Thoughts [3.08.09]

Just a disclaimer: I filled two little note pages on my phone of thoughts, so there are plenty of thoughts to come. I'll try to portion them so my entries aren't monstrous.

1. Actualized faith shows through our tangible actions.

"After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying 'Give thanks to the Lord, for his love endures forever.'"
-2 Chronicles 20:31

The context of this verse is that the Lord promises Jehoshaphat victory; the prophet says in v.17: "You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you."

What is so amazing here is that King J appoints non-military personnel at the frontlines of his army. Yes, in history there have often times been some sort of drummer, or bugle blower, but rarely are they on the frontlines, and never do they exclusively make up the frontline. But King J, trusting so fully in the Lord, shows his faith by putting these singers at the head of his army. Do you see how impractical it is? I mean, if they get attacked, they're screwed!!! (Sorry, it just blows my mind)

But what we see is that King J shows his faith in his tangible actions. That is, his actions reflect how fully he trusts in God. Personally, I think that's amazing. Many times, we profess faith, but our actions show that we prefer to rely on our own wisdom, or the world's wisdom, rarely do they reflect faith such as this.

The result? God is true to his word. The different armies against them end up ambushing themselves: The Ammonites and Moabites together accidentally jump the men from Mount Seir, and in the aftermath, they end up demolishing one another. The men of Judah win with nothing but singing and praise and end up with too much plunder to haul back. Amazing

2. I guess to go along with this, I always try to check to see if what I'm doing backs up what I'm saying. Especially with tangible things, like offering or daily QT time. As everyone + their mother knows, I like to talk a lot. But do I back it up? One day, hopefully, my life will be my witness, not only my words. As my father so eloquently put it, "Faith is not the confession of the lips, but a confession of our lives." That's on the money.

3. Speaking of money, I think one example of how we should live our lives is being "all-in", like in poker. So, if you are not familiar with this all-in concept, it refers to a situation in which you bet every single chip (dollar), on one decision. You may believe you have the best cards, or that the opponent will be too scared to call your bet.

The reason that this resonates well with me is for a couple of reasons:

A. When you're all-in, if your opponent calls you and you win, you're at a point where you can reap the greatest amount of reward. I think this is obvious too. The more you invest as a Christian, the greater amount of blessings you can receive, understand, and appreciate. The more you search for who God is, the greater He becomes. And when we're all-in, then we're in the best possible to max out every benefit of knowing Jesus.

B. Being all-in shows a level of confidence and commitment in your belief. This scares your opponent and it will scare Satan. Even if you leave one chip, (unless you're just being uber strategic and making them wanna call you) your opponent will see it as a sign of doubt and know that there's a possibility to beat you and shake you. When Satan sees someone who leaves one chip, I'm sure that he knows that he can go and shake, tempt, and eventually cause a rift in that person's relationship with God. But when we are all-in, I think even Satan will be scared. Maybe he'll try harder to cause a rift, but only because he's that much more scared.

C. If what we believe in turns out to be wrong, we should be completely screwed. In an all-in, if you're wrong and you lose, you lose all of your money. In the same way, you should live your life so that if Christianity is wrong, your life was completely wasted/lost. Think about it, planting a church, dedicating time for reading and prayer, evangelizing, trying to love God by obeying his commands, all of these things are pointless if we are wrong.

Obviously, I do not believe in any way that we are wrong about Christianity. However, it should be apparent to us, what is at stake; that in fact, everything should be at stake. Bottom line is: If this one belief I have invested everything in falls through, then I should be completely and utterly screwed. i.e. if Jesus is not who the Bible says he is, my life crumbles.

(Flaw in this example is that sometimes, living for Christ can help us be successful in the eyes of the world as well/we can be in positions where we are living for Christ nevertheless God is blessing us with worldly things, maybe we can consider this as a sidepot)

Wow that was a lot longer than I thought it would be. lol, I do try to leave the lengthier points for later, so that you can read the most points in the shortest amount of time.

overnOUT