Devotional thoughts tagged as: 'faith'
Questioning your Faith
A politician once stated that 62 percent of people who go to college lose their "faith commitment". Professor emeritus, columnist and author Garry Wills said, "I do not know how one measures such things, but I think it is inevitable that questioning our childhood beliefs should take place, at various stages of our life. The questioning of our faith commitment does not happen in our junior or senior year, it can happen at any time in our lives. It is part of a long process called life because minds grow by questioning things, and adolescence can be a period of questioning everything you know."
A character in a novel by Charles Williams puts the question this way: "Shall our tremors measure Omnipotence?" In other words, Does our inability to understand God diminish God?
No. Sincere questions only drive us deeper into the mystery that is God.
Faith Healing
Mark 5:21-43
When the messengers from the house of Jarus came with news that his daughter had died, Jesus counselled the father not to fear, but to believe (v. 36). Jesus needed and wanted the faith of the father and others to make the healing or resuscitation easier. When he got there to the house he found the neighbours in mourning. He asked the reason for the uproar, since the child was not dead but sleeping (v.39). They reacted with laughter. Jesus sent the unbelieving group away. He went in to the girl with her parents and his closest disciples. For him to do a miracle there needed to be a climate of faith. It seems most of Jesus' healings were faith healings.
What can you do to create a climate of faith in your family, church or work place?
What is a Mature Faith?
If we have a lot of money or we want a lot of money then we need to ask for God's grace to give up our love of that money to the exclusion of using it to love and bless others.
If we do not have enough money or we are angry at those who have a lot, we need God's grace to overcome our lack of trust in God to provide and to overcome our anger which hurts only ourselves.
This does not mean we stop working to help the poor and the way to deal with economic disparity. What it does mean is we need to stop seeing people as oppressors or victims. After all, Jesus healed and saved both the rich and the poor. He did not favor one group over another. He was ruler of all people.