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Christian Faith

 What Is Faith



The first and basic level of faith is to believe and connect with God through Jesus Christ. But once we join the kingdom of God there remains the responsibility of bearing the fruit of life through the pursuit of God and through building great character. Both are different but related as they depend on each other. Persuing God is a regular task which we perform through regular worship, prayer and bible reading. But the other element of a successful life, a great character, is built through faith. God puts people around us for reasons. One of these reasons are to help us exercise our faith. Faith is a persuaded disposition that God is Lord and authority belongs to Him. For this reason faith will help us adjust our responses in a gentle and prudent ways during challenging times. Proverb 16:32 (Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city.) teaches that patience and self control during challenging times are turning points to tranform into greatness. But at such points of desperate moments we can control our actions only if we believe in God who rewards our patience and control things for our good. And this faith will not be left unrewarded for sure. In fact the greatest rewards seem to appear at our lowest state. Take for example Jesus, He was exalted to be redeemer of human kind having a name above all names. But this happened after His Crucifixion. Yea great things seem to born on hard times. So when such hard times, that energize the ego, appear we should remember to fear God. Because it is not only the reward of faith we should be concerned about but also about the judgment against arrogant responses. 

So remember that every test in life is an opportunity to beautify tomorrow. We succeed in building a great tomorrow for ourselves by acting in faith today. God just asked of us two things and the rest hang over these two. So with out the need to make our mind make logical analysis of how and why we should love, we just have to control ourselves to behave in gentle, kind, forgiving, and prudent way which are all manifestations of true love. And these actions require faith as they are no good if they have no better output. The health of our inner-lives and the situations around us will stay optimumly best if we make God part of our life by exercising gentle and kind attitude rather than responding egotistically and playing a judge role against others. 

Such faith of living a loving life has a potential of healing and bringing success to one's life. We could start from sharing our time with our family or being sacrificially gentle with our brothers or sisters. Sometimes failing to do the easiest things seem to be the bottlenecks of our wholeness and successes. And we might be searching to solve our problems too hard when the solutions are just under our noses. There are crucial points in life where a simple sacrifice of the ego would be the the perfect keys to change our lives to greatness. That is what God also required of us, just loving our brothers or loving our neightbours. Jesus did not teach His disciples complicated and hard wisdoms to earn the favour and blessing of God. Rather He told them the simple but powerful oracles which are showing mercy, forgiveness  and sharing your time and your possesstions with your people. Some people work a lot to please God by spending too much time in prayer and other spiritual acts related with seeking God. Even though such activities are rewarding and fruitful, they could be like trying to build life with one hand, and how heartbreaking it would be when we find out that the power we get from praying is never enough to make us whole. Remember God telling the praying man to settle his dispute with his brother first, Matthew 5:22-25. So it is important to have a balanced inputs of investment to our life since we can observe from different parts of the scripture that praying or seeking God is not enough. The two greatest commandments are distinct and important that is why we sould focus on both instead of relying on one leaving the other. So once again only fixing our eyes on God and pleading with Him might not be the only solution to our needs. We should let our mind check what God already set as laws of life in His word. Our ears might be deaf to  God's voices but we can  find the will of God and the laws of life in His Word. And in these laws we can find how to step on the path of safety and prosperity. We can start by scrutinizing our relations with people in our house or neighbours. And through the grace of the Holy Spirit we can exercise benevolent and prudent relations which will please God and open doors of both heavenly and earthly blessings. 

Walking In Benevolence

          
Benevolence

The ego is our fleshly nature which resists a righteous and spiritual walk. There are different ways to subject the ego under our will. One of them is to act in prudence against scoffing. Proverbs 21:24, and proverbs 22:10 teach that arrogance, pride, quarelling and strifes are related to mocking. A person who easily tends to scoff is more easily given to arrogance and strife. So to control oneself from such foolishness through prudence is a wise way to keep the mind in a loving atmosphere. The other important part of self control is patience. However we try to succeed, if we are not enlightened to walk on the right path our aniticipations might not come as true as we wish them to be. That is why in our interactions with people acting in patience against the greed of our wants is a great input for success. Look at how the bible relates intelligence with patience- Proverbs 14:29 Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly. Patience can be exercised by keeping the mouth in check against rudness and badness. And in addition it can be applied by prioritizing other's need than ours. 

Another important element that will help build benevolent relations against sudden ego driven responses is to adjust our dispositions about our relation with God. Look at the following verses 1Cor 6:20 You were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.                                     2Corinthians 12:9-10 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

One of the often forgotten truths about Christianity is the fact that our life is primarily more about fulfilling God's plan in the world rather than meeting our wishes. So as much as we contemplate about doing this and having that, God also plans His agendas through us. And therefore, even though it hurts to admit it, it is wise to lower our anticipations by synchronizing our thoughts with the true will of God. In this world it is already declared that we do not belong to ourselves, we are bought and we are servants of Christ. (Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. 1Cor 6:19-20). God indeed does in our lives things which we think are not feasible. He does more than what we think or ask for, this is a fact. But we must also be ready to embrace the fact that we are expected to serve Him sacrificially. Knowledge and intimate relations with the Holy Spirit are very crucial factors to sync with the will of God otherwise we might be forced by our deceived mind into stray paths that will inevitably bring no fruit if not evil things. 

The bible relates faith with life, and unbelief with death. On our previous paragraphs we have discussed that faith is related with gentle, humble and forgiving characters. This kind of way of life which is repeatedly taught in the Word is the way of loving and at the same time affirming God's Lordship. Judgment and vengeance belong to Him. So letting the ego play its anger and 'logical' hatred, specially against people close to us, is apparently showing unbelief against His sovereignty. To show mercy to the nice is easy, but to act so towards the 'unworthy ones' who bother us often requires faith. These are not just simple matters of life, instead they are the basic decisive factors that determine our safety and success. Faith is the center of Christian life and a work or an action that backs up your faith is always required. And among such actions is to walk in longsuffering and mercifulness against annoying people. We should not picture God only as a loving, forgiving and caring Lord but we should equally think of Him as one who need to be feared lest the judgments He ordered on His oracles come upon us. Hence from this time on we need to make it our objective to develop a self control against any ruthlessness.






 

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