There is only one place where true faith begins. It is found in the heart of God. It is what God uses to help His children to believe in Him. He wants every person to see who He is and come to know Him in a real and personal way. He achieves this by giving us His Gospel.
The Gospel is the fuel that propels your faith to a deeper connection with your Maker.
The Gospel is not based on human reasoning. Through the Gospel, God gives messages that do not come from any human source, nor can it be taught by humans. It is given by direct revelation from Jesus, God’s Son; see Galatians 1:11-12.
Paul shares with believers in Galatians 1:11-24, how faith begins. He starts out with the above two verses to remind them that faith in God has absolutely nothing to do with themselves. It never has and it never will. Then, Paul shared who he was before He met Jesus Christ.
Paul was a very religious man in his Jewish faith that is seeped in tradition. He was a follower of a denomination (in that day), and not God Himself. He followed what He knew from his ancestors. When Jesus came on the scene to redirect Old Testament believers to become New Testament believers, Paul hated Him and anyone who followed Jesus. Until, Jesus got a hold of him. Paul shares his transformation process which is the same for you and me. The details won’t be exact but the change within your heart when you receive Jesus is the same as it was for Paul.
Faith for everyone begins this way: 1. Before you were born, God chose you to follow Jesus. He called you by His marvelous grace. 2. God will reveal Jesus to you in the most endearing and loving ways. It pleases Him to teach you about His Son. 3. Jesus residing within you changes you. You will want to share the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus, with anyone willing to listen. (see verses 15-16)
A heart full of Christ has a strong and enduring faith.
After you repent of your sins and receive Jesus into your heart, God begins a faith journey with you where you grow to know Jesus more and more. Notice in the rest of the verses for this passage in how God changed Paul’s heart. He had gotten Paul’s attention where Paul followed Jesus, and not his traditional, religious ways. He put aside the old way and donned Jesus’ new way of living.
Paul went away for three years. The verses don’t say what he did in those three years, but by how he lived after that, it is a safe assumption that God and Paul had a three year sleepover where God taught Him, matured his faith, and helped him to walk in obedience to Jesus.
When you begin to follow Jesus, God will take you on many sleepovers where He will teach you who He is and how to walk with Him on a daily basis. You could call these sleepovers quiet times. Paul matured in his faith by spending time with God. He made the time. In these sweet times with the Lord, Paul learned to recognize when the Holy Spirit spoke to him.
A part of every faith’s journey is a maturing process that must take place. It begins with Jesus, is saturated in God’s Word with Jesus, and you walk in obedience like Jesus did. You learn to put aside any non-essentials that hinder your faith journey. Non-essentials are things that lure you away from Jesus being your priority in your life. A non-essential could be placing the ways of a denominational church ahead of Jesus.
Let God reveal Jesus to you. He has been working to help you believe and receive even before you were conceived in your mother’s womb. You were made to have faith in the one true God. God graciously gave His Son so you can be made complete by His wonderous works on the cross. True faith cannot be found anywhere else.
Carol J German 