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Without Faith


And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)
          This was Biblegateway.com’s verse of the day for yesterday. It’s one of my favorite verses about faith because it gives some information about faith that gives the term hands and feet. It’s practical. What does faith look like? It believes. That’s not really helpful because both words come from the same root. It’s circular without the rest of it. 
          To have faith one must believe something specific. One must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek Him. To earnestly seek, one has to seek for more than 30 seconds. To earnestly seek, one has to put some time and energy into it, some gumption and gusto into it. If God exists and rewards those who earnestly seek him, then seeking him is an obvious response. 
          To have faith, it seems to me, means to believe something in a way that cause one to act on that belief, and to keep acting on it even when it looks like acting on it won’t have the result you thought it would (yet.)
           Curiously, it uses the word “must” but I don’t have the negative reaction to the term that I usually do. Maybe that’s because in this case the word is almost definitional. If you’re on a street going west, to go north you must either turn right, or turn left three times. It’s not someone’s will being imposed, it’s just a statement of reality. Those who come to God cannot come to Him without believing that He exists. How often do you go to something you believe doesn’t exist? How often do you go to something you don’t believe exists with expectations about the result?

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