These essays are written in sequence and build on each other. Read the preceding essay here.
Faith is a higher form of trust.
Faith is taking action with childlike trust in the power of Love and Truth.
This is equivalent to childlike trust in The Word.
We also established that faith is the beginning of Christian life and not the end goal. We discussed the fact that faith is needed where experiential knowledge is lacking.
In another essay we also clarified the true meaning of knowledge.
Faith is Continuously Renewed
Blessed are they that have not seen,
— KJV, John 20:29
and yet have believed.
To have “seen” here is to be understood as to have “personally experienced”.
As already discussed, personal experience results in knowledge, which makes the aspect of The Word that was to be believed become factual and obvious i.e. no longer requiring faith to be believed.
This explanation may make it appear that faith disappears at some point in Christian life and is completely replaced by knowledge. That is not accurate.
Just like with the human body and Nature, there are stages and steps of spiritual development.
Unlike the human body though, spiritual development is, in earthly terms, unlimited.
We also stated that:
Faith is not the end goal of Christian life. Faith is the beginning; an important and inescapable first step.
God’s Love and Truth are unlimited. The Word is unlimited.
Therefore, in earthly terms, there are an unlimited number of stages of spiritual development, with each new stage involving a step into higher understanding of Love and Truth i.e. understanding of The Word.
Every new step into higher understanding of The Word begins with faith because at that point man has not “seen” the next level. His understanding of Love and Truth are relatively incomplete.
That is: to enter a new “Stage X” of Christian life (i.e. experiential understanding of The Word) faith is required.
Experiences on “Stage X” (i.e. experiences resulting from faith-filled action taken by the human being) make insights from The Word become obvious, and no longer require faith to put into practice. The human being gains knowledge, which goes beyond faith.
But as the human being gains more experiential knowledge of The Word through life, he also gains the realization of how little he knows about Love, Truth, and God’s Will (the Laws of Creation). He then experientially and intuitively senses that there is a higher stage, “Stage X+1”.
As he seeks to grow into this new “Stage X+1”, he will also require faith anew, because he is entering a new level of the unseen.
The “new” faith will be a more knowing and mature faith than the one applied in the previous step, but it will still be faith.
True Faith is Not Materialistic
The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed,
— Matt 13: 31-32
which a man took,
and sowed in his field:
Which indeed is the least of all seeds:
but when it is grown,
it is the greatest among herbs,
and becometh a tree,
so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.
…
If ye had faith
— Luke 17:6
as a grain of mustard seed,
ye might say unto this sycamine tree,
Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea;
and it should obey you.
A seed is a small and fragile thing. Such is faith in its early stages.
A herb is different from the seed, and the tree is different from the herb. But they both originate in the seed.
Knowledge is different from faith, and wisdom is different from knowledge. But they both originate in faith.
When faith has fully blossomed into the strong tree of wisdom, it produces blessings not only for that human being but also for those he comes into contact with (directly and indirectly) – they gain from his wisdom and can “lodge in it’s branches” in a spiritual sense.
The mustard seed mentioned in The Word is small and fragile, but it is pure. The shoot from a pure mustard seed grows upwards towards the heavens, not downwards into the earthly soil.
The faith that becomes the power and wisdom to move the sycamine tree is the pure faith and not materialistic faith. It is not the faith that is directed at earthly goals and earthly comfort.
Pure faith is solely directed upwards, at spiritual goals: the goal of self-purification and expressing Love for one’s neighbour and mankind through selfless activity as prescribed by The Word.
It is only pure faith that can blossom into the spiritual powers that Christ hinted at.
Resolution
- We shall seek to find and express pure faith within us; a faith that is not conditional or related to material goals but on childlike understanding and adherence to the Word of Love.
The Word, (Re)Discovered 