A Faith of Our Own

One of my favorite family traditions is the spaghetti sauce recipe that’s been passed down in my family from generation to generation. Now that I am living in my own home and cooking my own meals, I had to make the decision to learn how to make the family recipe on my own.

It didn’t matter how many times I’d eaten it before or how many good memories I had associated with it. If I hadn’t made the decision to get in the kitchen and learn how to make it,  that sauce would eventually only be a memory and would no longer be a part of my life.

I had to make a similar decision when it came to my relationship with Christ. I’d grown up going to church and reading the Bible because of my parents. I enjoyed church and had good memories of it, but once I was old enough, I had to decide if I would make this faith my own, or if it would always just be my parents’ faith.

In the book of Acts, chapter 19, we read about the powerful works that Paul was doing in Ephesus. Because of his reputation, others who did not know or believe in Jesus tried to invoke God’s power through Paul's name to dispel an evil spirit. But, because these men did not have their own relationship with Christ, verse 15 tells us that the evil spirit responded to them by saying, “I know Jesus, and I know Paul, but who are you?” (NLT). These men had no faith of their own and could not simply depend on Paul’s faith to work for them.

In the Gospel of John, chapter 4, the woman that met Jesus at the well was so excited about her life-changing experience with Christ that she went around telling everyone in her village about it! Afterward, when Jesus came to town, her neighbors decided to listen to His message for themselves. In verse 42, they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves.”

While her testimony was compelling, they did not depend only on the woman’s faith but invested the time and energy to develop their own belief in Christ. We must also be willing to read the Word of God for ourselves and decide to believe because of what we discover, not simply because of what others have told us.

Jesus reminds us in John 14:6 that He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through Him. I cannot have a relationship with God through the faith or actions of another person. Just like I had to spend time in the kitchen studying the recipe to learn how to make my family’s spaghetti sauce, I must commit to spending time with Jesus to know Him for myself and establish a faith and relationship of my own.

Father God, You tell us in Your Word that if we seek You wholeheartedly, we will find You (Jeremiah 29:13) and that You reward those who sincerely seek You (Hebrews 11:6). We pray that we would be encouraged by Your Spirit today to make our faith in You our own. We pray that we would no longer depend on the faith and actions of those around us, but we would make our own decision to seek, follow, honor, and walk in relationship with You.

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Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.