Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Faith...Love...Action

 

For years, I have wanted to study the bible in the context of a class setting.  I desired to learn yet I did not have the financial ability to take seminary courses...so I prayed.  I spoke to the Most High of my desire and expressed the need for classes that were low in cost.  And the opportunity was afforded to me this fall...free and clear!  As a direct experience, I know that the Most High honors what is honorable.  With the principle of divine reciprocity in mind enlivened by a grateful heart, I would like to render my most recent assignment... 


New Testament: The Gospels and Acts
November 9, 2015


Question #5
Explain Luke 6:46 in your own words

“So why do you keep calling me ‘Lord, Lord!’ when you don’t do what I say?"

When I read the scripture above the common phrase "talk is cheap" comes to mind.  It is easy to speak of or profess ones love.  It takes effort and commitment to bring the love one speaks of or professes into fullness.  Truly, what is the substance of our faith?

Faith in Christ is the interdependent working between thought and deed.  Faith is love-in-action.  I consider motherhood to be my most honored ministry.  It is a ministry in my life that serves as a barometer of relationship beyond my household.  I believe that "charity starts at home."  Love starts at home in the inner woman (the house/temple of the Holy Spirit) and as a direct result is quickened in the home that I share with my husband and children.   With this in mind, the effort and commitment to Christ begins within me like a bud and unfolds within my family as a blossoming rose with the assurance of adding fragrance to my surrounding community.  Submitting to understanding the purpose of the affect and effect of commitment to Christ (love) is being teachable in the process of community from the microcosm of one woman/man or one family to the macrocosm of  "one nation under God."  Israel was one man (Jacob) and one nation (12 confederate tribes).   It is not just about me or just about our current age.   Love gives root to the whole - concerns itself with the highest good of the generations (my children, my children's children and onward).

Do I (we) have faith if I (we) have done nothing in the name of my (our) faith?  I believe the bible to be the greatest love story ever told, a living word in spirit and flesh.  It is a telling of the highs and lows of the effort and commitment of the Most High to grow us - the process of life, the unfolding of our knowledge of Christ.   

I am (we are) learning.  I believe "walking the talk" or rather proving the wealth of ones talk is to continually and actively engage learning love, learning life (James 2:14-24, 2 Timothy 2:1-7).  God is love and God is life - love in abundance, life to the full.  Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground from his album Innervisions is one of my favorite songs.  The great mark, the honorable goal is transfiguration (to attain the chief stone, reach the ground that is our true home by pressing upward) - exercising our faith inwardly and outwardly by demonstrating the power of God through acts of faith step-by-step and day-by-day. 

If as a mother I decide to sleep in because I do not feel like preparing my children for school and/or taking my children to school to learn, would my talk of my love for my children be in line with faith?  What does love require of me?  What does love say  for me to do?   Does faith require me to go beyond myself (beyond feeling sleepy or weary)?  Shall I as a mother, shall we as ministers in Christ wakefully endure until learning has run the full course?  What is the spiritual and practical reality of being "a doer of the word?"
 
Is love the substance of things hoped for?  Is faith the evidence of things not seen?  What will happen in our individual hearts, our single families, our neighborhoods, our cities and nations if the "rose of Sharon" reigns in each and reaches full bloom?  May the greatest love story ever told live, continue from generation to generation - the experience of glory to Glory.  May I (we) run, continually and progressively do what Christ says.  May my (our) faith endure until the end.