Legitimate Faith?

I know those two words together make people squirm. And I know the word 'faith' is just thrown all over the place and means all sorts of things to different people. People have faith, practice faith, rely on faith...it's one of those buzz words. Works in lots of situations and gets you out of any more questions or whatever. It's a don't touch word.



I'm touchin' it. I've been wrestling with the word and concept and whatever else for a good many months now, and I've kinda set it aside to concentrate on, well, the baby barfies and the whole exhuastion-from-providing-raw-material-for-God-to-make-a-whole-person-within-me thing. But I'm back on it like fleas on a hounddog.



My brother posted something on facebook the other day that just floored me. It wasn't so much what he wrote, but the train of thought my brain took just from his little comment. He wanted to go to church more and be a good Christian.



Ok, first, frequency of church attendance does not equal good Christian. What does equal good Christian? Does that even exist?? If Jesus rebuked somebody for calling Him good (no one is good but the Father)- how we gonna be callin' a Christian good? Ok, yeah, good in the world's terms. No, we don't measure by the world's terms!

What are we trying to do here, folks? What is our mission, what is our goal? What do we stand for? What moves us? What makes us different? Why will Christ recognize us when He snatches us up like a thief in the night?

Faith, right? What an infuriatingly abstract and bizarre thing. How do we even begin to measure it? Is it something to measure? I tell you, this thought train keeps me chugging for hours, and I know if I start to go in this direction around 9pm, I am doomed for the night. There is just so much to think about and ponder and inquire to God about. How about some clarity, there, Lord?

Ok, so I do have some valuable words about faith. Maybe. I think that the more a person talks about faith- the more they use that word, just throw it around and spice up their sentences here and there with the old faith word, well, I will purse my lips and furrow my brow in their general direction. I don't want to hear about your faith. I want to SEE it. Maybe that's just me, but I do believe there is a lot of evidence in the Bible for visible faith rather than lip service faith.

If faith is what saves us, if it is what gets us through the tough parts, if it is what connects us to our Lord- must we not be compelled to LIVE it? Faith should move us into action, not sit us in pews or in a cute little coffee shop with red-letter Bibles in hip-colored leather Bible-totes with our CS Lewis bookmarks. I mean, there is probably nothing wrong with that, but if that is your faith- if that is how you show the world you are a Christian, um, what?

Now, I write this, and I'm not even really good at what I'm trying to say.

Faith plugs us into the Spirit, to our Lord. The electricity that flows from the Spirit should energize us and shove us forward into a life that resembles Christ's. And this isn't new stuff. You will find God imploring people in all the books of the Prophets, all throughout the OT- help the poor, help the widows, help the Least of These. Our faith points us in the direction of what is important and what our focus should be.

So, look at your faith. What does it tell the world? Does it tell the world that you hang out with Christians, go to a church regularly, study the Bible, live your life with integrity? But is that all? Jesus hung out with his followers, went to Synegogue often, read the scriptures, and definitely lived His life with integrity. But if I'm not mistaken, the bulk of the gospel is about Him healing, helping, feeding, comforting...

So, this faith thing. What are we doing about it? What does it look like to God? Because that is where its gonna matter.