Faith Is All About Action

This morning I am moved to elaborate on Faith and some very practical actions we must take to go from having Faith to using Faith.  I want to first say if someone says they have Faith to meet a particular need and yet they are not moving out doing something to meet that need, then chances are, they are not using Faith.

There are several strong biblical examples that Highlight my point but the one that stands out strongly in my mind this morning is the following scripture:

Mark 10:46-50

English Standard Version (ESV)

Jesus Heals Blind Bartimaeus

⁴⁶ And they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. ⁴⁷ And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”⁴⁸ And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” ⁴⁹ And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.” ⁵⁰ And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.

Several key things are occurring in this scripture that point out things we must do in order for our Faith to move into action and to satisfy the need that we have.  First, we see that he was sitting, he was blind and he was in need of a miracle.  While he was in that state nothing was happening in the natural but what was happening in the spiritual was what was important.     Remember, he was blind so he could not see the demonstration of the healing, he could only trust his ears and focus on the enthusiasm of the words being spoken, the powerful testimonies of being raised from the dead, deaf people who can now hear, lame folks walking, demon possessed folks being set free and Jesus was the central figure in all of these testimonies. What he heard was enough  to activate his Faith and do the only thing he knew to do.  He began crying out, over and over again.  "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"  Even when he was rebuked by many and told to shut up, he continued.  Why, because his Faith was more powerful than the naysayers, unbelievers and common sense folks all around him.  He didn't care how crazy he looked, what they said or any other obstacles standing in the way.  He believed that his suffering would end if Jesus had mercy on him.  And the truth is, it did.

Over and over again throughout my Faith journey I have had people say, why are you doing this, you are so intelligent, you should not be doing community development work, you should be this or you should be that.  Well, I didn't listen to those folks with common sense, I listened to the Holy Spirit speaking on the inside of me.  I learned long ago common sense is just that.  It's common.  What I am looking for in my life are uncommon manifestations of the power of God.  The things I want to do are not common but are uncommon and require uncommon sense or Faith in God to bring it to pass.

You see it's common to go get a 9 to 5 job and work for the man day in and day out and look down on the suffering communities and say oh well.  But its uncommon to go back to the hood and say I'm going to use all of my gifts and talents to begin to turn the hood around and make a difference.  It's common to go down and exploit the hood with high priced merchandise, low wage jobs, and dope sales.  But it's uncommon to go down and work to create jobs, build new homes, educate the youth and encourage the downtrodden.

This is Faith in Action and as Blind Bartimaeus received his sight, you can receive your miracle if you are not afraid to cry out.  Do something that others tell you can't work.  Put action with your Faith and watch what happens.  You whole perspective on life will change and you will learn to tap into a source of power that far exceeds anything that is taught in Universities.  You will understand that there is a world not seen but full of blessings and opportunities.  And you will learn how to access them.

Be Blessed and Enjoy the Journey!!!

Distractions to Successful Faith

Recently, I observed two very promising, bright and intelligent African American males in their early 20's who spent an inordinate amount of time playing X-box 360.  These young men would spend hours day and night entertaining themselves with this game and when they weren't playing it they were glued to the tv screen or computer entertaining themselves by looking at others live their dreams.  Athletes were experiencing their dreams, actors were experiencing theirs and even some of the Youtube content providers where experiencing theirs by becoming overnight sensations such as Antoine Dodson's "Run and Tell that Homeboy"  video with over 67 million viewers.   Watching this dynamic go on consistently for days caused me great concern.  Not that these young men were running drugs or creating havoc in their communities, but because I saw a great waste of time and that rather than preparing the mind to be a great creative force in the universe, it was being molded into a briefcase where other peoples content was being stored.  The mind was becoming too relaxed expecting to be fed with entertainment and Lord knows we don't need more entertainment in this world.

I pondered this a while and thought about how my life was distracted at times by my own desires to be entertained and how unproductive I was.  I recall reading a very good back back in the late 1980's written by a Christian Pastor Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho: The Fourth Dimension.  This book pressed me into a room of thinking about the things that I spent my time on and how my mind, my words and my actions shaped the world in which I lived.  Now almost 30 years later and after many, many miracles and Faith testimonies, I find that the statement "Faith Without Works is Dead"  is true and what is presented in the Bible in the book of James is very accurate.

So what I saw being lived out by these young men's lives were "Distractions to Successful Faith Living".  You see they were not shaping their minds by the word of God, productive intellectual stimulation, or through speech.  Their minds were being shaped by devices and video's.  By the way, neither of the young men were employed.  Wonder why?

Now what would happen if these young men spent theie time reading 30 minutes of the bible, sharpening their reasoning and critical thinking skills by taking free online college courses, or reading literature to build comprehensive skills.  I know what would happen because I had to make this transformation in my own life.  The answer is that their lives would dramatically change.  Not overnight, but over time, they would see job offers, and they would be blessed with visions of what God wanted them to do to expand the universe.  Sounds strange?  Well if this were not true, why would the devil spend so much time distracting us with so many different devices and with people who mean us no good whatsoever? (Read the Book of Nehemiah in the bible for cross referencing on this).

So, I will end my blog today with this, in order for Faith to work, the mind must work in concert with it.  You must prepare the mind like a farmer prepares the soil for a great crop.  They break it up, pull out all the clods of hard soil and rocks and they make it into a fine seed bed so that the things that will sustain it can break through.   I'm talking about water, fertilizer, heat, etc..etc..  If this is done properly, the crop will be abundant. If it is done poorly, the crop will be stunted, unhealthy or worst, it will never manifest.

Does Faith Really Work in Your Life?