A Faith We Can Live By - Part 6

Faith works. That is the consistent teaching of Scripture. That is, though we are responsible to exercise faith in obedience to God's command (Acts 16:31), faith is a gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). And the salvation that comes by this graciously given faith that we exercise shows itself by our works.

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them" Ephesians 2:10.

Therefore, in all of our talk about trusting in the God who gives life to the dead and believing in order that we might become what God has willed and promised and having a faith that squarely faces the facts and growing strong in our faith by giving glory to God...in ALL of this we must remember that faith is NOT a PASSIVE thing that we just wait to be given or that we think the Spirit will somehow exercise for us. Nor must we think that a passive believing is full or genuine faith. Faith WORKS!

• Faith WORKS by OBEDIENCE to the Word of God because it believes that God's Way is best.
• Faith WORKS by standing up to thoughts that have haunted and crippled my walk with Christ and telling them the truth as it is in Jesus.
• Faith WORKS by holding onto God's PROMISES in the dark because it is convinced that God is fully able to do what He has promised.
• Faith WORKS by stepping through walls of the fear of man to witness to family and friends when I may be rejected for doing so.
• Faith WORKS by choosing to do the next thing I ought to do when I feel like taking a nap.
• Faith WORKS by loving that unlovable guy at church who is a human porcupine.
• Faith WORKS by making commitments to hospitality when a quiet, uncleaned house would be so much more comfortable.
• Faith WORKS by getting up 15 minutes earlier tomorrow to spend a little time in the Word of God seeking the OBJECT of saving and sanctifying faith.
• Faith WORKS by receiving a rebuke from my spouse or friend that is hard to take and thanking them for it.
• Faith WORKS by fasting in order to pray for missions when food is my dearest friend.
• Faith WORKS by submitting to the leaders in my local church because God tells me to, and refusing to criticize them or second guess them but rather to encourage and pray for them.

All these and a million other ways are ways that FAITH WORKS. This working faith and ONLY this working faith is a faith that we can live by.