Jesus is the Perfecter of our Faith: Look away unto Him and Live by Faith in Trials

Jesus is the Perfecter of our faith; He’s not only the Author but also the Finisher, the Completer of our faith, and we need to cooperate with Him daily to contact the living God so that we may have Him increased in us, for the way to receive faith is to contact its source, Christ Himself, by calling on Him, praying to Him, and pray-reading His word.

Oh Lord, thank You for initiating our faith, infusing us with faith, causing us to grow in faith, perfecting our faith, and even completing our faith! Keep us coming to You in all things! Keep us calling on Your name! May we be infused with Yourself as our faith so that we may be motivated to live the Christian life and serve the Lord in faith! Amen!

We believers in Christ are those who are looking away unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith. We look to Jesus with undivided attention, turning away from every other object, so that we may be infused with Him and run the heavenly race.

The wonderful Jesus is enthroned in heaven and is also in our spirit; He is the greatest attraction in the universe, and we can look away unto Him! Amen!

Our Christian life is a race, and we Christians must run the race with endurance so that we may win the prize.

We need to put away any encumbering weight and any entangling sin, and simply look away unto Jesus to be infused with Him to run the race.

We run with endurance, being led into the endurance of Christ. The Lord Jesus is the Author of faith; He’s the Originator and Inaugurator of faith, and He is the source and cause of our faith.

Our faith is actually not ours; it is Christ coming into us to believe in us and for us.

In ourselves, in our natural man, we have no believing ability, but when we look away unto Jesus, He transfuses us with Himself, and He becomes our believing ability.

Christ infused into us becomes our faith. Faith is a substantiating ability which makes the things of God and His economy real to us. But when we turn from unseen things to the things which are seen, we enter degradation.

Faith is to believe that God is; without faith it is impossible to please God and make Him happy. But when we believe that God is and we are not, when we deny ourselves and let Christ live in us, we live by faith.

Thank the Lord that He is the great I AM, and we believe that He is and we are not. In the whole universe, Christ is. We are not, but He is. He is everything, and we are nothing. Praise the Lord!

Continually Look Away unto Jesus for Him to Complete our Faith: Jesus is the Perfecter of our Faith

On the one hand, Jesus is the Author of our faith; on the other hand, Jesus is also the Perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:2). He is the Author and the Originator, and He is also the Completer. He finishes what He begins.

He initiated faith in us, He perfects this faith in us, and He brings us on to maturity until we become useful in His hands.

On our side, as those who have received the Lord’s mercy to have Him infused into us as our faith, we simply need to look away unto Jesus.

As we look away unto Jesus continually, He will finish and complete the faith that we need for the running of the heavenly race (Heb. 12:1-2).

If we just look away from anything else unto Jesus, He will finish and complete the faith in us. It is not our striving and our struggling. It is not our doing our best to please God.

We simply need to come to the Lord in prayer and in the Word to enjoy Him. As we open to the Lord and enjoy Him, He infuses us with the faith we need to run the race.

On our side, we need to exercise our spirit as we pray to the Lord, fellowship with Him, pray over the Bible, attend church meetings, listen to spiritual messages, and read spiritual books.

Our faith comes from Him; we need to actively be under the hearing of faith, exercising to contact the Lord by calling on His name and pray-reading His word.

When we look away unto Him, Christ ministers heaven, life, and strength to us. He transfuses and infuses us with all that He is so that we may be able to run the heavenly race and live the heavenly life on earth (2 Cor. 3:18).

The more we look away unto Jesus and behold His face, the more we reflect Him. As we look away unto Him, He infuses us with what He is for us to grow in life, be brought to maturity, and be perfected in our faith.

May we come to the Lord again and again throughout the day. May we open to Him to have Him infused into us and let Him grow in us. As He grows in us, He perfects our faith; Jesus is the Perfecter of our faith.

Day by day we believers in Christ are under the Lord’s perfecting until we meet Him on the day of our rapture or until we die.

Jesus is the Author and Perfecter of our faith, and we cooperate with Him by contacting Him continually and looking away unto Him.

We all have received the same faith in quality; however, the quantity of faith we have depends upon how much we contact the living God so that we may have Him increased in us (Rom. 12:3).

