I really hope you're happy!

In Westerhoff's levels of faith, he talked about "affiliative faith." It is a faith we have simply because of our desire to affiliate with certain people. People we like, agree with, or even family. We connect with them, agree with them, and have our faith supported by them. It's nice, even biblical to a point, but it's not an "owned faith." It's a faith of association, identification, and acceptance. Again, it's part of God's plan, because He wants us to be with folks who will encourage, edify, and equip us, but the goal is to have a faith that is our own - that is a personal walk with God. Look at Eph.4:11-16 again and the goal is clearly maturity, Christ-like, and the headship of Jesus.

I made the observation in a lesson yesterday while talking about Romans 1:16 (as part of a lesson on vs.8-17), that being ashamed of the gospel (i.e. being a Christian, Jesus, representing His point of view, etc.) is a good indication that our faith is affiliative rather than owned. How hard is it to have faith when you're around faithful people? How do you know that what you have is real faith? How do we know we have convictions and not co-dependency? I have struggled with this regularly through the years because I know how driven I am to be a people pleaser (yes kids, it's in your genes). When you are primarily around other Christians, and you want them to think highly of you, it gets easy to be driven by acceptance rather than a genuine Christ-likeness. If it is not real faith, we become like whoever we happen to be with at the time. On the other hand, if we do have an authentic faith, if we do sense His presence wherever and with whomever we are around - even when we are alone, then there is a consistency of life in our example, our witness, and our hearts. Can we truly say we are seeking Him if He is not the one we want to please - first? Authentic faith can only come from an authentic relationship with God and Jesus. If God is happy, God's people will be happy. Everyone else is a prospect.