To Teach Myself ...

So, this past Sunday I was given the chance to teach the high school youth's Sunday School Class. It was a lot of fun. I actually really enjoy any chance to speak, which makes me question, "Do I just like listening to myself teach?" ... And despite this being a legitimate question, I know that's not true. I enjoy speaking because, 1) I really just like it, 2) it usually is about what God has done and is doing in my life, and therefore I am able to use it to testify to His continual and manifest goodness, and 3) I desire so desperately that my life be used for the glory of God, and the salvation of men ... and if by having a chance to speak to kids or adults, or whoever, I typically will be glad to.

But, I do not do this for the enjoyment of hearing my own voice and teaching ... but maybe I should after how I have acted today.

You see, I spoke about faith. I have come to learn that faith is more than "something in our hearts or our souls … more than some vague concept of a feeling or mysterious power that we claim to have." I told the Sunday school class that I feel, truly believing that faith is better defined as a verb, rather than a noun.

I define faith as a sure footed and and steadfast belief, followed by an action based on that belief. Would you agree? I would argue that faith is doing something, literally. A few examples of what I mean:

- Faith is trusting God, that he loves you ... Then instead of just stopping there and enjoying the fact that God loves you ... it is moving from a belief to an action ...for me, in light of trusting that God loves me, the action typically comes in the form of getting beyond myself (beyond my own disbelief that I could sin in a certain manner) and actually worshipping God for loving me. Worshipping because I really really trust he does! Does that make sense? It makes sense to me, and I have lived this out and had to learn it many times, and in fact I still need to learn it.

- Faith is looking a temptation in the eye and saying, "NO! Christ, I know, is better and more fulfilling and lasting!", and then turning your back and fleeing to Christ, away from the temptation.

- Faith is trusting that God promises a way out of temptation and following his lead to the escape route, which may literally be leaving a room, a conversation, a joke, a movie, a TV show, turning the radio station … whatever it takes!

Those are three very basic examples of what I mean. Faith always involves a trust aspect and a doing aspect. And please hear me on this ... The doing gains us nothing but a lack of sin in our lives. It is not a doing that can aid us in salvation, as salvation is solely and strictly an act of God, by the grace he has poured over us in Christ Jesus.

So, faith in my book is a trusting and a doing of something that aids us in following God, as he guides us. It is not passive and it is not easy. Faith is a battle, and a choice. It is not as if Abraham acted faithfully by saying “OK God, I know you will provide a lamb for me to sacrifice instead of Isaac, so I am just not going to go at all, it might scare my boy here!” He acted and followed God to the place of sacrifice before he ever saw the lamb!

And I say "To Teach Myself" because today I have not chosen to live or act obediently toward God in faith. I mean, I know I am going to sin, as that is my nature ... but today has just been stupid. Literally, if people had been around to see how frustrated and annoyed I was with my bike, I probably would have been laughed at. And I deserve to be laughed at. In reality, all the trouble was not because of my bike, but because of the pump. See, I was changing a long time flat tire on my mountain bike, and the pump nozzle just refused to grad the valve on the tube like it needed to, so ... I took off the old tube, replaced it with the new one. Then I started pumping and it would not inflate. I worked for another twenty minutes trying to make it, before I actually took the tube and tire back off. I took it all back off to see if I had messed something up and to check to see if the tube had a hole in it. It didn't! I put it all back on, and it did the same thing, which is to say it did nothing. Then I decided to hold the nozzle lightly, and the air pumped straight on in. Oh boy! All this while, I am not being very kind to my bike or my pump ... namely in words. I acted not like a 22 year old. I am ashamed.

So, all in all, what should have taken like ... maybe 10 minutes, took nearly an hour! Oh, I was mad. And mad is to say the least. Anyway, since then, I have been attempting to get beyond it. I am now. But, as for faith, I have not yet come to the point at which I truly trusting that if I go to God, he will accept me. And I know He will, its just that I am stubborn and prideful. I am prideful in that I find it hard to believe that I would act like I did this morning. So, I wish, and I am now beginning to listen to my owns words from Sunday morning. I know God loves me. I know he is longing to forgive me of this stupid sin.

Yet am I ready to forgive myself? Am I ready, rather capable to forget about it as God will, as soon as I ask for forgiveness? And if I don't, is it an insult to God's own ability to forgive and forget?

Oh if by trusting that God loves me, I would be motivated to go to him, getting over myself to worship and walk with him!

God, would your love be greater than my own pride and lack of faith!