We need to contact the living God through calling on His name, reading the Bible with the exercise of our spirit, meeting with the saints, and pray-reading the Word of God.

Faith in the progressing stage comes through our contacting the Triune God, who is faith in us (1 Thes. 5:17).

How can we receive faith? How can we grow in faith? How can we be perfected in faith? The way to receive faith is to contact its source, which is the Lord Himself!

Christ as the processed and consummated God is the source of our faith, and when we call on His name, pray to Him, and pray-read the Word, our faith increases (Heb. 4:2, 16; Rom. 10:12; 2 Tim. 2:22; Eph. 6:17-18).

May we continue to contact the Lord throughout the day. May we exercise our spirit of faith to read and pray His word, call on His name, and let Him grow in us so that faith may grow in us.

When we contact the Lord, He will overflow within us, and there will be a mutuality of faith among us (Rom. 1:12; Philem. 6).

Then, when we come together and we all exercise our spirit of faith to testify of what we have enjoyed and experience of Christ in spirit, we are encouraged by the faith which is in one another.

As we daily contact the Lord, we receive faith, we grow in faith, and faith overflows in us. And when we come together, we are encouraged by the faith which is in one another!

Lord Jesus, thank You for initiating faith in us and praise You that You are also perfecting our faith! Hallelujah, Jesus is the Author and Perfecter of our faith! Amen, Lord, we look away unto You continually so that we may be infused with faith, grow in faith, and have our faith increased! Praise the Lord, when we look away unto Jesus, He ministers heaven, life, and strength into us! Oh Lord, transfuse us and infuse us with all that You are so that we may run the heavenly race and live the heavenly life on earth! Amen, Lord, we want to have faith increased in us! May the quantity of faith increase in us by our contacting the living God! Oh Lord, we come to You to contact You as the source of faith. We call on Your name. We pray to enjoy You. We pray-read Your word. Flow in us! Overflow in us! May faith increase in us! Amen, Lord, may You have a way to overflow within us so that there would be a mutuality of faith among us! Praise the Lord, when we come together, we are encouraged through the faith which is in one another!

Live by Faith during Trials and be Motivated by Faith to give our All for the Lord

We believers in Christ are a people of faith; we live a life by faith, for we daily contact the Lord to be infused with Him as our faith, and we live in the organic union with the Lord.

Faith, therefore, is everything to us in our Christian life. We have fellowship in faith. We exercise our spirit of faith. And in particular, we live by faith in trials. We are learning to live by faith even when we are in trials.

Our way, on the one hand, is the way of faith. On the other hand, the motivation for us to take this way depends on our knowledge and revelation of the Son of God.

When we look away unto Jesus, setting our eyes on Him, we are filled with appreciation for Him, and we have a rich knowledge and enjoyment of Him.

The Son of God should always be set before us; our mind and emotion should be occupied with Him, and what we gaze at and observe should be the Lord Himself.

He is the attraction and the motivation. The Lord Jesus attracts us to walk the way that is set before us.

The Lord Jesus gives us the motivation that we need to walk this way of faith, simply by our looking away unto Jesus (Heb. 12:2).

On the positive side, He motivates us by infusing us with Himself for us to run the race and serve the Lord faithfully. On the other hand, the Lord tests the faith of those who serve Him. He takes us through various trials and sufferings.

He may even place us into periods of longer and more difficult trials. Some of the trials will affect our feelings, and they will cause us to lose our interest in serving the Lord, even to lose our sense of sweetness in taking this way.

We may even lose our sense of encouragement from the Lord. We may experience trials in the problems in our family or problems related to our health.

Some trials may be related to material things and financial matters. The Lord is faithful to try our faith so that we learn to live by faith during trials. We may experience poverty and hardships.

Some trials may be related to our work for the Lord; we may lack power and light, and we may be unclear concerning the Lord’s leading.

Our present situation will change, and we will not be able to touch what the Lord’s heart is, nor know what to do.

We may experience trials related to the result of our work; we may labour and work without seeing many results.

We may experience trials at work, with our co-workers; they may neither understand us nor sympathise with us or open to us. All these are trials.

Through all these trials, the desire of the Lord’s heart is to mature us, to do His work, and for us to gain spiritual weight. He is determined to bring us into trials. He brings us into a situation in which we cannot follow our feelings.

