“Strengthened in faith” (Romans 4:20)

Does your faith in Christ include submission to Him as your Lord? Do you depend on Him to keep you from temptation and does He lead you in a holy lifestyle? This unconditional submission to Christ is called saving faith, as opposed to every other kind of faith. Most church-goers aren’t saved, and one of the ways you can tell, is when bad things happen, instead of staying submitted to Christ, they get out from under His Lordship. They probably had no idea of the significance of the salvation prayer: “I want to trust you as Savior and follow you as Lord”. If you’ve gotten out from under His Lordship, you should examine yourself, whether your faith is saving faith (2 Corinthian 13:5).

Saving faith produces patience. “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work … If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God … But let him ask in faith, with no doubting” (James 1:2-6).

The evidence youpossess saving Faith is trusting God enough in a bad situation to stay submitted to Christ, expecting that God will make a way where there seems to be no way, either through giving you the wisdom to change the situation with integrity, or some providence known only to God. The saint doesn’t need to know how God will make a way, he just needs to remain under the Lordship of Christ.

Most of the time, God makes a way through giving the saint wisdom, which requires saving faith to receive and continue to receive, because  believing God is giving you wisdom is a state of being which requires infinitely more faith than just accepting the fact that God will make a way. Your flesh and your Old Man will scream, “go back to sin!”, but you must remain under the Lordship of Christ, trusting He’s giving you wisdom to change the situation with integrity.