A Person of Faith

Sue Love Personal, question

Have you ever said, “That man (or that woman) is a person of faith”? If so, what did you mean by that? How would you define or describe a person of faith? What did or does that look like to you? What criteria do you use to determine if someone is or is not a person of faith? Do you believe there is outward and discernable evidence as to whether someone is or is not a person of faith? And do you have biblical support for your belief on this subject? I would really like to hear from you on this if you feel led of the Lord to answer these questions concerning the Christian faith. Thank you. Sue

I am still hoping others will respond to these questions, but this morning I prayerfully took a look at answering these questions from a biblical perspective, so i will share with you here what I learned so far on this subject in “Can Faith Be Seen?”

21 thoughts on “A Person of Faith”

  1. Hi Sue, I was blessed with a couple of excellent mentors when I first started out with looking into Christianity. Not only did they speak their faith by being very knowledgeable about God’s Word but they also demonstrated their faith by how they lived, in the words that came out of their mouths, by their actions, they things that they did and by their Godly demeanor that was not judgemental in their overall tone and they were very patient. One is now with our Lord and the other is a retired Minister who still works freely, probably more than he did before. Godly men, human, but Godly. Was their faith self evident? Yes it was and had it not been for their down to earth witness to the reality of God, I might not be where I am today. I cherish their mentoring because it showed me a side of reality that I had never entertained or seen before. They weren’t perfect, yet their humaniness actually make me love them more because it showed me that faith could be lived, in spite of our humanness. You often speak of the necessity of doing (obedience) and this is indeed a reality. If one truly walks with the Lord, it will show, it can’t be any other way. The fruit of the Spirit will be visible in their demeanor, not always but there is no doubt that not only do they talk the talk but they also walk the walk. Hope this answers your question. Grace, peace and blessings.

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  2. This is a good question. I’ve had many occasions where I’ve been in certain setting around others who profess to be believers and even around unbelievers and have heard them say things that made me wonder what on earth does that even mean? Are they just saying stuff to be quotable or to sound profound or “deep”?

    The comment above pretty much shared how I also think a person of faith is. You can see the fruit of the Spirit displayed by a true person of faith. They’re not merely hearers only like James warns us not to be but they’re doers of God’s word.

    I have observed how terms like “person of faith”, “man of God”, and “Anointed” are thrown around so casually among certain persons professing Christianity, it’s grieving. If they can see an individual can sing or play an instrument or is a natural born orator that knows some scripture or can get a crowd excited or they prophesied something then many say that person is anointed or a man/woman of God based on nothing else but theatrics. No testing of the Spirit to see if they’re really of God, no discernment, just letting their emotions be their guide. The flipside of that is how these people define those who are actually walking in the Spirit. They will call these persons negative, disobedient, unqualified etc etc etc.

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    • SLR – Oh, Amen! You are singing my song! I find it so true what you have stated here. Especially when a person dies, some of the things said about them just blow me away.

      For example, I had a relative die, so I went to his funeral. The pastor was trying to prove that my relative was a person of faith, so he said, to show how much my relative loved Jesus, that he would always stop at a mirror to make sure he looked good before he entered the sanctuary. Wow! that has nothing to do with loving Jesus. And, then he tried to paint this relative as a person who loved the scriptures, too, but he didn’t by all appearances, not to my knowledge, anyway. For, when I asked him if he was reading the scriptures he told me he wasn’t. He didn’t appear to be interested in that, either. But, he made sure the comics were read to him, if I am remembering that correctly. So, people say crazy things at funerals trying to comfort families, but I hate it when they make up stuff just to try to make people feel good.

      Oftentimes they consider a person of faith as someone whom everyone loves and admires, who never makes waves, who “stays in his own lane,” and always says what people want to hear. Or, at another funeral I attended, the person was described as a person of faith because this person was always at church every Sunday. But, none of those things describe a biblical person of faith. Our physical appearance has nothing to do with our faith. Being loved by everyone is not usually a sign of faith at all, but is more a sign of someone who is a people pleaser, for Jesus says we will be hated as he was hated. And, adherence to outward rituals is also not a sign of faith, for the Pharisees were really big on that.

      And, yes, you are right that when you are truly a person of faith, according to what the scriptures teach, that you will be regarded as negative, critical, harsh, egotistical (thinking they are better than others), crazy, radical, intolerant, and prejudice or bigoted, etc. I was told by one pastor that in his training classes that he was warned about people like me, i.e. people with strong convictions. And, he invited me to leave the church and he offered to help me find another place where I would be “a better fit.” But, there was no “better fit,” for so many of today’s modern churches are going the way of man and not of God, and so they are following man’s methods for how to grow their churches, and it is just like building a business and gearing everything around a particular customer base and doing what you can to get rid of the “undesirables.”

      And, yes, much of today’s modern church movement is about theatrics and entertaining people. And, they equate the Holy Spirit with their emotions. But, most everything is market driven. We were in one church where the pastor wanted to replace our praise band (we had a college ministry loosely connected with this church that we had out of our home) with another band that would “draw in large crowds of people.” So, it wasn’t about giving these young people a place of ministry to where they could feel as though they were an important part of the body of Christ, but what it came down to was if they could generate large crowds. And, this is so much what the church has become these days, appealing to the crowds.

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      • My notifications here on wordpress seem to fail me sometimes because I had no idea you replied to my comment until I thought about checking my notifications. I’m glad I took a moment to check because what you shared here is so true and important. It’s also grieving because it is so true and important but many today don’t think so or even realize.

