Exert from: Weekly blog letter by Latayne C. Scott, 2/21/2025

    The more I teach about the Phases of Faith, the richer it gets for me and others. For instance, young Representational thinker and friend Caylen Boyles knocked my socks off recently with his observation that obeying Phase One commandments can look different on different people.
      At first I disagreed in my mind, thinking, “A commandment is a commandment—you either obey it or you don’t.” But as Caylen and I explored it, that’s not the way the Bible depicts it.
      The master in the Parable of the Talents had the same Phase One expectation of each of his servants—they should turn a profit on his money—but He didn’t give them the same amounts to work with.
My daily Bible reading for the day seemed almost eerily applicable. (I love it when that happens, don’t you?). Romans 12, while beginning to talk about service and self-sacrifice and humility, knocked my socks off again! Let’s look at a literal translation: “For through the grace having been given to me, I say to everyone being among you, not to be high-minded above what it behooves you to think, but to think so as to be sober-minded, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”
I looked at this verse in all kinds of translations, and every one carries the idea that there’s a metric, an amount, a measured quantity of faith given to each of us. That means Phase One faith can be measured, at least by comparison, between individuals. That led to Caylen’s second observation: If your Phase One measure of faith differs from someone else’s, your Phase Three Resolution will look different.

• Bingo: Parable of the Talents.
• Bingo: Romans 12—Different ministries.

Have you ever wondered why some of us have four-alarm conflagrations at intervals, and dumpster fires in between, our whole durn lives long? And others, at least by comparison, lead relatively peaceful lives?
And all of us can stand shoulder to shoulder with perfect faith in God? It’s not just that some people, who survive the fires and emerge still trusting God, mustered up more faith. I’m concluding that they were GIVEN more faith to begin with.
Because I’ve had this roller coaster life doesn’t mean I am better than anyone else. It means I came pre-loaded with faith enough to survive. It means that God loves me and calls me a “good and faithful servant” JUST EXACTLY as much as He approves of the one whose life has had different and perhaps less spectacular trials.
. . .I put it this way: God loves simple people with simple and genuine faith JUST EXACTLY AS MUCH as He loves those we call the heroes of faith. Where much is given, much is expected.
​ And the converse has to be true: when the measure given is less, the Master goes easy on them. Win-Win.
What do you think? Does this not comfort and humble you?
 

 

"There is no scarcity. There is no shortage. No lack of love, of compassion, of joy in the world. There is enough. There is more than enough. Only fear and greed make us think otherwise. No one need starve. There is enough land and enough food. No one need die of thirst. There is enough water. No one need live without mercy. There is no end to grace. And we are all instruments of grace. The more we give it, the more we share it, the more we use it, the more God makes. There is no scarcity of love. There is plenty. And always more."
-- Rosemarie Freeney Harding (1930-2004)


Psalm 97:10-12
O you who love the Lord, hate evil!
    He preserves the lives of his saints;
    he delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
Light is sown for the righteous,
    and joy for the upright in heart.
Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous,
    and give thanks to his holy name!