How much of your work? ...

Tuesday, April 9, 2013. Faith is in the centre of Christianity. And we have heard about faith that can move mountains. We have talked about faith that moves forward trusting the Lord. But how much work is in your own faith?

David's Experience …

In 1 Samuel 17 we hear about the fight of David with Goliath. David was not well trained in fighting. He was no one who had years of experience in warfare. But he was a believer who wanted to step in for the Lord. He heard the offending words of their enemies against the living God. He could not stay calm and quiet. And he moved forward.

I do not want to recommend to take risks lightly. Here, David took a great risk - risking his life and also risking the fate of the Israelites. There must have been reasons for Saul, the king, to let him go. Even if he did not have much experience in warfare, he had experience in fighting wild animals. He had shown courage. And they trusted in his courage.

One key point here is that faith shows itself in action. David is doing much more than praying. He is not organizing prayer meetings. He is not only going to a service on Sunday morning. All that is good, and we read his prayers until today, the book of Psalms. But he also started to act. He followed the voice of his heart, which was filled with the holy spirit.

Faith and Action United …

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We need to unite faith and action. It is not two things, but it is two sides of one thing. We need faith in our actions, since without faith our actions are empty. We need the guidance of the Lord in our heart. We need his word in our heart. We need prayer in our heart. We need to be led by him.

And we need actions in our faith. We cannot stay quiet. We cannot stay calm. We need to stand up and move forward. We need to live in faith, act in faith, speak in faith. We need to let him activate our life, to serve him, to work for him, to fight for him. His fight, in Christ, is a fight for deep peace. It is a fight for truth, for life, for reconciliation.

Faith and actions need to be united. They need to be one. I am strongly encouraged by this insight, by the story of David, by many other stories of the New Testament and of contemporary Christians, who moved forward and then experienced the wonders and miracles that the Lord can perform, using their weakness and their faith. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts