Scripture for Study and Encouragement: John 20:24-29

There is a significant difference between amazement and faith.
God doesn’t just want to blow your mind; he wants to rule your heart.

It is an important distinction, one that is not made frequently enough. Faith surely does engage your brain, but it is fundamentally more than that. Faith is something that you do with your life. True biblical faith doesn’t stop with thought; it radically rearranges the way that you approach everything in your life. Amazement is what you experience when you are taken beyond the categories that you carry around to explain or define things. Amazement is a step in the faith process, but there is a huge difference between amazement and faith.

Pretend you’re standing next to me on a pier on the Jersey Shore. We’re looking at one of those amusement park contraptions that is essentially a fifty-foot-high slingshot, into which they strap some otherwise sane human being and launch him back and forth over the Atlantic Ocean in the night. Now, that ride amazes both of us, but we’re not about to strap in and let ourselves be launched into the night. Amazed? Yes, but we will not put our faith in that thing. In the same way:

• You can be amazed by the grand sweep of the redemptive story in Scripture and not be living by faith.
• You can be amazed by the labyrinthine logic of the theology of the word of God and not be living by faith.
• You can be amazed by the great worship music you participate in every Sunday and not be living by faith.
• You can be amazed by the love of your small group and not be living by faith.
• You can be amazed by the wonderful biblical preaching and teaching that you hear and not be living by faith.
• You can be amazed by the grace of the cross of Jesus and not be living by faith.

There is a significant, yes, even profound difference between amazement and faith. God will not leave us in a state of amazement. He works by grace to craft us into people of settled, hopeful, courageous, active, celebratory, God-glorifying faith. He will settle for nothing less. He is not satisfied with the wonder of our minds. He will not relent until he has established his life-altering rule in our hearts. He works so that we really will “believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). You can’t work that faith up in yourself. It is a gift of his grace. The cross makes that gift available to you right here, right now.

Adapted and modified excerpts from Paul David Tripp, 40 Days of Faith
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.