Friday November 09, 2018

 

Believing in God is one thing, but it is quite a different thing to believe God. Having faith is one thing, and living out one’s faith is something entirely different. No other character in all of Scriptures exemplifies what living by faith is, like Jesus, the Son of God. Typically, when we think of Jesus, we think of God in a body and that would be true. What we usually forget however is that Jesus was 100% man too. Sometimes He would call himself the Son of God and other times He would call himself the Son of Man.

 

When John wrote about Jesus in his Gospel, he began by saying, “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made”. John declared that from the beginning, all things were created by Jesus. What is interesting is that when Jesus, the Word of God, came to earth, He had the same limitations as we have. Think on this: the Word of God did not know how to speak; He had to learn vocabulary and how to speak. Suddenly, just like you and I, the all-powerful God became virtually powerless. He now found himself in a body needing the care and protection of his parents. The Omnipresent God was now limited to being in one place at a time, the Omniscient God that knew all things, had to learn and was limited to the capacities of the human brain just like us. More importantly however, Jesus would have to learn to believe in God and to believe God. He would have to acquire faith and learn how to live out his faith just like you and I.

 

“My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. – John 5:17-19

 

In the case of Jesus, living by faith meant to simply do what God was doing. For Jesus, living by faith meant to constantly work on whatever God was working on. What are you working on? The problem for many of us who are followers of Jesus is that we have faith but we do not live out our faith. If you want to know to what degree you are living out your faith, the question to ask is, what is it that you are working at? Moreover, how much time are you dedicating to that which you are working on? Are you working on building God’s Kingdom, or are you working on building your own kingdom? How much are you working on God’s Kingdom versus working on your own kingdom? Someone once said, “don’t tell me about your faith show me your faith”. This is the true measure of faith; it is not so much what you say, it is a combination of what you say and what you do.

 

To walk in Jesus’ shoes is to constantly work on what God is working on.