- Faith
Hebrew/Aramaic (Old Testament):
- 'amen (Deu 27, many times; transliterated into 'Amen', from the root aman ('build up or support', 'to render or be firm or faithful') and meaning 'truly', 'firm', 'faithfulness', 'fidelity', 'so be it').
In Deuteronomy 23:23 is the instruction: "That which is gone out of thy lips thou shalt keep and perform; even a freewill offering, according as thou hast vowed unto the LORD thy God, which thou hast promised with thy mouth."; that which you say you will do should be considered a freewill offering to God; and that which has been devoted or Given to God is not to be redeemed (Leviticus 27).
In Leviticus 5:4, "Or if a soul swear, pronouncing with his lips to do evil, or to do good, whatsoever it be that a man shall pronounce with an oath, and it be hid from him; when he knoweth of it, then he shall be guilty in one of these."; if you swear to do something (in this case mentioned in a more binding fashion of swearing an oath than the prior reference), you are guilty if you do not hold to it, good or evil—here, you can be guilty even for NOT doing evil that you swore to do, all the more reason to be careful as to WHAT you give your word to!
In Numbers 30:2, "If a man vow a vow unto the LORD, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth."; here shows that sworn oaths are bound to the soul; as such, breaking your word does you harm! I would say that it does you harm by devaluing faith by encouraging you to believe that breaking your word is an acceptable practice.
And lastly, the words of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke, 6:46-49, on people who are not faithful to their professions (i.e. what they say, who or what they attribute their allegiances to): "And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?
Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will show you to whom he is like:
He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.
But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great."; if you're going to call yourself Christian, find being faithful important! Consider the similarity between the Hebrew kuwn in Psalms 5:9 'to be firm, be stable, be established' and the description here of a house founded on a rock that cannot be shaken by the flood!
- Grace (and Approval)
Why then is grace a minimum? Consider it from a purely mechanical side. People must have grace for each other to avoid sinning against each other in judgment, heresy (disunion), and general disapproval (see 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 for an example of Paul rebuking the church at Corinth for some of this problem).
How then is grace faith? What meaning is there in grace but for grace to be consistent, for it to be faithful! Could we truly desire a heaven where we would go and be divided amongst each other and scrutinized as we have seen here? Does that truly sound heavenly to you? Much better for us to be true to our word here, to accept each other in our weaknesses—not to accept sin! but to accept ourselves and to accept each other!—and to know that we are acceptable to others, such that in heavenly dominion we can be at peace within and without. If you people will not be consistent in grace, how can we ever have peace?
We are to be of a spirit that when we come across someone, whomever they are, that we can honor, respect, and have grace for that person, whomever they are and whatever they may have done; to show that grace, to show that spirit of approval for that person; and yet, attempting to be faithful to the standard of giving rebuke and reproof for sin. Therein lies what an important choice we must make, we must make every effort to deny approval to sin but we MUST be approving of every person. Jesus made no secret of finding grace important. This is why I believe that grace is the 'minimum faith', why I find it necessary for 'believing in Jesus' and for having salvation.
Similarly, when a person leads another down a wrong path knowingly, or even watches another go down a wrong path when they believe they can warn them from it and, instead, stands idly by, is no less guilty than the person going down the wrong path; and possibly moreso, since they admit, at least to themselves, that they know better. The Bible refers to this as 'sinning in ignorance' as well as in other ways; I am unable to find the reference at this time, but I believe it also refers to such an idle witness as having the 'blood' of the sinner 'on their hands'.
Any one of us that finds agreeable that any other person be isolated, separated, lost in sin, cut off, or generally disapproved of, still needs to find it in themselves to ask God to help them make more perfect their grace.
God would that all were faithful, and that we would all have sufficient grace—I know that I myself still have come up short in both areas, and would be surprised, hopefully pleasantly, to find someone walking this earth who did not—so, we all need to have grace... in part, because we all need grace, Amen.
- Choice
I am one person of the philosophy that the one and only thing that God has given to us completely and entirely is our choice. Further, I believe that our choice is all that we truly are; in essence, the original gift (see earlier post: Salvation and Holiness by the Lake of Fire?).
Everything else is a loan, a stewardship, a responsibility; still His but in our care. All that God has given us (choice) or entrusted us with (everything else), we can reap the benefits of, if, and only if, we will be a good steward, a good caretaker of it.
In my last post, I got down into the meaning of faith; I summarized it as "how much you allow yourself to be trusted, both by others AND by yourself." Faith is how trustworthy you are, how consistent you will be. Faith is how much you honor and respect your choice, to make your choices and stick with them.
As such, faithlessness is being untrustworthy. Faithlessness is to be wishy-washy, to waffle, to hesitate, to be indecisive. Faithlessness is to despise your choice.
If choice is the single gift that we have received, if choice is all that we ARE, then when we despise our choice by denying faith, by being faithless, we are saying we despise our own existence.
If the faithless then testify to despise their own existence—to not care for it, to not even desire to take it or to use it—then when judgment comes, God is completely justified in giving them what they want; to allow the faithless to cease to exist. This I believe to be the unfortunate end awaiting those who go to judgment without using their choice to be faithful in having grace.
In my coming posts, I hope to address issues like God's providence even in earthly things (how I believe God has said time and time again that he is NOT a God of lack, but of abundance), and of how we can put God back into our words and choose to use our mouths to call the blessings rather than curses.
As always, intelligent and/or non-negative feedback is welcome, in agreement or otherwise.
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