Quantifiable or Free

Romans 4:13-25

¹³For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.

¹⁴For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.

¹⁵For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

¹⁶That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

¹⁷as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

¹⁸In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”

¹⁹He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.

²⁰No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God,

²¹fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.

²²That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.”

²³But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone,

²⁴but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord,

²⁵who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

Throughout our lives we are measured by others. When we’re born one of the first questions asked (after gender) is how big the baby is, what they weighed and how long are they. As we go through school all of our papers and tests receive a grade or a percentage at the top in judgment of how well we did on them. How many points did you score for the team in the game? What was your score on the ACT or SAT? What is your IQ? What is your BMI? The list of quantifiable identifiers in our lives is endless. So it seems only natural that we should apply the same standards to our faith life as well.

I’ve often wondered why so much time is spent in Romans on righteousness by faith versus righteousness by works. But I think I know why. We want to be able to quantify our righteousness level and the only way to do that is to use our adherence to the Law rather than the veracity our faith. It’s easy for me to see where I have kept the Law and where I have not. I can measure that. But I cannot measure my “faith level.” Only God can do that. Once again we and our opinions are taken out of the equation. We lose our control and power in the situation and that just isn’t comfortable.

But faith is not measurable. Either you have it or you don’t and only God can see it and judge it. And that is so fantastic because it means that we all stand on a completely level playing field. Now the book of James will tell us that we are able to observe the presence of faith in a person's life by the way that they live. So I cannot discount that. But – even with that being true I still cannot see into their heart and quantify their faith. Nor can I hold my own faith up to the light and get any kind of read on its size for self delusion is soon to follow that activity.

So my need to know and quantify everything is going have to be put aside when it comes to the faith. I have to trust that God has that well in hand and surrender it all unto Him – and I’m happy to do so.