Alas, God tests our faith as well. The faith in Jesus who had suffered the cross for our sins and in the forgiveness of our daily shortcomings is what we are given to believe, but we also need to believe in Jesus’ teaching of righteousness, similar to how Abraham believed. The biblical account of Abraham’s life gives us the right to state about him as being a righteous man and not only by his faith but his deeds as well. If God in Christ says, deny yourselves, take up your cross, and follow me, then we need to believe this teaching and follow Abraham’s example of walking by faith. If the apostle tells us to keep ourselves from guilt of sexual immorality, or greed, or idolatry, or drunkenness, or swindles, then we need to believe him as well and follow his example of living in Christ Jesus. When we try to keep ourselves from the evil of this world, it indicates that we have the same faith that Abraham had; and God the Father counts our faith for perfect righteousness.

I was born in Moscow during the soviet union era; as to my religious background, I was baptized at an early age as an orthodox Christian. In fact, I had not known the salvation of God in Christ Jesus as well as many of my countrymen at that unfavorable time. I received a common diploma from high school and later the diploma of a pilot engineer.

In short, I was engaged with the Russian Air Force for almost 18 years. Serving as a jet pilot I had amazing fun and immensely stressful situations at the same time. While piloting a jet outside of a large Mongolian town, I experienced what would prove to be a turning point for the rest of my life. Due to a misunderstanding, my “Su” was clipped by the jet of my wingman at around 1200 feet above...