Tag: Faith

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Two or More, Plus One

My niece Meghan and her beau Kyle married a couple of weeks ago. They had asked my brother—her step-father— to officiate, but when Eric tested positive for COVID, they asked me to pinch-hit. I had officiated a marriage ceremony once before, so after several practice-runs alone at home, I thought I was ready. Yet as I sat quietly by myself during the final moments before the wedding, a young woman from the bridal party approached me and asked, “Has anyone prayed with you yet?” “No,” I responded, “I’ve been praying by myself.” “Would you like me to pray with you?” she asked in reply. “Yes, that would be great.” As we prayed, I received a peace and confidence higher than my own. “God’s Spirit is here,” I thought, “All will be well; enjoy this time.” I was ready. And the wedding was beautiful.

In his historical account, Luke noted that “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”1 One-on-one conversations with God—such as these between Jesus and His heavenly Father—deepen our relationship with Him who pursues relationship with us. Yet even Jesus solicited the prayer support of others on occasion, such as the time He “took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray.”2 In fact, He taught all of His disciples, “Truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”3

Have you ever noticed that agreeing in earnest prayer with others strengthens both our hope and the faith to go forward in it? It is evidence of our oneness in Christ—the unity that happens as the same Holy Spirit of God indwells each one of us and collectively all of us. When we pray together, we pray as one. Then instead of saying to people, “I will pray for you,” might we do better to stop and actually do it, even if to utter just one sentence of Spirit-led petition and thanksgiving? Jesus will join us there, and He will act. He promises.

“Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” —Ephesians 6:18

Father, thank You for uniting us in Christ, for putting Your one Holy Spirit in all who believe in Him. Lead us together in love and humility, that we would faithfully pray together as one, each of us supporting all of us. In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 Luke 5:16
2 Luke 9:28
3 Matthew 18:19-20

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Faith at Work

A pastor once shared this observation with me, “There is more to Christianity than simply being right.” His point was a good one: knowing and believing the Word of God is essential to eternal life, for “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord,”1 yet giving and serving in its truth and power is every bit as vital in the Kingdom of God. “As the body without the spirit is dead,” explained James, “so faith without deeds is dead.”2 Conversely, Paul warns against deeds without faith: “Everything that does not come from faith is sin,”3 he wrote. Faith and deeds—one does not live without the other; real faith lives in the company of obedience.4

Sometimes we are tempted to pursue good deeds in perpetual toil of gaining God’s favor. But works are not means of earning God’s approval; they are, instead, the gracious result of it. Paul reminds us, “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”5 Then into all who trust in Him God breathes new life of eternal significance: “For we are God’s handiwork,” Paul continues, “created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”6 God saves us unto purposeful life.

Yet even our “yes!” to the Spirit’s daily call is the outcome of God’s grace in us: it is the overflow of our faith in His promises. “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,”7 Jesus promised, and indeed it does. For “we love because he first loved us,”8 and we “comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”9 Yes, Pastor, there is more to Christianity than simply being right—much more. For our acts of obedience flow from what we know to be true. So we go forward in faith today, for we have work to do.

“And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”—2 Corinthians 9:8 ESV

Father, “fill [us] with the knowledge of [Your] will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that [we] may live a life worthy of [You] and please [You] in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God . . .”11 In Christ we pray. Amen.

1 Deuteronomy 8:3
2 James 2:26
3 Romans 14:3
4 James 2:17
5 Ephesians 2:8-9
6 Ephesians 2:10
7 John 8:32
8 1 John 4:19
9 2 Corinthians 1:4
10 Colossians 1:9-10

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Standing Never Alone

“Ed” was part of an executive team engaging in an off-site strategic planning retreat. To facilitate the session, his company had hired “Mary,” nationally known for her analytic expertise but new to leadership consulting, and it showed. After hours of ideation, discussion and debate, the walls were covered with poster-size sheets capturing the group’s collective thoughts. “If you are in agreement with this vision,” Mary challenged, “please stand up.” One-by-one, the officers rose from their seats until only two people remained seated, including Ed, who could only imagine what his peers were thinking about him. When Mary asked him to explain to the group why he could not support the vision, Ed replied, “There is no vision. We’ve developed all sorts of good input from which we can draft a vision statement, but so far we have none.” A moment of awkward silence engulfed the room while everyone grasped what now had become glaringly obvious—there was nothing for them to support! One-by-one, the officers sat down.

Once after Jesus had spoken to a crowd, “many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”1 He had spoken some difficult truths, too difficult for many to accept. Turning to His closest friends, Jesus asked them, “You do not want to leave too, do you?”2 It was Peter who answered for the group, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”3 Despite the actions of the crowd, Peter and the Twelve stood alone in Him who in His very being is truth and life. Yet there was also a time when Peter was the one influenced by the “legalistic” crowd, and it was Paul the lone voice in the room reminding Peter before them all, “a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.”4

At times we are easily swayed from what is real to what is comfortable. Perhaps we capitulate to ill-footed reason, offer feelings more credence than facts, or ride the comfortable current of popular opinion. Whatever form it takes, acquiescence to falsehood is far too easy for us and far too dangerous. How much better when tempted like this that we stand—alone if we must—as Paul did. “At my first defense,” he wrote to Timothy, “no one came to my support . . . But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength.”5 For the truth of the matter is this: whenever we stand alone in Christ, we don’t stand alone at all.

“I am with you always, to the end of the age.”6 —Jesus, to His disciples

“There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides You; there is no Rock like our God.”6 Thank You, Father. Amen.

1 John 6:66
2 John 6:67
3 John 6:68-69
4 Galatians 2:16
5 2 Timothy 4:16-17
6 Matthew 28:20
6 1 Samuel 2:2