What is “faith” to you?

The reason I ask is because we need to guard against a troubling trend. Since we live in a highly individualistic society, “faith” can degrade into a series of fuzzy beliefs that are all about us.

When that happens, we discard beliefs we don’t like and only adopt those that make us feel good.

But as Collin Hansen reminds us in Blind Spots: “If your faith demands nothing, you will give nothing.”*

The word “faith” isn’t about you. Well, it certainly involves you; and you’re the one who “has” it. But the word faith points beyond itself to God. We have faith IN GOD. It’s about HIM.

Make no mistake about it: In and through Jesus, God gives us wonderful things like forgiveness, love and peace with himself. But he also summons us to be a holy people, and to be his hands and feet.

One of the places this comes through is Philippians 2:3-4: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

I realize it’s a tough time. We’re going to have bad days—or months!

But if your faith demands nothing, you will give nothing. Nor will others receive the blessings that God has planned for you to give his other children.

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Notes:

–The Up Devotional is published 5 days a week (Monday-Friday) and returns on March 22, 2021.

–You can now LISTEN to The Up Devotional as a podcast! Subscribe on iTunes (Apple), Spotify, Google Podcasts, or Stitcher. [Direct links below.]

*–Collin Hansen, Blind Spots (Crossway: Wheaton, 2015), 90.

–Bible quotes are from the NIV.