Okay, I’m five days into my readings in Romans and, as it does at some point every year, it hits me this morning — that overwhelmed feeling that I’m drinking from a theological fire hose. Man, oh man, this is deep and detailed! Clearly impossible, in just a devotional reading, to pick up everything Paul’s laying down. This morning’s drowning experience? Romans 4.

How many ways can you say “faith is counted as righteousness”? A lot, apparently. How many angles? Many. So how important is it to get this? Pretty!

But amidst all the faith facts this morning, it’s a five-word phrase that particularly grabs my attention.

[Abraham] received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

(Romans 4:11-12 ESV)

The footsteps of the faith . . . That’s what I’m chewing on this morning.

I’m guessing that many of us often think of faith as more mental assent than material action. But Paul reminds me this morning that faith has footsteps. While we might default to faith being about believing, it seems that the authors of Roman (the Spirit of God through the pen of Paul) want me to know that, like Abraham, faith is equally about behaving.

What Abraham was convinced was true was evident by how Abraham ordered his trek — he left his homeland for a promised land, “going not knowing” (Heb. 11:8). Though he and his wife were, naturally speaking, past their prime for child-bearing, they kept trying — trying to make life from dead bodies “fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised (Rom. 4:18-21). That’s why, writes Paul, “his faith was ‘counted to him as righteous'” (Rom. 4:22).

Footsteps of faith . . . it’s a thing. James would agree.

Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

(James 2:18b)

James is not saying that we should fake a walk in order to try and back up our talk, but that saving faith is saving faith because it manifests itself in set-apart footsteps.

John says it’s a thing, too. And a good thing, because the footsteps we’ve left are the frame of reference for drawing encouragement in those times when we falter.

Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before Him.

(1John 3:18 ESV)

Faith is more than belief; it is behavior. It is more than words; it is a way. It is more than just a creed; it directs our conduct.

Footsteps of faith . . .

Only by His grace. Only for His glory.