Faith and Faithfulness...

See, they ain't the exact same. Faith is often discussed as in she or he "is a person of faith" and that's cool, but the practical way of actually seeing such in a person's life is by their faithfulness, not ONLY (note that word only) a statement of faith.

Yes, Paul wrote and I fully concur:

"But what does it say? “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART” -that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation." -Romans 10.8-10

He wrote a great deal more using words like "obey", "obedience" and the like, also arguing that genuine saving faith in Jesus must be lived out. James in his letter to the churches, Peter in his and plenty more speak to this because Jesus himself focused on it. Further, read Jesus' Own words quoted by John in the Book of Revelation and you recognize quickly that genuine faith in God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit isn't merely an intellectual, academic, "I got the correct doctrine so I'm good" sort of thing.

Plenty of people talk about having faith... but are we people of faithfulness in our thoughts, words and actions toward God and others?! There is a difference indeed.

Note, I'm not talking about salvation by our works, nor by any of us perfectly and flawlessly living out the law of God as it's also clear Jesus did not preach such nor did Paul and the rest -but none of this annuls what I've written here.

The sad fact is that many of us focus on all but God Himself and responding in loving obedience seeking to please Him -and thus plenty fall away who once proclaimed to have faith in Jesus Christ. It's relationship, daily, lived, not merely spoken or written words. This is as true in my life as it is for anyone else.

May God give you and I the grace, sense and heart to love Him and our neighbor as ourselves in faithfulness toward God and others. We must move beyond a "transactional" belief as "people of faith", full stop! Believing is like being planted. Faithfulness? That's blooming!

As always, thanks for stopping by. -Glenn