Faith demands action. The Apostle James was not one to mince words. He said, “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17). A faith that doesn’t do anything or demand anything from us is dead. At some point, faith must put on boots and go to work.
One of the greatest examples of faith in the bible is found in Matthew 8, where Jesus finds himself talking to a centurion. In this encounter, the centurion had a dying servant, and he sent someone to ask Jesus to heal his servant. As Jesus got close to his home, the centurion met him outside and said he was unworthy to have Jesus come into his home. At one point, the centurion asked Jesus to speak the word, and his servant would be healed. Now that’s faith!
Scripture indicates that Jesus marveled at the man’s faith. Not many things in scripture surprise Jesus, but apparently, this was one of them. In response, Jesus said…
Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour (Matthew 8:13)
The centurion’s servant wasn’t healed until after he went. It wasn’t until after the centurion acted on what he believed to be true that he saw the miracle. Most people (I included) would have wanted to see the miracle before we went.
When we begin to align our actions with our beliefs, the miraculous can start to happen in our lives.
We often want God to do the miraculous, and then we step out in faith, but that’s not the pattern we see in scripture. Time and time again, we see where the Lord expects us to go, and then things will happen. Scripture affirms, “And these signs will follow those who believe” (Mark 16:17). In other words, we believe, then we see. It’s not seeing is believing; it’s believing is seeing.
You might have been praying and asking the Lord to do something, but just maybe, the Lord is waiting on you to take the first step. Put your faith into action today and take the first step.