        I could write a book about the way churches have become business franchises but you touched on points that I agree with and will leave at that because you said it perfectly.

        I will say also that I think, especially when it comes to how the youth ministries in many churches operate, people forget that Christ said that when He is lifted up all men will be drawn to Him. I know this refers to the death of Christ on the cross and salvation provided through that for all who believe, but many in their attempts to make the church more appealing to the youth and “progressive”, have lifted up entertainment and “fun” over things like preaching the pure eternal life giving word of God.

        I once saw a youth event that literally looked like a rave was going on. It was dark, loud music and a fog machine making the room look like there was a fire somewhere.

        We can still have fun while growing in Christ but growing in the knowledge, grace and wisdom of God must not take a backseat to fun. To me fun is sitting with brothers and sisters fellowshipping, not merely in a traditional Sunday morning church service where nobody really speaks to one another and it’s not much better after because most people get off to their cars and other plans like school children who couldn’t wait for school to end or people leaving a movie theater after the film is over. To me the smaller groups where we share prayer requests, sing together, break bread together, study God’s word together and yes, on occasions we play fun games, but ultimately we’re together learning the will of God and understanding that the goal is to be Christlike, not religious, not filled with head knowledge about Christ but to we know the goal is to imitate Christ. This has been forgotten in most churches I feel and many are more concerned with teaching tithing and simply filling pews and parking lots but not hearts and minds with God’s word undiluted.

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    • The way the institutional church is set up today, for the most part, is just like a business, and yes, the church services are more like theatrical productions than they have much of anything to do with lifting up Jesus. And, even in many churches today, their small groups revolve around the pastor’s sermon, and so everything revolves around the messages of just one man, and that is not how the body of Christ is supposed to work.

      The Lord Jesus began showing me these things about the institutional church beginning in 1999, but I didn’t really get the big picture until he really began opening up my eyes to what is going on beginning in 2004, which is when he called me to this writing ministry. But, even then I held on to the institutional church because that was church to me, and I hungered for Christian fellowship, although I rarely found it, for most of what I found was nothing much different than you would find out in the world.

      Over time I finally came to accept that the Lord did not want me in the institutional church which here in America is married to the government and has partnered with the world and with big government. They have turned the house of the Lord into a marketplace, they are unequally yoked together with the unbelieving world, and Jesus Christ is not truly Lord of this institutional church, but he and his gospel have been supplanted by men and their marketing schemes and by books written by mere men, and by the cheap grace gospel which appeals to the flesh of man, etc.

      This is Babylon, essentially, and he says for us to come out of Babylon, and for us to come out from among partnership with the ungodly, and to have no other gods before him and to stop turning his house into a marketplace. So, in 2013 I finally left the institutional church for good, although sometimes I am tempted to go back, but for good reasons, but every time I went back, thinking that I needed that, the Lord closed those doors. He took me out of the institutional church and he placed me on the internet and this is my mission field, and this is my church, too, for this is where I get true fellowship with other believers. And, this is where God is using me, so this is my part in the body of Christ (the universal body of Christ). But, I pray that the Lord would provide Christian fellowship for me in person, too.

      I am glad that you and I met, SLR. Thank you so much for responding to this and for reading this blog.

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      • I’m glad I got to meet you too. SLR are my initials. My name is Satigdra (Suh-tea-druh) 🙂

        You summed up a great deal of how I feel in that comment. I do still overall prefer fellowship in person. A lot of my interactions is online with people from different parts of the world and I kind of go to a church. I say kind of because really those from this church would disagree if I said I actually go there. That’s because i dont go on Sundays hardly ever anymore. I do love group settings and being able to chat with others in person because honestly online fellowship, though helpful and I only feel close to my online brothers and sisters, for some reason I still feel a bit lacking without brethren to embrace in person. So, I go to bible studies and try to participate in things that will have me around believers in person with opportunity to interact not just sit for like 45 minutes in complete silence with a few seconds allotted to greet one another in a sevice or small talk before the service. I just want to really feel like I have true family to love and who won’t judge my salvation based merely on Sunday church attendance or lack of it. Right now, I don’t feel I have that in person but only online.

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      • Satigdra, Thank you for telling me your name. Funny, I just asked your name in a previous response, and then I checked this one next and you had already answered me before I even asked. Thanks. 🙂

        I totally agree with you about Sunday services and how small groups are so much better. I have not had much success with small groups locally, but I have had great times of fellowship and Bible study with some fellow bloggers on here, and that was a real answer to prayer for me. Would I love to have that in person? Oh, you bet!! But, the Lord has not opened that door for me, but I am praying to that end. Anyway, anytime you want to chat, that would be welcome and appreciated.

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    • Yes, it is the evidence, which can be seen. We can’t physically see our salvation or Jesus or the Holy Spirit or our eternal life. But we can see the evidence of those things in our lives if we’re true followers of Christ. So faith is the evidence, what is visible, proving the existence of what is not visible.

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  5. How would you define or describe a person of faith? It is not up to us to determine someone’s faith. God will separate and judge. See parable below paying attention to verse 30.

    “24 Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. 27 “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ 28 ” ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ 29 ” ‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’ “”
    — Matthew 13:24-30 (NIV)

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  6. Wow! You guys have covered this pretty well. When I read Sue’s article I was excited to leave my answer, then after reading the responses I thought “I better just keep my mouth shut” anything I say is going to sound almost infantile. I would like to re-post it on my blog if that’s ok?

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