faith is not a meritorious act

I've been thinking about many of your posts, especially Caron's reflections on the pride we can find in being "saved" (cf. Mandy Moore movie). As both an upstanding Christian at my Christian school (which was, in my view, ever slipping closer to complete depravity) and an upstanding Christian at my secular prep school (already totally lost, of course) I felt a great deal of subtle pride in being a good kid. I think it stemmed from a strong life-of-the-mind and self-consciousness of belief.

In "The Pursuit of God," A.W. Tozer says, "Faith is not in itself a meritorious act; the merit is in the One toward whom it is directed. Faith is a redirecting of our sight ... sin has twisted our vision inward and made it self-regarding."

Sin can twist our vision of our own faith inward, so we focus on our faith as fact, as identity, and as an end, rather than actually directing our actions and thoughts to God. At a conference at Georgetown last week, Evangelicals and Muslims came together and had an honest conversation about the nature of faith and witness. The Muslims exhorted us to think about faith as action, not as belief. Without abandoning the creeds, I think there's some truth to that.