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Faith

Ravi Zacharias tells a story of his visit to a museum in England, dedicated to Paul Bunyan. At the end of his tour of the museum, he speaks to the clerk and asks "Isn't it amazing that a mender of pots and pans has won such worldwide acclaim?" Her response was that she had never read the work. Ironic, he claims, that someone could work in a museum dedicated to a man whose single most popular book she had never read. Speaking of Jesus' message, his point was that we can be so close to such crucial truth, and yet ignore it or treat it indifferently. He goes on to quote Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

"Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries."

Though he was talking about all humanity, the same oversight can be found in Christians. I don't believe this is intentional, for the most part. My own experience has told me that it's a result of amnesia. We forget what God has done for us, and lose that sense of awe that drives our faith in him. That kind of faith, admittedly, can often be an emotional one that Jesus demonstrates as shallow and perishable (Mark 4:16-17). To reside in a faith with little awe for God, however, could be much worse. It's a faith that fades by degrees. Peter warns of this with the following words:

"For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith [...he lists several expressions of faith]. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins."

Our knowledge of God's truth, he says, is inextricably tied to the practice of our faith. My first response to this is that it smacks of legalism, telling me that my faith depends on what I do rather than on my unearned position in Christ. I think, though, that this is a misguided attitude. Our motivation for practicing our faith is not salvation (whether earning or keeping), but growth: consistent cultivation of a faith that leads to life. Listen to Paul's words in Romans 8:6: "The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace." We find that life and peace by practicing the lifestyle Jesus demonstrated and taught. I'm certainly not there, but I want to be. This is why I'm going to commit to being more deliberate about my prayer life. Usually, I spend a paltry few minutes per day praying, usually uttering the same prayer, usually relating to myself. I'm going to commit, for the next five days (a low goal, I know, but it's a start), to praying for one specific person every day. I don't know who that is yet, but I will. Thanks for reading.
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