Devotionals

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Turning Faith into Action
By Robert Schaetzle


We know that our salvation comes through faith. By the loving grace and faithfulness our Lord lavishes generously upon each one of us. Do you ever consider what faith in action is like? James says our faith walk is proved by the effort of good works that bring honor to Him.

The world we live in looks only to finite human reasoning and weakness. Consider our recent worldly monetary loss through our domestic and international markets. Within our finite world of economics we can not, nor ever will find and know true contentment and peace. It will never come when one moment the stock market is up, and you feel good, only to witness it slide 6000 points like it has recently. Then your emotion brings despair from worry and fear.
We must consider our part, that is to say, firm trust believing His faithfulness to us, the promises God gives us through obedience to act, when we demonstrate faith.
Always remember, His faithfulness to us is new each day for us to take hold of.

Look at Exodus 14:21, ‘Then Moses stretched out His hand over the sea; and the Lord swept the sea back by a strong east wind all night and turned the sea into dry land, so the waters were divided.’
Visualize the scene. Here is a moment in history when you might say the people of Israel were between a rock and deep waters, between a pursuing enemy army and the sea before them with no place else to turn.
Scene two, our Lord, through Moses, comes to the rescue and displays His victorious right hand. It was Moses’ arm but it was God’s all powerful right hand, that swept back the sea and enabled the people of Israel to cross, and in the middle of the night no less.
Continuing in verse 22, “The sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right hand and on their left”.
How marvelous, here we’re witness to the ‘Way of Escape’ so often spoken about in the bible. God put the people of Israel there in that position on purpose, I believe, to prove to them not only who’s in charge, but that they might witness the power of His righteous right hand.

I want to share a simple illustration of one who would be considered faithful in good works as opposed to one who would be defined as a spiritual delinquent.
Consider a student from any grade level, whether elementary, high school, or college level, who is diligent to obey and do his or her required class assignments. Striving to do what they can to succeed, finishing assignments and maybe even doing some extra curricular work as well.
Now compare that with one who is not willing or obedient to complete required assignments. Maybe showing up for class but not willing to put forth any effort to learn and grow in wisdom and knowledge, yet calling himself a student.

How many individuals do we come across who profess to wear the title ‘Christian’, yet fail to obey our Lord’s command. Never consider reading and/or believing the bible to be truthful and without error, and fail the course that our Lord has laid out for them, or take hold of the many promises waiting for them? Consider what might have occurred if the people of Israel stood there at the waters edge and failed to step forward, fearful of the wall of water falling on them?

There are those today filled with anxiety, fear, doubt, never understanding God’s promises of grace, forgiveness, and love. Hope that is there for them.

Much of what we’re witnessing through our current economic concern, by grasping what they can through human reasoning and strength, only to lose the temporal riches of worldly bargaining.
So much we have to be reminded each day, Who it is that wants to be in charge of our lives. It’s not by our might, but rather, our dependency in Him.
There are times when He will do things in our life to wake us up to remind us. Almost as if to say “I’m going to take care of you whether you think I am or not”.

Whenever I picture in my mind that “Wall of Water”, I come to realize only through an all powerful God could such a thing happen, not the time it takes a civil engineering project to figure out.

Whenever one might feel down and discouraged, we’ve only to be reminded what our Lord did in history past. How true it is as the Psalmist declares; ‘Come and see the works of God’. Yes, let’s rejoice ‘In Him’.
I put that in quotes often. And for good reason, we’re continually to be reminded that we are indeed new creatures in our Lord. We’re to strive letting the old self of our lives pass away.
‘Putting on Christ’ is to want Him to lead the way in every aspect of our daily living. It’s more than singing praise to Him Sunday morning, then determining the rest of the week thru our own human reasoning.
I know that since I am crucified with Christ [Galatians 2:20] I’m determined to want Him more, and less of my own human strength and reasoning to prevail.
Let us each walk with confidence of daily reminding ourselves, ‘greater is He that lives within us.’ This will only happen when we determine to commit ourselves to living for God. A good start is time set aside daily with our Teacher, in His word and through prayer asking for God’s vision and wisdom. As we learn to lean on Him more, we’ll be overwhelmed to witness our faith in action beginning to grow more each day.

Lord help us not be spiritual delinquent students, but challenged to be growing and learning, bring increase in our walk of faith.

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