Can I Borrow Your Faith Muscle?
Oh, if life were that easy.
Have you ever gone to the gym and felt the immediate need to gulp down a 32oz bottle of haterade?
Half-shirts and bra tops exposing beautiful, firm six-packs. Chiseled calves and quads that say ‘hello” with every step. Biceps and well-defined shoulders connect to backs who’ve never seen a day of back fat in their lives?
Wouldn’t the whole no-pain-no-gain thing go down much easier if you could simply borrow their muscles? No sweat, no effort – just exchange your fat and flab for sexy firmness.
Or, how about when life gets rough – wouldn’t it be easier to just lean on someone else’s faith?
“Hey, could you go pray, meditate, sacrifice, and do all the work for me, please? Let me know when my problems are solved, OK?”
When it comes to putting in work – humanity is generally lazy. I, too, have to fight complacency, laziness, thoughts of giving up or taking the easy way out just like the next teammate. Our adversary, the devil, would love nothing more than for our purpose to be swallowed up with “playtime” in our rejection of the discipline and commitment it takes to glorify God with our lives.
No matter how much we try to resist it, faith without works is dead (James 2:17) – and so is every gift, dream, and purpose God has for us, without faithful activity!
You’ve Got to Use Your Own
Here’s the truth. God has given ALL of us a portion of Faith (Romans 12:3). It’s just like on Oprah’s Favorite Things – “You get some faith, you get some faith, and you…” Everybody gets a faith starter kit!
Faith is what keeps your dreams alive when hard times have you on life support – and hard times are guaranteed (John 16:33), Team. But in the belly of Faith lies Hope to keep going when all else around you logically says, “Give up, stop trying.”
But, here’s the kicker: No one can use YOUR Faith but YOU! God’s measure of faith to you, is YOUR gift. There will be some circumstances in life where NO-BO-DY can pray, pull, or drag you out; you’re gonna have to dig deep within the measure of Faith God has given you, get some dust on your own knees, let the tears mess up your make-up, and fight your own way out!
So, what you do with your measure of faith matters because faith has the power to grow. It’s a seed, a MUSCLE that, if you put it to work, will flourish and produce lasting results that you will appreciate more because YOU put in the work. You worked the muscle!
So, what’s the play call?
Stop depending on someone else’s faith muscle. We will never fortify our character by trying to capitalize on the prayers and hard work of others. The faith to produce results for your life lies within YOU!
Move past the fantasy of easy outs, gain-with-no-pain, and dodging your own work. Faith without work will always yield dead results. Trust that there’s a six-pack for your own faith just waiting to say, “I knew you could do it!”
