There are many definitions of faith. We can use the term faith synonymously with the term religion. We say things like my Christian faith......or faith based curricula and so on. But in the bible there is another definition of faith. Faith is the same as believing. Some people, myself included, have had faith that something will happen for sure. We can have stubborn faith that it will rain on a particular day.
The focus of this essay/article is not that kind of faith. The focus of this essay is the kind of faith that enables us to live our daily life in a more affirmative way. The way to live in an affirmative way is to live in God. The Bible verse I would like to share is "Those who live in love live in God. And God is love." This Bible verse encourages us to live in God. That may seem mind boggling. How on earth are we supposed to live in God? What does it mean to live in God?
As recently as yesterday I figured out some answers to this conundrum. When we live in God's love we are living immersed in love. This may cause you to ask the question how does it feel like to be immersed in God's love. For this we have to look at the definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13 which tells us the verbs that qualify the noun love. The verbs are patience, kindness, non- competitive, encouraging, forgiving, humble, truthful, honoring unselfish, protective, hopeful, trusting and persevering. (This is paraphrased) God's love is an all encompassing concept that contains within it many qualities. If we do something good God's love tells us how awesome what we did is, and tells us to do that awesome thing more and more--encourages us. What if we are immersed in kindness? If we are immersed in kindness we would have a lot of peace and joy inside our heart. This means that we do things in such a way that reflects the fact that God loves us even if the world does not. God's love is enough to help us feel happy if something goes wrong. If something goes wrong we will not take it to heart. God's love is enough to make us feel courage. Suppose you are going to do a social media post and you are not sure if it will be okay. Then God's love will give you courage to post it. Negative emotions such as envy and pride don't have a place in God's love. Love does not dishonor others. God's love will make us feel honored. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God's love points us to the truth. God's love grieves at evil. God's love does not participate in evil. God's love always protects us. If we are immersed in God's love we are able to trust God and others. To live in love means God's love will be patient with us if we are not already perfect. God's love has high expectations but God's love accompanies us as we try to become perfect. To live in love means to live in goodness. And in a holy and pure environment. Because God is pure and holy. To live in God means God helps us to have hope. We can have tons of hope. We can have hope for our kids. We can have hope for our future. We can have hope for everything in our lives. God's love helps us hope in big decisions of our life but more importantly it helps us have hope in the little things of our life. God's love helps us persevere in good things. It is easy to forget God's love. Sometimes the problems seem so huge. It seems insurmountable. We feel overwhelmed. This causes us to forget God's love. But if we remember God's love then we can overcome the challenges. Jamie Grace, a contemporary Christian singer said when she was ill as a young girl the disease seemed large. But she reminded herself that God is larger than anything we face in life. That is what it means to live in love and live in God.
God's love causes faith to be a positive force in our life. It is not the kind of stubborn faith that believes that a certain thing will happen. But it is a faith that makes everything positive in our life. This makes us truly live happily in the universe created by God. God's blessings abound in our life. Purple flowers under the kitchen window, pink flowers on the side of the road, a video of innocent children singing and dancing, a sermon by a lady (Jamie Grace) telling us to be uninhibited like children. It is a faith that trusts God and surrenders everything in our life to God.
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