazy it takes everything good and says I’m against it! I don’t know if it’s a mental problem or demonic or crazy flesh. Will you please seek wisdom for me? Wisdom on HOW I trust Jesus and stop believing my mind!
Steve, if you have time, will you help me with my previous question? And is there a way to have the Spirit come and help me hate unrighteousness/my own flesh and thoughts and righteousness and wisdom and authority SO THAT I turn to Christ? Or is that foolishly looking to my feelings and separating Jesus from the Spirit when they always come together?
God is good and we living with him today by faith and making his will in the Holy Spirits power and quard in jesus name and sowing our seed by faith and joy in grace with blessing and sure the truth with us in Jesus name,thanks and bless,keijo sweden
Dear K, I don’t know if you will ever see this, but I think I can help. I went through the same thing recently and God mercifully delivered me.
I was offended about something for years and stayed trapped in your same dilemma until God showed me that an offense is satan’s bait that he uses to ensnare/entrap us. Once we ‘take the bait’ and believe the offensive lie the trap shuts on us and now we need help to be released from it. We can’t just get out of it on our own.
Think of an animal that is trapped and needs a human to actually work the release mechanism to free it. Well, sometimes we have different responses to our times of entrapment. Sometimes we try to hide from others or deny the fact that we’re trapped and we try to cover it up every which way we can think of so we won’t have to expose ourselves that we got in that condition.
To shorten this up…every time going to God in private about something ‘doesn’t work’ it has usually meant, for me at least, that I am the ‘kind of trapped’ that my need is to confess it to a trusted brother or sister whom God will faithfully send, who can pray for me and THEN God delivers me out of the trap.
Summary: God reveals it was satan lies we’ve believed over Him in the situation and got trapped as a result. He reveals His desire to free us. We submit to another in the body and enlist their help to free us…they pray to God for our release, as we confess our sin(s) we’ve committed in thought, word and deed, during the whole shebang at the same time they’re praying for God to release us.
This has ALWAYS worked for me. I hope you find this and it helps.
God Bless You.
God is good and very wise to help us to be new man and woman of God by the HOly Spirit help by obey the word and do to doubt God´s purose and a work for our inside to be our out side at that all the people see a form Christ with to walking in joy for God,thanks and bless and pray,keijo sweden
This stuff is fantastic. I’ve recently some months ago, become a born again CHRISTIAN. But very recently, I made some silly life decisions and took some backwards steps. Since I’ve been blocked from God, my faith has been almost dormant and I’ve been in fear, miserable & confused.
Reading this stuff, seeing you guys & girls reach out, support each other with pure love, compassion and pure intent has really picked me up, ignited a spark in me I needed to light the flame and see the light, as a figure of speech. I hope that makes a sense. I feel touched by everybody’s kindness and mentoring. Unconditional love.
You are all truly brave, whether reaching out or being a mention/ or giving direction/advice.
I think it’s admirable.
Keep it up, and god bless you all.
Craig – Gold Coast Australia
March 2016
Having faith is truly hard because going though trials and tribulations, really test your faith. But faith is believing and not knowing. Faith is truly worth believing.
In life we all have or had thAt moment where we doubt our faith, our intensions, etc. it’s Another tool used by Satan the Liar to make us feel as failures, he puts doubts in our heads & we start to question ourselves. Jesus is the son of Jehovah God, Jesus is our meditator, father & savior they both know our strength and our weakness, God understands that we’re dust, imperfect & that we need the every moment, we all sin everyday in different ways but we sin, we all have different flaws & areas to work on some easier than other, the key is to give our all to God & not allow ourselves to get discouraged enough that we would hide from God,