Underlying topic(s):
- This page is part of an ERW course: Internal Guidance, section Faith.
- By John Eagles, April 13, 2001.
Faith is the degree in which you have a good relation to God. The more you have grown in your religious life, the more you will have gained faith. Faith is like a string, a wire or a piece of rope that binds you with God. The more difficult your mission is, the more complicated the situations are around you, the stronger has to be your connection to God. Through your faith you are bound to God. If you loose the connection to God, you are lost. It is like you would be a plant without roots, or an automobile without gas, or a house without foundations. If your faith breaks down, your relation to God breaks down, and then you are simply completely lost. If you would go out with a boat on the wide ocean on a trip of several weeks, you are wise if you check whether your boat does function under most extreme conditions. You test your boat and all instruments on it before you dare to go on the ocean. In the same way, before God will allow you to do a new task, God will test your faith. All the time in your religious life, your faith is being tested. How much do you love God when you come to stand without husband or wife? How much do you love God if you are without food? Does your love for God still hold if God asks you to give up your secure financial foundation? Do you go to God when your father or restoration parent treats you in a harsh way? There are many tests of faith. If you come under a test of faith given to you by God, you will not know that it is a test. You find yourself in difficulties, and you don’t know why. But most important is how you respond to it. Do you go to God in faith and trust or do you resent God, that is the question. To trust God or to not trust God, that is the question. Maybe you feel that you love God and that you are giving everything to fulfill your mission, and then all of a sudden, there are said bad things about you in public. Do you go to God in that situation, or do you resent God and go away from God, that is the question. Life of religion is a life of being tested. Suppose that all of a sudden there is being told to you that you lost your mission. This actually always is a test of God. If you accept that you lost your mission, then you will really lose your mission, but if you know that your mission is given to you for all eternity, that your mission is stuck to you just as your own nose belongs to you, then you know that you cannot accept that your mission is taken away. Maybe you have to change your way of doing in order to fulfill your mission, but it cannot be that God would ever take away your mission. All situations of daily life function as tests of faith in God. Unfortunately, many people do fail these tests of faith. When Lucifer approached Eve, God saw this as a test of faith for Eve. It doesn't mean that God sent Lucifer to test Adam and Eve, but because God trusts God's children Adam and Eve, such a situation of temptation functions as a test of faith. Eve had to prove that she would obey The Commandment under these difficult circumstances. God did not intervene in this test. God hoped and expected that Eve would act right. When Eve did not act right and fell under Lucifer, God trusted that Eve would learn from her mistakes. When Eve did not really learn from her mistakes, God’s heart was broken, but all that God could conclude was that Eve had failed to pass the test of faith. Once someone failed to pass a test of faith, God tries to lift the person up. Not always God is successful in this. But even though God’s heart was broken after the fall of Adam and Eve, and even though God did not manage to bring Adam and Eve back to God’s heart until the day of today, God could not ignore the outcome of the test of faith in which both Adam and Eve failed.
To have faith, this is man’s responsibility. God cannot intervene in this. God has to test us, because God must know if we are able to fulfill the mission that God wants to give us. If we fail the test, then we cannot fulfill the mission that God has given us. If we pass a test, then God can give us the mission for which we were created. God can safely let us enter a new stage without having to be worried that we are confronted with situations we could not handle.
To have faith, this is our personal, our own responsibility. To test us, this is what God has to do, because God has to know if we did fulfill our responsibility and if we are ready for the next stage or task of life.
Adam and Eve failed their test of faith, and God is still waiting for them to pass their test of faith and to reach individual perfection after they obeyed The Commandment. One day, both Adam and Eve will pass the tests of faith. God knows that this will happen, but God cannot force Adam or Eve or you or me to do what we don’t really want to do. God has to know if we are ready for new responsibilities, and therefore God is testing our faith. If we use God’s tests in the right way, then we learn from the outcome of God’s tests of ourselves. In that way, if we failed a test, we can find out what we did wrong, and then we can correct our mistakes and still qualify for the mission that God wants to give us. If we passed a test, then we can prepare ourselves for the following test.
To have faith, this is your responsibility, this is my responsibility. We must prove our faith in front of God and God can only know if we have faith by testing our faith. If we take these tests in the right way, knowing that through tests God wants to prepare us and help us, then we can advance in each situation in life, regardless whether we passed or failed a test of faith. Most important is that we keep trusting God, that we never think that God’s intentions were not so good.
The worst in life is when you failed a test and after it you begin to blame God for everything that happens to you. There always is a way back to God. God is always waiting for you to do what God expects you to do. Therefore, the very worst of all is if you give up your trust in God and begin to live a life without God, feeling frustrated about God and hating God and disliking God.
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