Faith and Life: A Heavy Dose of the Faith, Please

If you've been following my blog for a while, you have probably caught on that I often see two sides of the coin when I look at faith matters.  We as humans tend to have a leaning toward one side of the coin or the other, and that means that those who fall on the other side often seem strange to us.  I've grown enough in my faith over the years to recognize that I also do that, but I have also started to see how the life and faith of a Christian really seems to be a kind of tightrope walk (which, incidentally, we never get right.  Only Jesus could walk it perfectly.)

Same thing when it comes to having faith and living our lives as Christians.  I come from a tradition that places a great deal of emphasis on faith.  You'd find statements like "We are saved by our faith, not by what we do."  While that is a completely true statement, those who follow it can find themselves letting the living out of their faith slide by with such a heavy dose of the faith side.  In a way, it can lead to a downplaying of doing the things that God says, or avoiding what He says to avoid, because, after all, we're saved by grace, through faith, not by what we do.

What do we do when we find our emphasis is a bit heavy on the faith side and the life side seems a bit short?  Well, we cannot go so far as to say that person doesn't really believe since they aren't living out their faith.  Yes, it is frustrating to see someone who says that they believe the Gospel message is the most important message of the world, but then keeps it quietly to themselves.  But we simply cannot say that this person doesn't really believe.  True, the actions may not completely reflect the belief, but then again, that's what our being sinful does to us.  It keeps us from doing what we should do.

Does this then serve as an adequate excuse?  Well, not really.  The truth is, there is a problem when faith is emphasized so much, and the corresponding life is not seen or witnessed.  The possible causes of it are truly without number.  Lack of knowledge, lack of confidence, lack of understanding of what the message really is, past experiences that turned out badly, all of these and more could explain why the confessed faith may not be actively seen in a person's life.  Does it indicate that there are problems?  Yes.  Do those problems necessarily negate faith?  That hardly seems to be the case.

You probably know people in your life that fit this description.  Perhaps a good thing for today would be to think about how to motivate them to bring that life element into line with their faith.