May we look away unto Jesus in all these things. As we go through all kinds of human experiences and difficulties, as we go through testing and trials, may we realise that it’s time for us to just look away unto Jesus!

He is the Author and Perfecter of our faith. He infuses us with the faith that we need at that moment. We may have difficulties which we may think we cannot bear; may we just look away unto Jesus!

He’s not expecting us to try harder, do better, or pull ourselves out of the problems and overcome; He simply wants us to look away unto Jesus! May we open to Him! May we call on His name!

May we realise that our regenerated spirit – our spirit of faith – is the victory that overcomes the Satan-organised-and-usurped world (1 John 5:4).

May we touch the Lord in a deeper way. May we exercise our spirit of faith to turn to Him and enjoy Him!

This great, irrepressible, and unlimited power of faith will motivate us to suffer for the Lord, endure trials, and even risk our life for Him!

Once we touch the Lord and are infused with Him as our faith, we have the power to overcome and be His sent ones, even His martyrs for the carrying out of God’s eternal economy, which is in faith (Luke 18:8; Phil. 2:30; Rom. 16:3-4; Acts 20:24; 1 Tim. 1:4).

Thousands throughout the ages have touched the Lord in a genuine way by faith, were infused with God as their faith, and were motivated to live for the Lord, overcome for Him, and even suffer for the Lord.

They were in danger, being persecuted, and even martyred; the ability to endure in all these things comes from faith, and faith comes from our touching Christ, for in this touch we are infused with what He is to fulfil His purpose.

As we see in Mark 6, we are like the Lord’s disciples on the boat in the middle of a stormy sea, even on the last part of the journey.

The Lord is waiting for us on the other side.

We may be afraid because of the storm and we may be fearful because of the waves, but we simply need to look away unto Jesus and let Him come into our boat, and when He comes in, the storm is calmed down.

May we take Him into our boat by faith and may we let Him lead us to the other side, all the way to the end, through all the storms.

Lord Jesus, we want to live a life by faith in You. Grant us the experiences we need for us to live not in and for ourselves but by faith in Christ. We love You, Lord, and we give ourselves to You today. We exercise our spirit, our regenerated spirit, so that we may overcome in all situations. Oh Lord, we depend on You in all things. We do not look at the trials and the storms. We look away unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith! Amen, Lord, we look away unto You from any other thing, for only You are the Author of our faith and only You can perfect our faith! Hallelujah, the great, irrepressible and unlimited power of faith motivates us to suffer for the Lord and endure any trials! Praise the Lord, when we touch Christ, everything of Him is transmitted into us, and we have the power to endure trials and live a life by faith, even in the midst of the storm! Oh Lord, we turn to You! We invite You into our boat. We give You the first place. We look away unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith!

Read this article in the Romanian language – citiți acest articol în limba română la următorul link, Isus este Desăvârșitorul credinței noastre: privim țintă la El și trăim prin credință în încercări.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brother Ray Mulligan on this topic, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans,” ch. 9, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ (part 3 – 2025 Summer Training), week 32, Looking Away unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of Our Faith – day 6.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – There’s a race for us to run—Hallelujah, / And a way for us the race to win. / To all those who have begun—Hallelujah, / God has spoken, “Look away to Him!” … / Look away into His face—Hallelujah, / He who’ll finish what He did begin. / O what grace to run the race—Hallelujah— / We obtain by looking off to Him! (Hymns #1206 stanzas 1 and 5)
  – Savior, I by faith am touching / Thee, the source of every good; / Virtue now, by faith am claiming, / Through the cleansing of Thy blood. / Touching Thee, new life is glowing / By Thy Spirit’s burning flame; / Cleansing, purging, Spirit filling, / Glory to Thy Holy Name! (Hymns #559 stanza 1 and chorus)
  – Oh, blissful lack of wisdom, / ’Tis blessed not to know; / He holds me with His own right hand, / And will not let me go, / And lulls my troubled soul to rest / In Him who loves me so. / So on I go not knowing; / I would not if I might; / I’d rather walk in the dark with God / Than go alone in the light; / I’d rather walk by faith with Him / Than go alone by sight. (Hymns #711 stanzas 3-4)