Bible
Study: Hebrews 4, 1 to 5 and 11. Mark 2, 1 to 12.
If you
were asked to choose between two men picked at random from the crowd, the one
who is born again and the one who isn’t, I guess, you will have a hard time
knowing which. Dear friends, the one thing that distinguishes a born again
Christian is the content of his or her heart – what we believe, the truths we
hold on to and the values we cherish. In one word, it is our “Faith” that makes
us different from the world.
Quite often,
when the word “faith” is mentioned, there is a tendency for us to start thinking
of how God is going to supply our needs in his abundance, or to start thinking
of how we are to ask, to seek and knock and it will be given to us. We only
think of Faith in terms of what we stand to gain from God but the truth is that
Faith goes beyond all these. Your faith is your philosophy of life. Your faith
is the summary of the values and truths that you consider unshakable. If I feel
comfortable dressing half naked for instance, it is a statement of my faith; a
statement of what I believe about covering my body.
Faith is
what we believe about how best to live. There is a modern day crisis of faith
among Christians. We claim to believe in God yet we live as if God does not
exist. We go to Church to pray, we clap, we kneel, we speak in tongues, we even
cry, raise our hands and worship. But when we step out of the Church, we forget
that the same God to whom we have prayed to, also gave us commandments on how
to live. Our actions betray our faith or to put it in a better way, our actions
reveal our true faith. Our sinful actions reveal that we really don’t believe
there is God and we don’t believe God can punish us for the wrongs we do. Our
sinful actions reveal our true definition of God – a magic wand we wave each
time we want some goodies; money, job, breakthrough, provision, healing and so
on.
Faith is
something visible. It cannot be hidden. In the story of the four men who
brought their friend to Jesus through the roof, Mark tells us that Jesus SAW
THEIR FAITH. (Mk 2:5) The action of these four men was a loud proclamation of their
faith. Mind you, it was not only these four men whose faith were visible. Jesus
also saw the faith of the scribes who were sitting there questioning in their
hearts. The scribes said nothing but even in their silence, Jesus could see their
faith – the fact that they did not believe Jesus had the power to forgive sins –
the fact that they concluded Jesus was blaspheming. We may participate actively
in the church, we may even be scribes or important personalities in the church
but it is our faith (the content of our hearts), that matter.
Our faith,
just like our sinfulness is always visible to God. The paralytic said nothing
yet Jesus could see that his physical paralysis was child’s play compared to
his spiritual paralysis. Hence, the first thing Jesus did was to absolve him of
sins before going on to healing. The crisis of modern day Christianity is that
we place so much emphasis on physical healing at the expense of spiritual
healing. The truth is that every sin we commit is a direct report of how much
faith we have in God. If we really believe God exists, then we would be too afraid
to offend him and still act as if all is well.
Poverty is
not a curse. It is living in sin that is a curse. It is not the will of God
that every Christian should be a millionaire but it is the will of God that
every Christian should live a sinless life. If there was anything wrong with
being poor, then Jesus would never have chosen to be the son of carpenter or be
born in a manger. The greatest lie in modern day Christianity is that faith and
poverty are not compatible. That you have faith does not mean you can no longer
be poor, or that you can no longer lack job, life partner or children and so on.
Faith is
not a magical cloth that lifts you above troubles and difficulties in life,
instead Faith is that which keeps you away from making choices contrary to the
moral law. Jesus did not come to make us all millionaires, he came to make us
all “perfect (sinless) as God is perfect.” This is the Good News. Just as the
letter to the Hebrews testifies, this is a message that only requires faith to
accept. Hebrews 4:2 “For indeed the good news came to us just as to them; but
the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by
faith with those who listened.”
Let us pray:
Lord Jesus, may my faith reflect on my choices in life. Amen.
Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith.
It is well with you. God bless you.
Fr. Abu.
No comments:
Post a Comment