Taste buds tell us
the taste of food; sight reveals us the beauty of scenery, and hearing the
sweetness of music. Someone’s
explanation about these things may give us some ideas about them but not the
actual experience. It is in eating,
seeing and hearing we acquire the real experience of them.
Christian faith
is such a thing that loses its flavor, its beauty, and its sweetness when we
limit it only to talks. It is in
practicing the faith that makes it a living relationship with God and with one
another. To emphasize this point, Jesus
said “Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my
disciples” (John 13:35, NLT). We don’t
have to shout out loud to the world about who we are; our lives can become the
Bible for the world to read and for the church to be nourished with if we put
our faith into action.
Last week I
travelled to Aizawl (Mizoram) for one week’s Bible Seminar and stayed the whole
week with brother Vanlalchhunga’s family.
He and his wife make a wonderful Christian home with their four amazing
children and a kind hearted mother who is about 75 and still very strong. Every time I happen to meet people like this,
I am reminded of the promise the Lord Jesus made when he said “No one who has
left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of
the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in
the age to come eternal life” (Luke 18:29-30).
Their hospitality and sincere desire to make my life comfortable while I
was there reminded me of what John must have experienced in the house of Gaius
in Ephesus.
Gaius was one of
the leaders in the church at Ephesus who opened his house not only for John but
also for many others who passed through the town. Travelling ministers of the gospel would come
to Ephesus and Gaius would welcome them into the church and also to his
home. He would do everything possible to
send them off with some material help for their onward journey as well. John commends him for such love and
hospitality and offers a blessed prayer in his behalf saying, “Beloved, I pray
that in every way you may succeed and prosper and be in good health
(physically), just as (I know) your soul prospers (spiritually)” (3John 2,
AMP).
So many
Christians live barren lives because they fail to practice hospitality and
generosity. Much of their faith is
limited to talks only and because of that, they neither exhibit the light of
the gospel to the world nor enjoy the blessedness John prays for Gaius. True taste of Christian faith comes to life
when we put our words into action. John
says, “Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and
in truth. This is how we know that we
belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence…if our
hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything
we ask” (1John 3:18-22, NIV).
The best way to
have a joyful Christian life is to put our faith into practice. Otherwise it is a dead faith because faith
without action is dead (James 2:17). But
if we put our faith into action, it becomes a living faith and produces the
kind of life Jesus came to give us; “an abundant life” (John 10:10).
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