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The transformation result was that my faith became something I worked through in relationship with God, not simply something I adopted, clung to, and defended as an inheritance from my family and church. I came to hold some beliefs seriously, but my life in Christ shifted from dogmatic to relational.
When the process of faith transformation began, I began seriously questioning some of the beliefs given me. I quickly learned that can be lonely, for I was surrounded by persons that did not want to question their beliefs.
All of the "contents" of our faith are interpreted to us through humans. Part of mature faith is realizing exactly what the Bible teaches us; that is,...
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
*I Corinthians 12.11-12 (NLT)
Faith affirms that we are not intended to know everything with clarity. Honest doubt and uncertainty is held in the embrace of faith. Indeed, sometimes honest doubt is more faithful than our affirmations that we know so-and-so.
However, faith allows us to affirm enough to give the contours of the Way with Christ; we are not left alone, without truth. The Bible shows us that truth comes through common wisdom and through the church, as well as through the Scripture itself.
Finally, the transformation of my faith led me to see that the most important truth for me is not a belief but a Person, not truth but the Truth. This is the Person I accepted as my Savior, Lord, and Friend at age nine years. This One is what defines my life as a Christian:
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me."
*John 14.6 (NLT)
The Law was given by Moses, but Jesus Christ brought us undeserved kindness and truth.
*John 1.17 (CEV)
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