Active Faith vs Passive Belief
(I started to write this before church Sunday morning. It messed me up BIG time when Pastor Michael hit on this Sunday morning! Listen to his sermon here)
Like I have posted before, as a leader, I have to constantly be in a state of evaluation to recognize whether or not what I am doing is effective or not. This is not just what I am doing as a source group leader with my group. This has to do with my own life as well. Am I growing in my walk with Christ? Do I still believe the same things I used to believe a few months ago? How will those beliefs change what and how I minister? This led me to this topic.
Many Christ-followers have beliefs. We believe that Christ was the Son of God. We believe that He died and rose again. We believe that He told us to go into all the world and make disciples. We believe that He prayed for the sick and they recovered. These are great and powerful beliefs! These are things that we believe that we have made up in our minds and accept as truth. Right? Maybe. What do we do with these beliefs? How do they shape our lives? How do they influence the way we live and deal with our society? How are they shaping our future? Perhaps they have become nothing more than passive beliefs.
Beliefs become passive when they no longer have any influence in our lives today. You believe that God can heal people but you won’t pray for the sick or afflicted. You believe that God is your provider but you won’t part from one dime to support the local church. You believe that Christ is the only way to salvation, but you will not share Christ when the opportunity presents itself. This is passive belief, powerless piety. Worthless religion at it’s finest.
James 2:26-
26)As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.
We see in this scripture that our faith is worthless without action. There is no evidence that our religion has any influence in our lives without action taking place. You can say you exercise everyday and eat right but if you never have any outside evidence of losing weight and toning up then noone will believe what you are saying. Evidence follows actions. Jesus didn’t come to Earth and just say “I Love You”. He paid the ultimate price to show that love and took the sin of the world upon Himself that we may spend eternity with Him. He showed His love for the sick and mentally afflicted and healed them. He took people that were far from perfect and never would have considered for religious leadership in their day and age and gave them the great commission to go into all the world and share His love with others.
They went out and did what He asked them to do and God did amazing things through those people. He still does great things with those who are willing to “do” and not just “believe”.
Will you have active faith or passive belief?
One of His (Kevin)
