Faith or Foolishness

There’s a fine line between Godly faith;  faith like Abraham and David, to believe God to fulfill his Word even when worldly circumstances deem it impossible, and foolishness.

Some examples:

-Praying for God to restore your finances and believing he will bless you with a financial breakthrough; then going on a shopping spree instead of paying down debt.  Foolishness

-Believing God will heal your diabetes and completely restore your health.  You solicit prayer and speak healing and wholeness daily and then neglect to take your medicine and eat all the wrong things consistently.  Foolishness

-Waiting for your Godly man or woman.  Faithfully you wait and pray and believe God will send the one he has for you.  Then you continue to sleep around and present yourself as anything but a Godly mate.  Foolishness

-Faithfully believing God will bless you with strength and then going to the gym and attempting to lift 200lbs after not working out for years.  You’re just trying to kill yourself!

I see examples like the above all too often.   Unfortunately, I’m not exempt from this as I have found myself on the foolish side more times than I care to admit.

Having faith in God’s Word means first understanding it.  We must understand Gods character and what his promises are and how they apply to us before we can understand how to act on the faith we have.

Faith without works is dead, meaning if we truly believe what God says concerning our circumstances, our actions will be proof of that.

The devil didn’t do it.

When it seems we don’t get what we want or things don’t turn out the way we expect, sometimes it’s due to our actions, lack of action and/or our lack of understanding of God’s word.

We can’t blame the devil when we put ourselves in dangerous and compromising situations, refuse to use good judgment, and simply neglect to follow the word of God in the name of “faith”.

Do you know what you have faith in?

Understanding God’s word is so important because even when our faith and our actions line up and situations don’t turn out the way we expect, our faith in God helps us to understand that ultimately all things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to his purpose.  He sees the bigger pictures and knows what we can handle and when we can handle it.

Actions speak louder than words.

The actions we take must display the confidence we have in God’s Word.  Whether it’s our health, finances, children, marriage, businesses or any other area of our lives, we can’t just do what we want and expect God to give us the desired result.

We truly believe something, not when we say it, but when our actions line up with what we say.

-Believing God will bless your finances and then consciously working on creating better spending habits and opting to pay your light bill instead of buying that new dress is faith.

-Believing God will heal your diabetes and restore your health and then changing your eating habits, taking better care of yourself and keeping your doctors appointments is faith.

-Waiting and believing for your Godly spouse and then refusing to put yourself in compromising situations and displaying the qualities you seek in a mate is faith.

In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.  But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”   Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.  (James 2: 17-18)