Faith Culture

I said I would write this week, so here I am. This is a continuation of last weeks blog.

I wanted to explore this notion of faith and healing because time and time again it seems like Jesus couples these two things together, especially in the book of Luke. I encourage you to read some of those stories on your own.

As I have read these things and evaluated my own life, I have seem to have come up with a few diagrams to emphasis our main point.

First we seem to have what I call "The Balanced Life" or "The New Pattern":

It all begins with hope which moves into hearing, then having faith, to finally acting. The cycle continues in everything we do as a believer. Connected to faith is where we find the development of righteous, which leads to being tested, which in return cultivates endurance. This cycle also continues as we have seen in the different seasons walking with the Lord. All of this diagram is based heavily on the book of Romans, Hebrews 11, and James 1.

On the flip side, if just one element falls out of our "Balanced Life" we get this:

This is the work of our enemy, the great adversary, the Devil. He starts off the cycle with tempting us and then, we do the rest. We rationalize or justify why we should disobey Yahweh, we then conduct the action, we feel guilty, and for too many of us then we allow Satan to bring shame.

An example of the unbalanced life-which keep in mind, can happen at any moment in the day, was when Peter denied knowing Jesus and when Judas betrayed Jesus. In Peter's case his faith was being tested, but he let fear creep its ugly head in; thus, transitioning him not into endurance but rather to sin instead. In Judas's case, he didn't let his faith develop and mature; thus, leaving him wide open for temptation from the world. Both men, both Jesus's disciples who sinned on the day He was crucified, experienced guilt. Except, Peter choose to begin again and have hope that Jesus would forgive him. Which in turn lead him to hear the words of Jesus again, which lead to faith, and so on. We thank Peter for beginning the Church. Judas, choose to allow his guilt to move into the deathtrap called shame. Judas choose to hang himself.

As you can see it is all about our choices, our daily, moment by moment choices. Yet, keep in mind the internal defines the external, not vice versa. We can choose to have hope in Jesus of Nazareth born of the virgin Mary and her husband, the carpenter, Joseph. The Jesus who thousands of years previous was foretold to come and rescue His people, the one who was God's son; yet, simply God incarnate. The one who never sinned, but died a criminal's death. The one who on the third day rose again to break the power of sin and death over mankind. The one who lives today and still echos these words "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

When we have this hope, we listen:

"...my sheep know my voice..."-John 10

When we listen, we have faith:

"...nothing will be impossible for you..."-Matthew 17

When we have faith, we act:

"...faith without deeds is dead..."-James 2:14-26

• So where are you? What does your life look like right now and why?
• What element have you taken out of "The Balanced Life" and why?
• Where is your greatest weakness? How do you get stronger?
• Are you doing this life with Jesus or alone? How is that working out for you? 

Note, it is only through doing this process with the Holy Spirit (not religion) that when you act out your faith will it produce good fruit:

love

joy

peace

forbearance

kindness

goodness

faithfulness

gentleness 

and self-control

-Galatians 5: 13-26