Faith and Ephesians 1...

Bill spoke of real faith Sunday, and it was awesome. The idea that believing alone isn't all we're called to is so much bigger than we say. Just as God called Abraham to leave his home or Peter to leap out of the boat, He calls us to live a life as He did!

How does that relate to Ephesians 1 you might ask? Simple, Paul speaks of God as having "blessed us with every spiritual blessing...because we are united with Christ." One of the blessings, whether we see it or not, is faith! It might sound odd, God giving us faith to believe in Him, but it's the way it works. Without God's gentle (or not so gentle!) nudging, none of us would have ever found Jesus Christ, much less come to a saving knowledge of Him. The Psalms say it pretty clearly: "No one seeks God...no not one." We weren't seeking God, He was seeking us. Why would He do that? He is perfect in and of Himself; why seek us, imperfect, flawed, and ungrateful as we are? Short answer: love. Long answer: love. God made us and loves us unconditionally. In fact, God loves us enough to let us ignore Him.

That might sound like the antithesis of what we're looking for, but the reality is that God loves us enough to let us ignore Him. Does that mean He won't try to get our attention? No. Does it mean He would give up passionately seeking after us? Not a chance. But it means that He won't change our minds for us. C. S. Lewis said that pain was an equal part of joy, because without the other we wouldn't know and appreciate the prior. Does it make suffering and grief any less painful? No, but we know that the joy now is worth the pain later. God also knows that love without choice is not love. I mean, you can't look at someone and tell them to love you, can you? At least not really LOVE you, but simply acquiesce to your demands and say something. If it holds true for us, the image of God, shouldn't it hold true of God? It does, because He gave us the ability to choose. Knowing full well that some of us would choose to ignore Him and suffer in Hell, He gave us choice so that we could choose to love Him.

If God loves us enough to let us choose, how can we say we love someone and not let them choose (even destructive behavior)? I've seen enough students make stoopid choices time and again, yet I still love them. I grieve for them, because they're giving up the unity in Christ for a shadow that cannot fulfill. So, what are you choosing today? Are you choosing God or are you choosing yourself?

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