Sedentary Faith

While Pastor Ryan is on vacation this summer, he has turned his blog over to four CrossPointers. This week, Kimberly Bingham takes over.  Kimberly and her husband, David, have two beautiful daughters, Bella and Maggie Ellen. Kimberly counsels young women at a rehab center 3 nights a week and leads the Glory Girls on Wednesday nights at CrossPoint.

Many Sundays I look around the sanctuary, and I see many of the same people sitting in the exact same place each and every week, they never miss a single Sunday or Wednesday for that matter. They are the ones that are there “every time the door is open!” Please don’t miss understand; this is a wonderful thing. But I am quickly reminded that for eighteen years of my Christian life, I was a Christian, I was going to Heaven, I was a foreign missionary, and I was president of my church youth group, I was present at church “every time the door was open.” All of this, and yet I had sedentary faith.

If you had asked me about my faith, I would have answered “of course I have faith in Jesus, of course I know and believe He died for my sins, of course I know that He can heal and forgive.”

I would have even been able to define faith to you as being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we cannot see. I had this “faith thing” down pat.

As I am growing, I realize constantly just how important my faith is, I am referring to the kind of faith that comes after that initial acceptance of Jesus Christ as your Savior, and I am referring to the day to day, life faith. The faith in Jesus that you believe in and call out for when a young mother is stricken with cancer, or the 3 year old lies in a bed at St. Jude’s, or you are losing your home due to financial trouble.

Is our faith active and alive? An atheist has the ability to occupy a seat in a sanctuary “every time the door is open,” but our true faith in the most difficult of times is what separates God’s children from the non-Christians in the world.

I encourage you to first, seek that initial act of faith in accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior, I not only encourage you, I beg you, and I pray that you will not rest until you know Him.

Secondly, I ask you to seek Him in Faith, and each and everyday that you draw a breath, I challenge you to seek new ways to glorify Him. Please do not let your faith be sedentary.

This applies to your prayers that should never cease, this applies to the ways that you seek to glorify Him. This type of faith really is a one-on-one, personal, and intimate relationship and love for Jesus Christ.

He is not a distant figure on a throne somewhere that we dream about. He is real; He is alive; He adores you right where you are at this moment, not just where you were yesterday, and not just where you will be tomorrow, but today, right where you are.

I always think about when I draw my last breath, and I meet Jesus face-to-face. It is my prayer that in that moment, Jesus and I will simply be carrying on our conversation from my previous moment here on Earth. It is my prayer that in that moment that I experience my Father face-to-face that he will know me as His daughter that loves and adores Him.

As Christians, we should not desire to meet him face-to-face as a distant fifth cousin that you might hear from every 5 years at a family reunion. No! We should desire that one-on-one father/child relationship with Jesus so that when we come into His presence face-to-face there will be no question to us having a “sedentary faith.”

We should want our faith to be so active and real that it never ends. Not even upon the moment that we draw our last breath. If we, as Christians, practice our true faith day-in and day-out, how many people would seek to know the amazing God in whom you serve and place your faith?