THINKING AND ACTING - FAITH AND WORKS

So far I have been highlighting the importance of paradigms of thinking and how they affect our lives. Before I go on and describe some of these faulty paradigms, I felt that I needed to insert a post on the importance of our actions. Correct knowledge, right paradigms of thinking are extremely important. But they are only half of the deal. Knowledge needs to be acted upon to become effective in our lives. Faith without works is dead. Once we get hold of the truth in the Word of God, we need to start living it out; otherwise it will do us no good.

Rich without knowing it

Let me illustrate what I mean with the following story that I read in one of my devotionals: There was this uneducated, simple lady, living in Europe somewhere, about a hundred years or so ago. Her son went off to America and became rich and successful. He kept in touch with his mother, sending her kind letters. In the letters there were always included some nice looking pieces of paper with pictures and numbers on it. The lady treasured the letters and the pictures. One day her pastor was visiting and she showed him the letters and the pictures. When he saw the “pictures” he exclaimed: Woman, you are rich! This is American money. You can exchange that in the bank and buy whatever you like! – She was rich, but she didn’t know it. She was ignorant of it, and so all these riches didn’t really change her life for the better until somebody came along and told her the truth.

My story

In so many ways this is my story. I always had the bible with its great and exceeding promises. I knew that the bible was the love letter of God to me. I loved His letters of love and kindness, acceptance and forgiveness. But I didn’t know that enclosed in that love letter was much more than words of love. I didn’t know that I was rich as well. Well, let me rephrase it. I think I was even aware of the fact that these riches are somehow there for me. The problem was I didn’t know how to cash them, how to make them work in my life. The Freedom in Christ Course started to open my eyes as to how I could actually start to avail of the riches that are ours in Christ. The main thing is FAITH – accompanied by ACTION. Although this story involves money, this is a parable. I hope you can see that I am not writing about getting selfish and covetous. I am talking about the blessings that are promised to us in the Bible by faith.

A parable on knowledge and action

I think this story is a great parable about these paradigm shifts that I am writing about. Our thinking and acting determines if we can ever get into the will of God for our lives and walk in it. We don’t accidentally “slide” into it. We have to “know” certain truths and then we have to “act” in a certain way in order to get the full benefit of the Gospel.

This woman knew that her son loved her, that he was doing well there in the states and that he wanted her to do well too. He sent her American money. Obviously, he wanted her to cash the money and buy stuff of necessity for herself and others. But here was her problem. She was ignorant of the fact that the “pictures” in the letters were really money. Somebody had to tell her that. She needed revelation on that truth. – However, that was only the first step. Knowing that she was rich would not have helped her one bit if she wouldn’t go and find out, how she could actually cash this money and make it work. She could have gone with the money to a grocery store and try to buy things. But that would lead to a disappointment, because the grocery store would not accept foreign currency. So she needed more knowledge. She needed to find out how to turn this foreign money into the local currency. The teacher told her that she would need to go to the bank for that. But even all that correct knowledge – the correct paradigm of thinking would not have done her any good if she would have remained passive, sitting at home. What would have made this money work in her life would be correct knowledge + correct actions. She would have to go to the bank, hand in the Dollar notes and exchange them for the local currency. And with that local currency she would be able to avail of the good things that her son had been sending her.

Laws in the spiritual realm

This is a simple and straightforward story. And it makes sense in the physical realm. This is how things work. You need correct knowledge and then you need to act on that knowledge. Every Christian, I believe, would agree with me on that. But when it comes to spiritual things, we somehow change our approach (speaking of me and many others that I encountered, maybe that does not apply to you). We think that God “sovereignly” controls everything. In the spiritual realm God just acts unpredictably, and you never know what He’s going to do next. It’s all a mystery and an enigma. But nothing could be further from the truth. God is a very consistent and organized God. Just as the physical world functions according to very precise laws, the same is true about the spiritual realm. And He has revealed to us all that we need to know, in order to be able to avail of the good things that He has for us. God has given us the Bible as a love letter to us. And enclosed in that letter there are immeasurable riches, blessings, goodness and provision, protection and victory. We are incredibly rich, blessed with “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 1:3). We are given “exceeding great and precious promises: that by these we might be partakers of the divine nature” (2. Peter 1:4). Wow. That sounds great.

What if it doesn’t work?

But then we go and try to “cash” some of these promises, and we get disappointed. It doesn’t seem to work. So we try to explain why it didn’t work. “It must have not been God’s will. God is trying to teach me something through this failure. Or maybe one day in Heaven I will experience all this, but here on the earth I will have to put up with lack, mediocrity, failure and defeat.” This is not true! You and I - we can live an absolutely blessed and victorious life. Every Christian is called to become like Jesus, to grow up into Christ. But it does not happen automatically. We have to believe the Word of God to be what it says it is. And then we need to get knowledge about what God has for us. We need to change our faulty paradigms of thinking to the correct ones of the Word of God. And then we need to act it out. We need to start living it and applying it in our lives.

An example from history

A great example from history out of the evangelical realm that comes to mind would be George Mueller of Bristol. As a young man He determined that He would believe the bible and act on it, no matter what. He would pray to God and trust Him with all his needs. God called him to take care of orphaned children in Bristol. So he took these Children in and fed them and gave them an education. But he would not ask people for financial help. He would just pray and believe that God would provide all his needs. When He started out, he had some real difficulties to get this going. He was learning by doing. But with tenacity, faith and perseverance He learned how to actually “cash” the promises of God. He lived to be over 90 years old and several million Pound Sterling went through his hands throughout his life – all given to him as an answer to prayer and God’s provision.

Ordinary people doing extraordinary things

We tend to glorify such persons and put them on a pedestal, thinking that they must have had a great “spiritual gift of faith”. They were somehow out of the ordinary, we think. But that is not true. They just dared to believe God and act on what they believed. And they saw very powerful results. They would not give up when things seemed not to work. They would just stick with it until they got the revelation they needed. You and I can do the same. Until next week! Be blessed and encouraged everybody!