Keep Your Faith Active

“Faith without works is dead” – James 2:26

In Luke 5:17-26, we learn about the healing of a paralyzed man. It all happened when Jesus was teaching a crowd who had come from far regions to listen to Him. A paralyzed man was also brought on a bed who also had heard about Jesus’ power to heal and had come to seek healing. When they got to where Jesus was, they couldn’t bring him in through the door because the place was fully packed with people. So, they found another way to bring him to Jesus. They went up on the housetops and let him down with his bed through the tiling into the midst of the room right in front of Jesus. And when Jesus saw their faith, He said to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven.”

I try to imagine what was going through the mind of the paralyzed man when he got to the place where Jesus was and couldn’t reach Him because of the crowd. He must have thought something like, ‘We have covered a great distance to get here, but I am not going back home the same way, as paralyzed. I will leave this place walking.’ The interesting part was, his body was paralyzed but his faith was fully active. If his faith was paralyzed just as he was physically paralyzed; he would have given up the moment he found the place was fully packed with people, an obstacle.

I wonder, how many times do we give up on something simply because we’ve come across our first obstacle? Many times we begin doing something with great expectations and hope that it will turn out to be better, but along the way we face an obstacle. An obstacle that we didn’t anticipate we would come across, an obstacle that seem too big for us to overcome. So we end up quitting too soon and missing the reward that awaited us.

Just like the paralyzed man, we are encouraged to keep our faith active. Passive faith is as good as dead. Let your faith which is active motivate you to act. Where there is a will, there is always a way. With faith that is active, there is always an opportunity to improve, an opportunity to get better, and an opportunity for a miracle. Active faith sees opportunity, passive faith sees obstacles. Where there is faith, there is hope.

Active faith gets God’s attention. It is that active faith that healed the woman with bleeding problem, it made Jesus to stop and notice that power had left Him when someone touched Him. It is also that active faith that healed centurion’s servant. It is also that active faith that saved the life of Rahab the harlot, when she took in the messengers and helped them escape. Friends, be encouraged to keep your faith in agreement with your works. It is the actions that you put behind your faith that counts; it is also the actions of your faith that keeps it active. “In God’s eyes our words have only the value of our actions.”- St. Ignatius.

It is my prayers that you will get the encouragement to stir up your faith into action from the gospel of Luke 5:17-26. I pray that your faith may be well pleasing before the Lord, so that whatever you ask God in prayers with active faith you may be able to receive it. Be Blessed.

“For we walk by faith, not by sight” – 2 Corinthians 5:7