Putting your money where your mouth is…
This is our weekly post here at deposition of our faith. Thank you for joining us. This is Week 7.
(Although you can start from anywhere, we encourage you to read up on previous posts as well; this particular article is a continuation of last week’s)
Scripture Reading: James 1:22–24, 2 Corinthians 13:5
Why are we proving our faith to a God that knows all things?
These Christians have come again with rubbish logic.
I have pondered that too. Why does God need us to do things to show our faith? Why did God test Job?
Why did God tell Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and then stop him when the poor man had put his son down on the altar to slaughter him? Didn’t He know the end from the beginning already?
Why must we do something?
Well, there are two reasons I can give you.
We will treat one reason now and another next week by God’s grace.
Reason 1:
We are “proving” our faith more to ourselves than we are proving it to God.
God knows the heart of man. (I the Lord search the heart and try the reins, Jeremiah 17:10), and it is with the heart that man believes (Romans 10:10).
Some people profess love for others and wouldn’t want to be caught dead in public with them. Many say they are believers but will never even side with Jesus anywhere outside their thoughts (Luke 6:46–49). This doesn’t prove that you don’t believe Jesus is real, but this shows where your allegiance lies.
This shows that you are more conscious of the world around you than the God you cannot see. This means that you are more conscious of man’s rejection than of God’s affirmation.
It shows you who you really are.
Our actions betray us.
You can forget yourself and say whatever, and when the time comes to practice what you have said, you back out. We can profess love or hatred for something or someone, and when the time comes to side with our speech through our deed, we chicken out, and we do something else.
This shows us that many times, we reason based on what we want to believe, but not what we actually believe.
Many people use the phrase, “put your money where your mouth is”.
That essentially means, “put your deed/action/livelihood where your speech is”.
If I told you that the bank I use offers 30% interest/per month on money saved with them, you might want to believe me because maybe you think I am trustworthy enough not to deceive you.
However, one of the first things you would think to ask me is, “what are you doing with your own money?”.
That is, have you done it, and does it work?
If I say I haven’t, and I make up some excuse to convince you to put your money there still, then you’d tell me, “lol. Not a chance”.
Now, I am not saying slothfulness in obeying God’s word or acting in faith is always caused by unbelief.
Sometimes it’s laziness, indiscipline and lack of patience (Hebrews 6:12, 15). However, I am willing to bet a solid 9 times out of 10, not doing what you say you believe in shows that you don’t really believe in it enough to do it.
Sure, you may think it’s a cool idea. “It sounds nice, and I would love to try it sometime. However, I don’t truly think that giving 10% of my income to church every month is going to benefit me in the long run…” Then, you’ve just shown that you don’t really believe in tithing and the benefits of it enough to actually do it. In your mind you are actually losing money by doing it, instead of believing that the 10% given to God is the most important part of your income (Malachi 3:10).
“I don’t know, it sounds nice to think that Anointing Oil, Communion and so on can heal me when I’m sick. However, I don’t really think that should be the first resort when I’m sick”. That’s because you don’t really believe in it enough to make it a first resort. Maybe you believe in it enough to make it 3rd, 4th or last resort, but not first resort. (We all know that we put our most trustworthy solutions in first place before we start trying “tumbo tumbo”).
You’re proving your faith not only to God but actually more for yourself.
When the time comes to do what you’ve been saying all along, it gives you a chance to judge yourself (2 Corinthians 13:5).
Sometimes, it seems God is just holding Himself from telling many of us to stop wasting our time because He knows how it will make us feel.
“What do you mean I don’t really believe? Come on, don’t tell me that. Are you me? Do you know me? Are you I? Are I you me? Etc”.
So, sometimes we find ourselves in the situations where we need to make a distinct decision to either go the Lord’s way, or go our own way. It is in that moment we truly know ourselves and say, “God, it seems I am not one of your strongest soldiers lol. I’m not sure I believe all these things”.]
Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith;
— 2 Corinthians 13:5
He knew that from the very beginning. You didn’t.
Your actions either affirm your beliefs or betray your inner intentions.
Of course, some people pretend with their actions, but those people are faarrr away from what we are trading with here (Matthew 6:1). Because belief is from the heart, and God knows the heart, so they are deceiving themselves. God is not mocked; he can’t be fooled (Job 13:9, Galatians 6:7).
He’s never said, “Woah! I thought this guy was spiritual. Fooled me tbh”.
We can also find an example of our actions affirming or betraying our true intentions when we talk about love.
Kids don’t really understand what love is. They say the word, they may even feel “love”, but they don’t really know how to love. Kids love pets. They don’t know how to feed them, groom them, or take care of them, but they “love” pets. Some kids physically abuse pets and when the parent wants to give the pet away, they wail because they “love Fluffy so much”!
Saying love, feeling love and showing love are three different things.
Saying love takes only one syllable with a very short drawn breath. A toddler can do it.
Feeling love takes even less. None of the five (or six) senses is needed.
However, showing love takes discipline, dedication, sacrifice and patience.
So doing what God wants us to do to “prove” that we have faith is doing what helps us to understand what faith is. We have no clue if faith remains in the heart. We can’t even be sure that it is faith because we haven’t proven it with our actions yet.
When we were younger, we were often taught the difference between love and infatuation. We wouldn’t know the difference on our own until we started to see that acting in love is pretty difficult! Many times, it is that act that differentiates love and infatuation.
Well, that concludes today’s article. Next week, we will look at the second reason we are supposed to do something, even after believing all things.
God be with ye till then!
