[431 words]
A ship wrecked off the Rhode Island coast, one winter day. A father and son managed to get into a lifeboat. The father refused to let his son help row. Upon reaching land, the father found his son frozen to death. The boy needed activity in order to live.
What is true of the physical body is true of the Body of Christ, the Church, there needs to be an active faith in following God.
Yet, what I often encounter with many people today who claim to be Believers, is that having “faith” simply means that one just acknowledges that there is a Christ. Some today think that if you merely confess that Jesus is one’s Savior, and you pray that He will come into your heart, you will be saved. That just going to a church building is good enough to express one’s faith in God. That if you give a little money here and there to the church everything will be alright with God.
However, the Bible gives many powerful examples of active faith. For example, in Hebrews 11 we find those who followed God had an active faith like Abel, Noah, Abraham, and many others. As we continue to read Hebrews 11, we see these people of faith lives’’ were filled with the struggles of life, persecution, loneliness, and even death for following the Lord. Yet they made offerings, built things, went to foreign countries, obeyed, worked, and refused the pressures of life to show the world and even us today what it is to have faith in God.
In God’s Word, faith is action, obedience, it is a response to God and not just a mental belief alone. Our faith in Christ causes us to act in ways God has prescribed and Christianity, then becomes an active lifestyle.
So, is an active faith important?
“And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him… And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight” (Hebrews 11:6; 32-40 NASB).
The Bible says in Hebrews 11 that an active faith pleases God. I want to please God, don’t you?
Mark T. Tonkery
Camden Avenue church of Christ
Parkersburg, WV