Faith Living

Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – April 22, 2017

But the righteous will live by his faith.    Habakkuk 2:4

Faith living is focused on God living. It is the road less traveled. Even for believers in Jesus Christ, faith living is not always predominant. But it really is the only way to live. Why settle for anything less? If you limit yourself to your efforts and your logic, then you only give God a token of faith. He is calling you beyond the honeymoon stage of faith to mature faith.

The Bible teaches, “Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:13-14). His desire is for you to come alive with a faith that is active and growing. A faith that only thinks of the past is anemic and stunted. A living faith is passionate about God’s vision for the future, and it is focused on the possibilities of today.

God’s creative genius inspires the follower of Christ. His ability to create relational opportunities is staggering. He is the network weaver par excellence. By faith, He can be trusted to lead you to just the right people. People whom you can serve and people who can join you in accomplishing God’s will. This is faith living. It is looking beyond the new relationship of today and sensing where God wants to take it tomorrow. Determine ways to bring value to another person. It is not about what you can get from them, but it is all about how you can serve them.

This is faith living. It is placing the needs of others before your own and trusting God to meet your needs. The Bible says, “This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God” (2 Corinthians 9:12). He releases you to serve others with His freedom in Christ. This is normal Christian faith living.

However, faith living is not irresponsible living. This is not some blind excursion that ignores the needs of your family. Prayer and godly advice guide it. Faith living is not lived in a vacuum but lived in concert with those around you. Abraham went by faith to a new country (Genesis 12:4-5), but he exercised this transition while taking care of the needs of his family. Yes, faith often requires sacrifice and service, but not in the guise of unwise decision-making.

Faith living trusts God’s timing and does not rush into battle unarmed and without a plan. You trust God to prepare you and provide the needed resources to carry out His will. You are no match for Satan without the weapons of spiritual warfare. Faith living recognizes our battle is not with “flesh and blood,” but that our battle is waged in the spiritual arena (Ephesians 6:12).

Therefore, do not see people as obstacles, but as part of God’s plan to teach you His ways and to grow you in your faith. Allow God and others to utilize your strengths and shore up your weaknesses. Be who God created you to be. Live by faith and not by sight.  When you live by faith in God alone you are truly alive.

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8).

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