Illustration: The Saving Object of our faith

The following text is found in The Reason for God by Timothy Keller...

"The faith that changes the life and connects to God is best conveyed by the word "trust." Imagine you are on a high cliff and lose your footing and begin to fall. Just beside you as you fall is a branch sticking out of the very edge of the cliff. It is your only hope and it is more than strong enough to support your weight. How can it save you? If your mind is filled with intellectual certainty that the branch can support you, but you don't actually reach out and grab it, you are lost. If your mind is instead filled with doubts and uncertainty that the branch can hold you, but you reach out and grab it anyway, you will be saved. Why? It is not the strength of your faith but the object of your faith that actually saves you. Strong faith in a weak branch is fatally inferior to weak faith in a strong branch. This means you don't have to wait for all doubts and fears to go away to take hold of Christ. Don't make the mistake of thinking that you have to banish all misgivings in order to meet God. That would turn your faith into one more way to be your own Savior. Working on the quality and purity of your commitment would become a way to merit salvation and put God in your debt. It is not the depth and purity of your heart but the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf that saves us."

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This illustration is gold. Christ is the actor. He is doing the action, the saving itself. I confess how much I treat my faith as a spiritual resume I add to every day. I realize this in how much I think about my faith throughout the day, and not the author of my faith, Jesus. Keller's words resonate so powerfully to me because of how much I think about what I should do, rather than what Christ has done. My desire to want to essentially save myself is only evidence of my unbelief that my Savior will actually save me. May we rest in the security we have in Christ alone, who is certain to save those whom he has called. May we fix our eyes on Jesus, who has given us faith as a gift, and promises to carry us in it for all eternity.