![]() Whenever someone gets married, we say they are "taking the plunge," or making a "leap of faith." Everyone recognizes that going into marriage, you can't possibly know everything about the person that you are committing to spend your life with, and yet, we do it anyway. We admit we don't know it all, but that what we do know is enough. In the Bible, in the letter to the Hebrews, the 11th chapter and 1st verse, we read that "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," and in the sixth verse of the same chapter we learn that "Without faith, it is impossible to please God." As a parent, this makes complete sense to me: without my son having faith in me, he will never please me. Never. His faith in me is the evidence that we have a good relationship, that he acknowledges my love for him and my good intentions toward him. If he continually questions me and never trustfully relaxes in my presence, how could I ever be pleased with that relationship? It is the same in our relationship with God, our Father, and rightfully so. Similar to marriage, if we have committed to spend our lives with Him, what we do know about Him should be enough. That doesn't mean we stop getting to know Him after that commitment is made - most married couples learn far more about each other after the wedding day than they do before - but it does mean that we live out our days in both knowledge AND faith - growing in both, but not swerving from what we originally held to when we made that "leap of faith" to begin with. This reflection on faith, led me to look up places in the Bible that shed more light on the word. Here is what I learned: 1. Faith is more precious than gold. (1 Peter 1:7) 2. Faith results in the salvation of our souls. (1 Peter 1:9, Ephesians 2:8) 3. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world. (1 John 5:4) 4. Faith is required for miraculous healing. (Mark 10:52, Luke 8:48, Matthew 9:2, 22, 29, Matthew 8:5-13, Acts 6:8) 5. It doesn't take much faith (relatively speaking) to be able to live out life to the fullest (the size of a mustard seed would suffice). (Matthew 17:20) 6. Faith purifies and sanctifies hearts. (Acts 15:9, 26:18) 7. Local churches are established by faith. (Acts 16:5) 8. Faith brings comfort. (Romans 1:12) 9. Faith is counted as righteousness by God, which is good news because there is no one who actually IS righteous, not even one. (Romans 4:5-20) 10. Faith is the key that grants us access to God's grace. (Romans 5:2) 11. Things that don't come by faith, are often sinful. (Romans 14:23) 12. Faith exercised apart from love is worthless. (1 Corinthians 13:2) 13. There is only one true faith. (Ephesians 4:5) 14. Faith brings unity. (Ephesians 4:13) 15. Faith is a shield against the devil. (Ephesians 6:16) 16. God's promises are inherited through faith and patience. (Hebrews 6:12) 17. When faith is tested (and it WILL be tested), the believer acquires perseverance. (James 1:3) 18. Faith is a required prerequisite when asking God for wisdom. Faith that God is all-wise and that He willingly imparts wisdom to His children. (James 1:6) I also learned through studying the scriptures about faith that we have internal and external responsibilities once we have invested faith in God: Internally we are to:
Externally we are to:
It is a beautiful cycle - attending to our faith internally leads to a stronger desire to demonstrate our faith externally, and those experiences of acting on our faith in God fan the flame of our internal faith-walk even more, until 10-25-50 years later we celebrate anniversaries of faith in Christ and marvel at how much more precious He is to us now than he was when we first believed, and tell the world how glad we are that we took that leap of faith!
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Moving on to the second chapter of the book of James. What I am immediately confronted with is the idea of "favoritism." James gives the example of showing favor to a rich man who enters church - giving him the best seat and catering to him - while treating the poor man who enters with no respect. Hmmm, how does this apply to me. Well, if I am completely honest with myself, there is a segment of the population that I "prefer" to minister to. There are people who are easier for me to love on than others, and I confess that I tend to spend more of my time ministering to those folks than to those who are more challenging. Why do I do this? Is it because I am getting something in return? Am I discriminating in my acts of service by choosing to serve in ways that do not cause me discomfort? Hmmm, perhaps both at times. |
AuthorCarla Ritz. Proof positive that God uses cracked pots! Archives
June 2021
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