The Answer Is (C) Faith

I remember a few times during college when I stayed up late into the night actually studying for a test. It was great that I was studying, it was pathetic that I had hardly cracked the book open until the night before the test. It seemed like every minute counted. Two more minutes reading something I was fairly certain I would forget before class started, or an extra minute looking at a chart that I was sure we’d looked at during class at some point. However, if I had been honest with myself, I knew that the likelihood that whatever I happened to stumble upon during my study blitz would actually come to my mind correctly at the time I needed it was pretty slim. That was the fruit of laziness, the byproduct of procrastination, and ultimately I deserved whatever low grade was most likely coming to me.

Thankfully I graduated college without any really bad grades. Looking back I realize how inefficient I really was; I can see where more consistency would have made studying for a test more effective. Perhaps that’s the value of hindsight and experience. In a nutshell I can see how unprepared I was for the test, thus how nervous I was to face that hour.

Similarly, we all have a test waiting for us. A day when we give an account for the things we’ve done. So how do you study for that test? If knowledge is the key to passing a science, math, or history tests; then faith might be the equivalent in a spiritual test.

How many books of the Bible I know probably won’t help, any more than how many times I made it to church. Each of those things may aid in building my faith, but knowledge alone isn’t going to help me pass the ultimate test at the end.

It’s easy for us to equate Bible knowledge with living for God, yet the Pharisees were living proof that wasn’t correct. In fact, Jesus informed a crowd in John 12:48, “He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.” Those words were the instructions of life. Living to glorify God, serving, forgiving, and plenty of instructions about what godliness actually looks like.

Jesus told some powerful parables in Matthew 25 that revealed how faith impacts our eternal reward. First, He explains how something changed in 5 of the 10 young women who had all started out with their fire burning brightly. Half of them kept their faith burning in their lamps, the others didn’t. Their negligence was equivalent to “rejecting Jesus’ words and instructions.” We know that’s the case because in that same chapter He tells another parable about the sheep and the goats where He describes the actions, and more importantly the motives, behind the faithful; those who receive the instructions of the Lord.

Matthew 25:32-36, “All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me…”

As James said in James 2:26, “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.” When Christians do not serve others, help others, comfort others, etc. for the purpose of sharing our faith, we miss powerful opportunities to make an impact. But the side effect of making a difference in the lives of the people around us is that our own faith will be strengthened.

As we ponder how to study for the test at the end of life, we have to realize that no amount of good I do is going to earn my way to heaven, however, part of God’s design is that with every good work I do for the purpose of glorifying God my faith grows proportionately. Can a man out give God?

Zaccheus offered four times the amount that he’d taken from anyone in order to show his repentance. Who was he repenting to? Ultimately God, but mankind was the recipient of his repentant heart. Remember God designed the link between serving others and our faith, so now we have the responsibility to “receive the sayings Jesus spoke to us,” and it’s in that trusting faith that we find God is pleased. Serve on for His glory!