Surface Faith vs Real Faith

January 25, 2026

Pastor Cleve Masten presented today's message, "Surface Faith vs Real Faith." A video of today's message is here on YouTube. It may help to be familiar with the message but that is not required to enjoy the thoughts below.

Pastor Cleve mentioned toward the end of his message that the church was about to embark on a message series about wisdom (I suspect you won't want to miss this). Along with that he spoke about "the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom" (Proverbs 9:10). That's what I'd like to focus on in this essay; fear of God and wisdom.

Back in 2023, I wrote: "Josh mentioned 'all begins with fear of God.' The Torah would say 'Amen!' The ONLY entity to have at the peak of your value pyramid, who you're most worried about how they think of you, is God; not co-workers, not the public, not 'religious people,' not environmentalists, not artists, not professors or teachers, not the famous, not naturalists, not bureaucrats or politicians, not journalists or bloggers - nothing and no one else."

The Hebrew word for fear in the Proverbs reference above is yirah (יִרְאָה). Most of the discussion of yirah (at least in Strongs Concordance) focuses not on fear but on awe-filled reverence and piety that leads to loving obedience. "The word therefore gathers together emotion, intellect, and will: the heart is struck by God's glory, the mind acknowledges His authority, and the life aligns with His ways."

Here's a message response I wrote in 2022 worth re-reading in light of the upcoming series: about wisdom.

How you handle the advice to fear the Lord, understand His wisdom, and behave accordingly will determine in large part on which list you end up.

Bonus

Messy Prayers, Loud Tables, Open Doors

Rebecca St. James and Dr. Danny Huerta of Focus on the Family recently interviewed Don Everts about his new book, The Spiritually Vibrant Home. This YouTube video, "How to Build a Spiritually Vibrant Home" is part of a Focus on the Family series called "Practice Makes Parents^TM." The video runs about 44 minutes.

Here are some notes I took watching the video:

The participants discuess what Everts' research reveals about what faith vibrant households have in common. They can be summed up as Messy Prayers, Loud Tables, and Open Doors.

Family prayer life doesn't have to be big, Maybe just do things like "we're going on a trip... I think someone should pray."

There are many household images in Bible stories. Households in those days were "huge" (50+ people), the extended family plus strangers and workers. Household building is the key. "Household" is mentioned about 2100 times in the Old (bayith, בּיִת) and New Testaments (oikos, οἶκος). Everts suggests its the model most often used to describe the Kingdom.

The more legs on the stool the more stable. The higher the parent:teen ratio the better. It's OK to bring in others (friends, etc.) as support. Add other Christian adults to the table now and then.

Just be in the game; you don't have to be perfect.

"Food and Fun" is a great catalyst for building a spiritually vibrant home. Eat together and enjoy each other. Conversation will come.

Maybe get a deck of cards with spiritual starter questions. Pick one and go!

Grandparents have an "in" in person or otherwise.

What Everts means by "spiritual conversation" has a very low bar. Basically, any related topic (not theological), just "faith adjacent" is good The more people in an out of the house (e.g.visitors and friends), the more faith forms in the family - even if they're not religious. Tutors, helpes, kids friends, etc. all count. "Hospitality" in Greek is philoxenos (φιλόξενος) and carries a meaning of "loving strangers."

Isolation is a risk factor for spirituality.

Imperfect efforts are still efforts that can pay off.

One idea for a conversation/prayer-starter: put lots of names on popsicle sticks and pull one out at family gatherings to pray for.

Take stuff that you already do and just nudge it a little in the direction of spirituality.

Suggestions for how to navigate differences of opinion: food and fun, recognize that not everyone will have the same comfort level talking spiritually, and friends can be better spiritual partners than you are as a parent, and that's OK.

Learn to pray blessings while putting on the backpacks and at other similar quick/easy moments in the day. "God bless you today" (detailed or not). The Bible has many blessings that start with "May you...".

Research shows that kids from spiritually strong families tend to thrive.