"The Just Shall Live By Faith."

I became a Christian believer quite early, at the age of 12, the 11th of October 1979. It was then I took a firm commitment to follow Jesus Christ wholeheartedly. Since then I have journeyed on,working out my salvation with fear and trembling. In the early days I used to approach faith like many other brethren of the Pentecostal variety, on the basis that we determined what we wanted for our lives and God, our sovereign simply fell into line. The extreme variety was to name a request, claim it and then receive it whether or not it was in God's will. The logical implication of this also extended to my interpretation of well being and prosperity. The belief was that prosperity was limited to the the visible signs of wealth rather that prosperity of the soul and spirit.

In the same vein it meant that believers could not die before the threescore and one (age 70 years) and if they died before then it must have been lack of faith or some hidden sin committed by them. But as we grew older and matured in faith things simply did not add up. I witnessed many faithful ones 'cut down' before what I presumed was their time, many Christian soldiers called home 'too early'. Then it finally hit home with my twin sister! We prayed, fasted and proclaimed all manner of prayers, I even tried to use my special connection as the twin to speak into her life, to reverse the inevitable!

So what are we to say about faith, described in the Bible as 'the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen'? My view of faith, is that it is as high as a mountain when we believe God is sovereign even when things do not go our way in the answer to prayers. It means that even in inexplicable deaths, disasters and tragedies of unspeakable proportions we still have the strength to believe God is in charge, in control and has a perfect plan for us. That is what having faith to me is, this is what living by faith implies. It is simply not tailoring God to fulfil my own agenda.