Beyond Belief by Suresh Joel
The preacher started with reflecting on Hebrews 12:1 to 2 and explained that the previous chapter contained definition of faith and heroes of faith. And then chapter 12 starts with “Therefore” to convey what we need to do in our life since we have such a cloud of witnesses that we can follow.
He asked us to introspect what we really do. Do we simply read these as stories and carry on with our life? Most of us stop at belief alone and take no step further. Go to church and just live our life outside; detached from what we believe.
We believe in Christ only for this life and what we can gain in this life which is a miserable state to be in per 1 Cor 15:19 KJV.
But most of us are in this pitiable state as we believe in a God who will provide, help, heal, swoop down and save us while we can continue to live a convenient life. Our faith is not for eternity. It is weak. We are not sure of the truth and see set our eyes on what is here-and-now instead of seeing the eternity perspective where our real life is with God in His kingdom. We believe as long as it is convenient. As someone said, “Belief is cheap, trust is expensive.”
In Ecclesiastes, Solomon writes about what makes him happy, pleasures, and vanity of vanities. After experiencing all pleasures the world, he realized that nothing has meaning without God.
2 Timothy 3: 1 to 5 warns against being lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. People run after pleasure, comfort, not God. The problem is of pleasure as people are destroying themselves with pleasure.
Accordingly to C.S. Lewis – All pleasure is God created. It is in times, ways, and degrees makes it sin.
Satan takes this God given pleasure and twists it around. If we choose pleasure, we will not get it but if we set our eyes to Jesus, pleasures will follow.
Worship without sacrifice is what we are used to. We demand God’s sacrifice for us. Worship is meaningless as no sacrifice is involved. Any old testament story of worship involves sacrifice. If our heart doesn’t come broken before God as sacrifice, there is no use.
Romans 12: 1 and 2 talks about being a living sacrifice and offering yourself holy and acceptable to God. Some examples of sacrificial worship are calling of the disciples, rich young ruler, dead burying the dead, hate your father and mother, take up your cross, and Mary’s alabaster jar.
James 2: 14 to 26 mentions faith without deeds. Sometimes it too much effort we feel to go to church and to come for prayer. 1 Kings 12: 28 has such an example where the king appealed to people’s desire of convenience even for worshipping.
The other reason belief doesn’t turn to faith that we practice is that we are selfish. We think only of ourselves. Jesus and the apostles dint live a convenient life. We think our life should be blessed but the truth is if we follow Jesus as true disciples, life will be filled with trials and tribulations. Also, we have no desire to share the good that we have freely got by God’s grace (Phil 2:21 Seeking their own interest and James 3:15 Selfish ambition)
Let us remember that Jesus won the victory for us through sacrifice.
The preacher mentioned the personal experience where his and his sister’s faith was shaken during their mother’s fatal ailment but sister said “Where will I go if I leave my faith?”
Reflection by Shubha Jha