“Just have faith.”
It’s a phrase I hear all the time. I can be on a street corner, riding on a bus, traveling through the United States, or walking through neighborhoods here in Latin America, and at some point, people speak about “faith.” Someone will say it with confidence, almost instinctively: “I’ve got faith.”
And I don’t doubt they believe that. There’s a certainty in the way it’s said, as if the presence of faith itself is enough to steady a person’s life. As if faith by itself is something solid to stand on.
But almost every time I hear it, a question rises in me: faith in what?
That question is a fundamental one for me, especially in conversations with religious people: those who go to church, know Scripture, and talk about God with ease. Many are sincere, not pretending. They are committed, engaged, and genuinely interested in spiritual things. Yet, as I listen, there are moments when something feels out of place. It’s not always obvious, and not something I could have explained years ago, but over time it has become harder to ignore.
At first, I assumed it might be a lack of depth or understanding. But the more I listened, the more I realized that wasn’t it. Some of them know more than I do. What seems to be missing is not information—it’s something deeper. There are times when it feels as though Christ Himself is not truly known but rather spoken about, as if, somewhere along the way, faith itself has taken the place that only He was meant to fill.
For a long time, I didn’t have the words to explain that tension. I could feel it, but I could not define it. Then a verse I had read many times began to press in on me in a deeper way: “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God… neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).
I used to think that verse applied mainly to people who were openly opposed to God: those who were hardened, dismissive, or resistant. But over time, my understanding deepened. I began to see that this kind of blindness does not always look like rejection. Sometimes it looks thoughtful. Sometimes it sounds articulate. Sometimes it sits comfortably inside churches.
A person can talk about God, study Scripture, and even teach others, and still never truly come to know Him. Because the issue isn’t always what a person knows—it’s whether they have come to the end of themselves and entered into something the Spirit of God has made real.
And this is where something begins to go wrong, often so subtly that it goes unnoticed. Christ is no longer someone to be known; He becomes someone to be examined. He is discussed, debated, and explained. Faith becomes something to build, something to strengthen, something to measure. It becomes an idea to master rather than a reality to enter into.
I’ve grown uneasy with how often faith is emphasized in conversations: “Have faith.” “Grow your faith.” “Use your faith.” However, when I ask, “Faith in whom?” the answer can sometimes become unclear. The word sounds strong, but the object can feel vague or undefined.
Faith can become its own object, something people identify with or take pride in. Yet, the Holy Bible never calls us to trust in trust. It calls us to trust in Christ. Faith is not the Saviour—Christ is. Faith is simply the means by which we come to Him.
If we are not careful, we can begin to replace the very Saviour we need with the language we use to describe Him. We can talk more about the strength of our faith than the beauty of Christ. We can measure spiritual life by how confident someone sounds, rather than whether they truly know Him.
This is where the natural mind is very comfortable, because it can manage faith as an idea. It can quantify it, teach it, even market it. But knowing Christ is altogether different. We cannot arrive at it through effort; it must be revealed. The Spirit of God must open our eyes. It requires humility. It requires us to come to the end of what we can produce on our own.
Because the Spirit of God does not meet us in the version of ourselves that we present outwardly. He goes deeper than that. He meets us in the places we do not fully understand, in the questions we cannot easily answer, in the quiet places where our thoughts feel scattered and unclear.
There are moments in life where you realize you don’t even know how to think clearly anymore. Moments where your strength is gone, your clarity is vanished, and all you’re left with is need. And as uncomfortable as that place is, it is often right there that something real begins to happen.
God allows us to come to the end of ourselves, not to leave us there, but to show us Christ in a way we could not see before. He reaches into the deeper places of our hearts—not with condemnation, but with mercy—and begins to draw us toward something real.
This is what the natural mind struggles to understand. It does not understand weakness. It does not understand being brought low. It does not understand what it means to have nothing left but to humble yourself before God and draw near to Him.
This is where grace is found. “My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:19). Not in self-sufficiency, not in having everything together, but in the place where you finally recognize that you cannot hold your life together on your own.
It is in that place that faith begins to take on its true form. It is no longer something you boast in or try to strengthen in yourself. It becomes something more real and honest—laid bare and dependent on Christ. It is no longer about how strongly you believe, but about the Christ you are trusting.
Because when life begins to press in, and it will, faith as an idea does not sustain you. Words begin to lose their weight. But a Person remains.
When grief settles in, when disappointment cuts deeper than you expected, when you feel worn down in ways you cannot easily explain, what carries you is not a concept. It is Christ Himself—not distant, not theoretical, but present.
And over time, that is where everything becomes clear.
The call is not simply to “have faith.” The call is to know Christ. To move beyond language and into something real. To step out of the idea of believing and come to the One we claim to believe in.
Not to settle for being around conversations about faith, but to come to Christ Himself. Not to strive how much we believe, but to rest in what He has already finished.
Because in the end, the difference is everything.
It is the difference between religion and life, between speaking and knowing, between holding onto an idea—and being held by a living Savior.
