Faith Without What?!

Hey family and friends! Hope everyone is well!

I just want to share a couple of cool things about my life as of recently!

We are still in Guatemala and still doing great! I fall in love with Jesus over and over again every day! I have learned even more about God and who he is and it has just been so awesome!

I went through a phase of slight confusion and frustration that came out of that confusion about the correlation between faith and deeds. There isn’t really a specific example to share, but I’ll just say I think I was misunderstanding some things I was hearing. I was hearing the truth about God’s grace and how we don’t and cannot do anything to receive more grace or more love from God. Those things are true, but I was misinterpreting those things and thinking it meant not to do anything as a Christian. What I mean by that is not doing any works for Christ. I also had to realize that the works we do for Christ are not to receive any more grace or love, but those works accompany our faith.

I learned again that faith without work is dead. “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James 2:17) I realized that having faith in things alone is not worth it at all, because what kind of faith is that? I also realized that actions without faith aren’t worth it either, because what kind of actions are those?
If you’re a reader who is a little confused about faith, read this. Faith is defined by the Bible pretty clearly. Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” NIV. What may be an example of this? Well, let’s keep reading at verse 3. “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” So having faith can be believing that God created the universe with a command. This is because we haven’t seen it, we don’t really know for sure, but we are sure of it, and we are certain of it, and we trust in the Word of God. This is faith.

I will also mention two verses and let them speak for themselves. “What good is it, dear brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such a faith save him?” (James 2:14) and “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephessians 2:10)

Ok, something practical for me in my life is hearing the Lord’s voice. If I hear something in my head that I think is the voice of God but I’m not sure, what do I do? First, I think does it line up with the Bible. Did the voice say something that lines up scripturally? Second, if it is scripturally sound to my knowledge, I make sure it is accurate to what I know about God in my life. This is because my relationship with God is personal and no one else has my same relationship with God. If I believe it to be who God is, I have to have faith that it is him, and then take an action out of my faith.

So yeah, there’s a glimpse into my life. Thanks for reading!

Don’t be afraid.
Colin