What Is 'Better-Than-Gold-Faith?'

How do we develop “trained faith”…faith that is more precious than gold mentioned in I Peter. Are we building the right “growth engines” into our lives so that we not only are prepared to face the storms of life but to also “keep the faith” to the final end?   Both encouragement and warnings are needed to help the Body realize the subtle threats which keep us from hearing the call of Christ to stand-firm-with-joy. 

I began to put words to this journey when I ready a tiny book by Jill Briscoe:  In “The Deep Place, Where Nobody goes: Conversations with God on the steps of my soul.” 

“Lend us weaponry to reinforce our souls with the muscles of Your might: faith, hope, and love.  And Oh, dear Teacher, show us how to model Christ in all, His sweet simplicity and strength, that seeing Him in us our children shall inherit gold faith,Trust tried in the crucible of life, our gift to them – a godly heritage! Amen.”  (p.119-120)

I Peter 1:7  …so that the tested genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
  

What is 'better than gold faith?'

It is a certain quality of faith that develops  as we live life.  I’m not talking about saving faith – the time when God is invited by you to sit on the throne of your life.  We’re talking about living the life of faith in the one true Supreme God who sent His Son, Jesus the Christ, to rescue us from God’s wrath.

If we have accepted Jesus by faith, we love him by faith, and if we love him by faith, we obey him by faith, and as we obey him by faith throughout out life, this special type of righteous faith… high quality faith may develop.

But not everyone gets it. Many don’t make it – they fall away.  There are no shortcuts to better-than-gold Faith, no “7 Easy Steps to a Blessed Life.”

Faith, as defined in Hebrews 11, is not just a matter of belief, but matter of behavior...based upon belief.  Moses, Abraham, Daniel, Peter, Corrie ten Boom, Joni Erickson Tada, - their hardest tests were at the end of their lives.  What did they do that helped them in the hardest trials? They never gave in to the tendencies of old age to let down, live a mediocre life. They also didn't burn out before their time.

So how can we be among the few, the remnant within the church, to be characterized as having better-than-gold Faith to our last breath?

Psalm 1 and Psalm 92:12-15 gives us another picture of this, “The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” 

We are to be like a tree – stress sturdy – standing against the winds, standing in chaos, standing in the storm, standing in the sunshine, standing until we are called home.

Several years ago, I used the following passage on a home leave to describe a bit of our life in Central Asia up to that point.

2 Corinthians 1:8-11 “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength, that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.”

What I didn’t know was that just a little over a month after that, it would get much, much more worse in Afghanistan.  James and Peter knew a bit about what it was to suffer for Christ. And it is in James, I found a bit of a road map which described my own faith journey of the past 10 years.

There are 4 things James teaches us to help us become stress sturdy, to endure (stand firm) and persevere (move forward in the battle) and lead the way to better-than-gold faith. 

Go To: Better Than Gold Faith Part 1