RETURN TO ALL BLOGS
It’s a phrase I hear all the time. I can be on a street corner, riding on a bus, traveling through the United States, or walking through neighborhoods here in Latin America, and at some point, people speak about “faith.” Someone will say it with confidence, almost instinctively: “I’ve got faith.”
And I don’t doubt they believe that. There’s a certainty in the way it’s said, as if the presence of faith itself is enough to steady a person’s life. As if faith by itself is something solid to stand on.
But almost every time I hear it, a question rises in me: faith in what?
That question is a fundamental one for me, especially in conversations with religious people: those who go to church, know Scripture, and talk about God with ease. Many are sincere, not pretending. They are committed, engaged, and genuinely interested in spiritual things. Yet, as I listen, there are moments when something feels out of place. It’s not always obvious, and not something I could have explained years ago, but over time it has become harder to ignore.
At first, I assumed it might be a lack of depth or understanding. But the more I listened, the more I realized that wasn’t it. Some of them know more than I do. What seems to be missing is not information—it’s something deeper. There are times when it feels as though Christ Himself is not truly known but rather spoken about, as if, somewhere along the way, faith itself has taken the place that only He was meant to fill.
For a long time, I didn’t have the words to explain that tension. I could feel it, but I could not define it. Then a verse I had read many times began to press in on me in a deeper way: “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God… neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).
I used to think that verse applied mainly to people who were openly opposed to God: those who were hardened, dismissive, or resistant. But over time, my understanding deepened. I began to see that this kind of blindness does not always look like rejection. Sometimes it looks thoughtful. Sometimes it sounds articulate. Sometimes it sits comfortably inside churches.
A person can talk about God, study Scripture, and even teach others, and still never truly come to know Him. Because the issue isn’t always what a person knows—it’s whether they have come to the end of themselves and entered into something the Spirit of God has made real.
And this is where something begins to go wrong, often so subtly that it goes unnoticed. Christ is no longer someone to be known; He becomes someone to be examined. He is discussed, debated, and explained. Faith becomes something to build, something to strengthen, something to measure. It becomes an idea to master rather than a reality to enter into.
I’ve grown uneasy with how often faith is emphasized in conversations: “Have faith.” “Grow your faith.” “Use your faith.” However, when I ask, “Faith in whom?” the answer can sometimes become unclear. The word sounds strong, but the object can feel vague or undefined.
Faith can become its own object, something people identify with or take pride in. Yet, the Holy Bible never calls us to trust in trust. It calls us to trust in Christ. Faith is not the Saviour—Christ is. Faith is simply the means by which we come to Him.
If we are not careful, we can begin to replace the very Saviour we need with the language we use to describe Him. We can talk more about the strength of our faith than the beauty of Christ. We can measure spiritual life by how confident someone sounds, rather than whether they truly know Him.
This is where the natural mind is very comfortable, because it can manage faith as an idea. It can quantify it, teach it, even market it. But knowing Christ is altogether different. We cannot arrive at it through effort; it must be revealed. The Spirit of God must open our eyes. It requires humility. It requires us to come to the end of what we can produce on our own.
Because the Spirit of God does not meet us in the version of ourselves that we present outwardly. He goes deeper than that. He meets us in the places we do not fully understand, in the questions we cannot easily answer, in the quiet places where our thoughts feel scattered and unclear.
There are moments in life where you realize you don’t even know how to think clearly anymore. Moments where your strength is gone, your clarity is vanished, and all you’re left with is need. And as uncomfortable as that place is, it is often right there that something real begins to happen.
God allows us to come to the end of ourselves, not to leave us there, but to show us Christ in a way we could not see before. He reaches into the deeper places of our hearts—not with condemnation, but with mercy—and begins to draw us toward something real.
This is what the natural mind struggles to understand. It does not understand weakness. It does not understand being brought low. It does not understand what it means to have nothing left but to humble yourself before God and draw near to Him.
This is where grace is found. “My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:19). Not in self-sufficiency, not in having everything together, but in the place where you finally recognize that you cannot hold your life together on your own.
It is in that place that faith begins to take on its true form. It is no longer something you boast in or try to strengthen in yourself. It becomes something more real and honest—laid bare and dependent on Christ. It is no longer about how strongly you believe, but about the Christ you are trusting.
Because when life begins to press in, and it will, faith as an idea does not sustain you. Words begin to lose their weight. But a Person remains.
When grief settles in, when disappointment cuts deeper than you expected, when you feel worn down in ways you cannot easily explain, what carries you is not a concept. It is Christ Himself—not distant, not theoretical, but present.
And over time, that is where everything becomes clear.
The call is not simply to “have faith.” The call is to know Christ. To move beyond language and into something real. To step out of the idea of believing and come to the One we claim to believe in.
Not to settle for being around conversations about faith, but to come to Christ Himself. Not to strive how much we believe, but to rest in what He has already finished.
Because in the end, the difference is everything.
It is the difference between religion and life, between speaking and knowing, between holding onto an idea—and being held by a living Savior.
RETURN TO ALL BLOGS
