Enjoy Life, Enjoy God

LIVE BY BELIEVING

June 2, 2010

The Bible's message harps like a broken record, but belief is not so much thinking, as doing. One of the reasons the practice of the Christian faith is not the comfort we'd hope for is that too much of our faith is "head-stuff," and not in how we live.

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Then Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise gain."
Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day."
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die."
- John 11:23-26 TNIV
 To be sure, what we think is important. But that does not make one a Christian, or will it bless us with the joy and power of Christ. Jesus counsels Martha whose brother, Lazarus, is dead that life is found, it's an interesting phrase, "lives by believing in me." It's a way of life. Sunday thoughts, the occasional pious awareness that we're a church-goer, or a Christian, that's not what Christ speaks of here. But walking with him, front and center, it's Christ-centered living. That's what he means in saying, "Whoever lives by believing in me..." Some of us live by our ambitions, our whims and desires...meaning the way we live defines our actions.

Jesus says that life is found, "never die," the fruit of the faith is not by our emotions and lesser desires, but to live by means of believing in him; he's front and center.
Joyfully,

Dale Patterson