FAITH AND RELIGION GO HAND IN HAND, BUT WHAT ABOUT FAITH AND SCIENCE OR FAITH AND PEOPLE? Most People Appear To Have A Distorted Understanding Of What Faith Is And They Seem To Think It Is About Having Wishes, Rather Than Being A Basic Requirement For Achievement. Without faith we cannot do anything of worth or maintain healthy relationships with acquaintances, friends, family or anyone else.

What is faith and how does it affect religion?

Happy Riches, answers request from anonymous

The issue of faith is misunderstood. What people call faith is often not faith at all. Rather it is hope or, even, wishful thinking. This is because faith is something that is active and produces results.

The following is attributed to Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich and taken from an outline of Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude, a book he co-authored with W. Clement Stone.

Use Applied Faith

1. Faith is awareness of, belief in, and harmonizing with the universal powers.
2. Faith is a state of mind which must be active not passive, to be useful in achieving lasting success.
3. Close the door to fear behind you and you will quickly see the door of faith open before you.
4. Fear is nothing more than a state of mind, which is subject to your own direction and control.
5. Faith will not bring you what you desire, but it will show you the way to go after it for yourself.

How do these five points regarding faith relate to religion?

1) Faith is awareness of, belief in, and harmonizing with the universal powers.

According to this definition, there is more to faith than wishful thinking. Harmonizing with the universal powers requires not only an acceptance of their existence but also an awareness of their existence. Not recognizing the existence of the universal powers is to be ignorant of these powers.

Religion then is the quest for this harmony. Interestingly, there are two types of religion. False religion where practitioners seek to harmonize with the elemental powers of the universe. And true religion, wherein the practitioner seeks to escape these elemental spirits and harmonize with the Creator of Life.

• See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fulness of life in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. (Colossians 2:8-10)

2) Faith is a state of mind which must be active not passive, to be useful in achieving lasting success.

Religions is a magnet for hypocrite and manipulators. People who embrace religion passively are those, who like politicians, use it for their own ends and manifest a fake form of it. Such individuals do not embrace religion because they are genuinely interested in demonstrating the power of religion. There is no fake-it-to-make-it, when it comes to seeking the truth and knowing its power. The Apostle Paul warns that Christians are to avoid such people.

• For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. Avoid such people. (2 Timothy 3:2-5)

3) Close the door to fear behind you and you will quickly see the door of faith open before you.

Religion is the quest for life eternal, which can only be found if we possess the truth, but we need to find the way first. For anybody to be serious about seeking the truth, they have to burn their bridges behind them and head off into places where other people fear to go. This is because true religion, which is the quest for the truth, cannot be compromised by being a coward or listening to those who feed disinformation.

• Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him.” (John 14:5-7)
• He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:37-39)

4) Fear is nothing more than a state of mind, which is subject to your own direction and control.

Religion requires us to recognize that we are the ones who are in control of our destiny. Just because we are engaging in a quest for the truth that may be of a mysterious nature, we ought not be fearful about anything. We can be encouraged if we are genuine. When Joseph, the human step-father of Jesus of Nazareth, found out that his bride was pregnant, he resolved to divorce her, but was told not to fear the circumstances he had encountered. This is because those who know the true God, are regarded as sons and have nothing of which to be afraid. Instead, those who know they are born of God receive a spirit of power, love and self-control.

• Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. (1 Timothy 3:16)
• Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:18-21)
• For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15)
• For God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and self-control. (2 Timothy 1:7)

5) Faith will not bring you what you desire, but it will show you the way to go after it for yourself.

True religion is not a passive activity, just as faith is not passive. Faith requires action if it is to be expressed, as does religion. Those who are seeking the truth have to actively reach out into the unknown. In the Bible, we learn that faith is a deposit within each one of us. But faith towards God is another matter. This faith has to be expressed in a way that demonstrates we are genuine; not cowards who turn back when the going gets rough and things become tough.

• For good news came to us just as to them; but the message which they heard did not benefit them, because it did not meet with faith in the hearers. (Hebrews 4:2)
• So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. (James 2:17)
• What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? (James 2:14)
• But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. (James 1:6)
• Listen, my beloved brethren. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him? (James 2:5)
• But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and keep their souls. (Hebrews 10:39)

Faith does not affect religion. Religion is immaterial. Religion is a concept. Religion is a quest for the truth. Therefore, those who see the truth are required to exercise faith, if they are to find the truth. The seeker has to set the parameters of the quest as one would set the boundaries of a scientific experiment. However, there a distinction between setting the parameters for conducting an experiment and determining acceptable factors for a journey of a subjective nature. For is difficult to apply objective criteria to a subjective quest of an immaterial nature.

When Jesus was speaking to the Jews. who were looking for a Messiah and were willing to accept what He was saying, He encountered a common problem: PRIDE.

Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to any one. How is it that you say, ‘You will be made free’?”

Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not continue in the house for ever; the son continues for ever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.” (John 8:31-38)

Pride is the source of unbelief. Those who suffer unbelief do not exercise faith. People who do not exercise faith will not believe that they ought to love their neighbor. Instead, they will be selfish and abhor true morality, preferring to settle for something like situational ethics. This permits people to excuse themselves for their shortcomings and wrongdoing, whenever they desire. Whereas those people who are genuine seekers after truth, will acknowledge that what they sow, they will also reap. Unbelievers, will scoff that reaping what we sow is a principle evident in this life—short lived as it is.

When Jesus spoke of knowing the truth to religious Jews, they were offended. They believed they were chosen to have eternal life before they were born. Then Jesus told them the obvious truth that everybody knows but does not want to admit.

Everybody is a slave to sin and death. True religion is the quest to find how to overcome sin and death. This requires faith to be expressed as one seeks to find the answer. In this respect, the degree of the authenticity of one’s faith towards God, the Creator, determines the genuineness of one’s religion—whether it is true or false.

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