The power of your faith

"Everything is possible for one who believes."  Mark 9:23
"Nothing will be impossible for you."  Matthew 17:20c

Jesus consistently responded to faith.  

He rewarded belief and rebuked disbelief.  

Belief amazed Jesus.  Disbelief angered Jesus.

There didn't seem to be an in-between for him.  He seemed to see no reason to doubt or disbelieve him, or God the Father.  No reason at all. 

Of course, he's right.  RA Torrey said, "Every act of sin is an act of distrust in God.  Trusting God deprives sin and temptation of all their power.  He who trusts God will do right though the heavens fall."

Trusting God is the source of sinless perfection and power.  And why shouldn't we trust God? 
He is perfectly good, perfectly powerful, and perfectly wise.

It should be the easiest thing in the world for us to do.  And it is something to do, as it is also written, "Faith without works is dead. As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead."

Notice what James is doing in those words:
Faith=the body
Works=the spirit.

I learned the opposite.  I learned that faith animates works, but James says works animate, or give life to, faith, as the spirit gives life to the body.

We all know this.  If we really believe something (or someone), we act on that belief.  We do what we really believe.  And when we believe, we can do anything.  As Jesus said, everything is possible, and nothing impossible.  Why?  Because, as Jesus also said, "With God, all things are possible."  So it's logical:

With God all things are possible.
I believe in God.
Therefore, with me, all things are possible.

Or put it another way.  If everything I do is an act of trust in God, with whom all things are possible and nothing impossible, then everything I do will be possible, because everything I do is His will.  This is why with people like Joseph, it was written, "God was with Joseph and gave him success in everything he did."  God is the only one who succeeds in everything he does.  So if someone is succeeding in everything he does, then it must mean God is with him.

Look at this yet another way. 
It is written, "God is love."
It is also written, "Love never fails."
Therefore, God never fails. 
And we never fail when we love.  As it is also written, "Love is the fulfillment of the law."
And "the only thing that counts is faith, expressing itself in love."

So we come full circle.  Love never fails.  Love is the expression of faith.  Therefore, faith never fails.  This is the power of your faith.

The Good News about Sin and Sinning

As Christians, we are forgiven, and we are free.  That's the good news about sin and sinning.  The wrong things that we've done can be forgiven and forgotten as if they never happened.  Ane the wrong things we've done never have to be done again.

Because of Jesus, our past can change, and our future can change, if we accept Jesus in the present.

The woman caught in adultery is a perfect example.

According to the law of Moses, the adulterer and adulteress should be stoned for their adultery.  The Pharisees, Sadducees, and teachers of the law of Moses brought a woman caught in adultery, but not the man, which showed they didn't really care about the law.  Nevertheless, when they brought the adulteress to Jesus, she experienced first hand that He was her Savior from her sin (adultery) and from sinning (committing adultery again.)  Jesus set her free with these words:

Woman, I do not condemn you for your adultery, as your adultery deserves according to the law.
Go, and from now on, do not commit adultery.

Of course, I'm paraphrasing.  Yet my paraphrase fits the context and takes sin out of the merely theological or philosophical and puts it in the practical light that Jesus (and the woman's accusers) saw as very practical.  This woman's life was literally on the line, as is the case with every specific sin.  We today tend to think of sin conceptually, versus as real acts of rebellion against God, like adultery.  But Jesus came to save this very woman from her very real sin, and from ever really sinning again by having sex with a real man that was not her husband, and thus being worthy of death by real stoning.

Though she didn't get stoned, she had suffered a consequence for this sin:  public shame.  It was wrongly done, of course, but that was the consequence. Why is this important?  Because every time we sin, we suffer an immediate (and sometimes lasting) consequence of disconnection from God and people.  Every time.  Yet we can be forgiven, and the sin forgotten. And even the consequence can be used for God's glory, though it may not go away.  This is very relevant for today.

Even as you read, in the background our lives is a crime recently judged by the courts.  A female police officer murdered a man in his home.  Can she be forgiven?  Yes!  Can she never commit this crime again?  Absolutely.  But does she forego the penalty of her sin on earth?  No, she does not.  The cross does not cancel every consequence on earth.

So what can we learn?

As you read, if you are a believer, (or even an unbeliever) you read with either confessed or unconfessed sin.  If your sins are unconfessed, confess and forsake them, turning to the Lord Jesus as Savior.  I hope that your sins are not such that there are irreversible earthly consequences.  But if you have no unconfessed sin in your life, then as Jesus said, I say to encourage and exhort you:

Go, and from now on, sin no more.

This is good news about sin and sinning.  Your sins can be forgiven and forgotten as if they never happened.  And because of Jesus, by His Spirit, you never need to sin again.  As it is written, "Whom the Son sets free is free indeed." And the freedom Jesus meant was freedom from sinning.  We are free to live without fear of the temporal or eternal consequences of sin. 

We do well not to overlook the temporal consequences.  We do well not to say things like "Christians aren't sinless, they just sin  less."  Some sins, like adultery, like murder, are detrimental even if committed only once. 

Other Christians say things like, "We don't have to sin, but we're going to sin."  Yet some of the sins that we are supposedly "going to do" have irreversible consequences, like drinking and driving, or beginning the use of an addictive drug.  Most of the time, Christians who make the two statements about sin aren't talking about the "big sins," meaning the sins that get us fired from jobs, put in jail, or kicked out of the church. 

May God convict us of our hypocrisy and perversion of the gospel.  May live free from sin and sinning, and share this good news by the power of the Spirit.