The reason I have not written for about three weeks is because I have been laid low with a flu, on top of being inundated with teaching and learning duties and responsibilities.

In fact, my wife is still recovering from her flu. It has been more than three weeks for her. And in these bouts of illness, I learned about faith.

In this morning’s devotions, I can see how faith draws the presence of God through the Spirit of Jesus Christ near to the follower of Christ.

I am continuing my meditation and devotions in Luke’s gospel. This morning, I arrived at Luke chapter 9, verses 37 to 42. It is about the man whose son is being violently oppressed by an unclean spirit. Jesus had just experienced His transfiguration and had been visited by Moses and Elijah on the mountain (Mt Hermon is nearby the geographical location of these events).

What struck me were Jesus’ words to the father of the afflicted son and probably said for His disciples to hear as well: “Unbelieving and perverse generations, how long will I be with you, how long will I bear with you?”. Jesus equates “unbelieving, or faithlessness” with “perverseness”, and associates it with the generation He is with currently.

These are strong words from the Eternal Word of God in the Person of Christ! And they are targeted to God’s own covenant people, and if that wasn’t hard enough, to His disciples!

The point here is very clear: “unbelieve” in God’s perspective is “perverse”. We can see it in the context of the fall in the Garden (Gen 3). God had given leadership privilege and complete freedom of consumption of all His blessings to Adam and Eve. With only one prohibition. And the heart of men went straight to that prohibition showing a total disregard to all the permission granted to God for men’s own enjoyment in the garden!

No wonder unbelief in God is perverse!

The lesson for us today is that when we knowingly, or unwittingly enter into a state of unbelieving, God is unable to bless us. Instead, God considers our unbelief in Him, and His word, as perverseness! And His presence becomes distant. Heb 11:6 echoes loudly here; “without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to PLEASE GOD”!

My takeaway from this passage of Scripture is that the LORD has given us everything we need for life and godliness (2 Pet 1:3 & 4) by giving us Himself! God in Christ through His Spirit is God’s Package of Salvation (GPS), designed to bring us to Himself, here on earth, and eventually to an existence in His kingdom directly. Eternal life is not waiting for us. To have Christ is to have His eternal Spirit residing in our hearts by faith.

Faith truly is the secret “X” factor here. The factor that pleases God no end. Abraham “believed” God, and God counted that faith of Abraham as “righteousness” and made him the father of faith. And Galatians 3:26 affirms this glorious truth: “for through faith you are all sons of God in Christ Jesus.” A greater blessing that being heirs of Abraham.

Our flesh and blood and the attachment with physical and baser aspects of our interface with the world will constantly pull against faith. The Holy Spirit makes that much clear in Gal 5:17, “For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want.“

But because we have the Spirit, we also simultaneously have faith! No faith no Spirit, no Spirit no faith. They come together by God’s grace given through Christ, and His person of achieving a full orbed salvation for us in Him.

Identity in Christ and our union with Christ with the giving of the Spirit is the gift of the gospel. The gospel indicative that we must continuously live in. Christ is our cynefin (Welsh for habitat). Truly faith enables us to live in communion with the Triune God moment by moment. Faith has both a defensive as well as an offensive posture. By faith we endure the hostility of the flesh and satanic attacks by keeping our focus on the Word of God. And with the Word of God as a “sword of the Spirit”, we demolish strongholds and do the work of the kingdom of God.