Well, it’s my experience that most people don’t really want
to hear the truth. They don’t mind the
truth as long as it’s for someone else.
Or as long as they can just listen to it. They will nod their heads and mentally
agree. You see we read scriptures, we
hear the voice of God, what some would call our conscience, we hear messages on
Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights.
All of these things call us to some sort of action. Are we going to act on that scripture we just
read, obey the voice we just heard, do something about that message we just
got? Maybe…. Just maybe.
Well, I just learned something that others may already
know. It was like a lightning bolt for
me and it all came from a statement my pastor made this Sunday. He said Faith is ACTING on what you
believe. Here I am, all these years,
thinking that faith was believing. I
would think, before I do this, or before I try and do that, I must make sure that I have enough faith so
I don’t fall on my face, thinking I have faith and don’t have it or don’t have
enough of it.
Then I came to understand that faith is not even realized if there is no
action. The whole meaning of the word
implies action. I never thought of it
like that before but it’s the truth.
Remember the scripture that says faith without works is dead being
alone? ( James 2:14-26)
So no one ever really explained to me that there were two
categories of faith. There is the Corpse
Faith and the Active Faith. See , corpse
faith is like carrying around a dead guy.
He’s useless, it’s just a weight.
There is no life to it. Yeah, it
exists but nothing good can come from it.
Nothing live or tangible can come from a corpse. Well, we all have dreams and ambitions and
things we’re going to do “someday.”
Well, if you're carrying those dreams around in your head, planning and
re-planning or fantasizing about the end result of your dream, and no one has ever told you- then I’m here
to tell you, your dreams are dead. They
are a corpse you are carrying around and it’s dead weight. If you don’t actually intend on doing
something tangible about those dreams or goals, bury that corpse and don’t dig
it up. Your just kidding yourself and burning
up emotional energy that could be better used for another area of your life. Free up some space to focus on what you can
actually ACT on. Leave the other stuff
with the trash because just believing is not faith.
You can believe in a lot of things, doesn’t mean they are going to come
to pass.
See, Faith is believing in what you can not see and then
acting as if it's going to be. Faith starts
with a hope for something in the
future. It’s very similar to setting
goals. What differentiates faith from
goals is that goals can be achieved by your abilities, your planning, your
discipline and within your control. When
you want something in the future that you don’t currently possess, and the
something you want is outside of your abilities, outside of your control,
beyond what you can do with your strategic and logical planning, you need
help. You need assistance from someone
who has power that you do not possess on your own.
Now, since God is the source of all power and all power is
ordained by him ( Romans 13:1 ), then we must simply ask God to give us the help we
need. Now you’re starting to move
towards live faith. You believe in God, you know he exists, you know He has
power, and now you’re putting your hope in His power. You’re betting against the odds (because you
can’t see it just yet) that God is going
to do it. So now your praying a little
more, you’re just a little more alert, you’re looking for opportunities, waiting for
His voice. Next, something is telling
you what you MUST do. You know you have
got to get out of your comfort zone. Now
you’re back to the beginning of the article, are you going to ACT on what you
believe? This is the moment of decision, critical mass, the difference between
live faith and corpse faith is right here.
What I’d call mid- faith is right when you’re in the middle
of your faith. You’ve got to get pass
all doubts that it’s not going to happen.
You must continue to believe although you still have yet to see
your dream come to pass. Whether you are going to keep pushing and
believing until the end of your faith is a decision you are going to have to
make. We've read the story of Peter stepping out in Faith on the water. When the winds and waves ( which represent opposition or distraction) begin to mount, we must keep our eyes on the prize and focus.
A key thing that we often overlook, is that God gets so much
pleasure out of this process of Live Faith.
If you don’t have live faith, you can not please God. (Hebrews 11:6)
However, if you do have live faith, you have already acknowledged that you
need God and your action proves to God that you believe in Him. If you can prove something to Him, you can bet
your bottom dollar, He’s going to prove something to you. You are going to actually experience what you
started out hoping for. This proves to
you that you can indeed trust God.
So, you took a journey.
It was a trip. Some trips take
longer than others, nevertheless, if you keep pushing forward, you get to your
destination. You started out hoping for
something to come to pass, then you started to believe that it could come to
pass, but you realized that you weren’t powerful enough to make it happen so you
asked God for His help. You continued to
believe that He would help you, so you listened to your heart and you knew what you needed to
do and you actually did it. You gave God
so much pleasure by believing in Him that He showed up with His Power and
caused your hopes and dreams to be realized. You trust Him even more now and He’s waiting
for your next Act.
