The Faith to Believe

Faith is the driving force that moves God. Throughout scripture we have learned that faith is the key that unlocks the power of God in our lives. And without faith, we cannot please God. (Hebrews 11:6)

Although faith is something we all need as Christians, faith alone is sometimes not enough. 

James 2:26 tells us, “As the body without the spirit is dead, so Faith without works is dead also.” 

We logically understand that if a spirit has departed from the body this implies that the body or the person is dead. In the similar sense, faith separated from works is also dead. 

Since faith without works is dead,  this means that we must take action to back up what we claim to believe. How else would we truly show what we believe, besides proclaiming it verbally? So there is something we need to do to show how much we actually believe for that in which we have faith. 

Many of us have gone before the Lord in prayer with our requests and desires—Some of which we have believed by faith, others, maybe not so much. And while you are praying and asking God to do things on your behalf–although you had faith when you asked–still God is there waiting for you to step out and make a move. 

That’s the thing about faith. Yes, we must believe in that in which we pray, but we also need to show God how much we believe by giving Him something to work with. That doesn’t mean you have to have works for everything you believe and ask God for, but there are many things that do require work on your behalf. 

Not very long ago I found myself in a funk and as I sat there writing in my journal to God I realized that yes, I’ve been praying for some things and believing that some things would happen, but I wasn’t backing up what I believed with action. 

God had to give me a friendly reminder that although I believed–there’s still some things that required me to pair my faith with works and give Him something to work with.

 Immediately, my internal light-bulb went off and I soon realized that all along while I was sitting around waiting for God to show up and do it, He was waiting on me to show up and make the first move. 

We can stand and proclaim from the mountaintops all day that we have faith, but the true demonstration of faith is when we actually do something that shows our level of belief. This is what truly activates the power of faith and the move of God in our lives.

I believe not all things require works, but those things that require both faith and works are the things that God wants us to show Him—just how much we really believe—by giving Him something to work with. 

In the Bible, there are many accounts of individuals who possessed a great deal of faith. Let’s take Abraham, for example. God told Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. Yet, he was of old age–he and his wife, but God still blessed Sarah to conceive a child. God also told him to leave his home and family and go to an unknown land that God had promised Him. He had no visible evidence of these things to be true, but he had great faith in God and trusted His word, so he went. 

Another account in the bible, God told Abraham to take his son up to the mountain to kill him, and he obeyed God and took his son up on the mountain to kill him—only for the angel of the lord to intercept and stop him just before he was about to slain his own child. Because of this great act of faith, God blessed him. God saw that he truly believed by faith, and his works (willingness and obedience) were accounted to him for righteousness. 

There are several other individuals and popular stories we have read and heard of in the Bible of those who possessed faith. The moral of these stories are the same—they all believed by faith and showed their faith by their works. 

You may ask: why is action just as important as our faith? It’s because God wants to see how willing we are to do what it takes to receive what we are trusting him to do. It’s easy to talk the talk, but can we truly walk the talk? As we see in Abraham‘s story, he showed his willingness by acting according to God’s request no matter what he had to sacrifice. 

The purpose of this post is to remind you that sometimes God is looking for your works along with your faith. We have to give God something to work with. Oftentimes, we go through life praying for things, but many times they don’t happen for us. We then tell God and even convince ourselves that we have faith and believe, but still wonder why things still haven't happened. Maybe our faith prayers are lacking  that one missing piece–our works.