A Lifestyle of Faith

Posted on Jul 19, 2016 in Devotions |

A Lifestyle of Faith

[Rom 1:17 KJV] 17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

Spare tires, life preservers, fire extinguishers, and a weapon: these are all items that we think about having around in case of an emergency. We don’t use them every day, but we make sure we have them readily available to us “just in case”. Having these items around gives us a sort of “peace of mind” because we know they are always there when we need them. But, do we treat our faith in God like one of these “in case of emergency” items? The unfortunate reality is many Christians do exactly this.

Romans 1:17 tells us that “the just shall LIVE by faith.” This means that faith is something that we should be walking in

all the time; it should be a lifestyle, not something we pull out when an emergency arises. When we gave our life to Jesus, we must realize that we moved our residency from a worldly system into the Kingdom of God. We should no longer operate like everyone else; we must live our lives according to God’s way of doing things, which is by Faith. Every day of our lives, we should be practicing walking out the life of faith, not just “saving it” for the big stuff. It takes faith to wake up with a positive expectation of God’s favor every day. It takes faith to walk in the love and peace of God with our family and co-workers or classmates. It takes faith to trust God for protection daily as we travel to school, work, or in our daily activities. But, so often, we set our faith in God’s Word and His promises aside and just let life take us wherever it

wants to.

We like knowing that it’s there when we need it, but we don’t really use it. But faith is not a spare tire; it’s a lifestyle. And if we don’t practice faith on a daily basis, when an emergency situation arises, oftentimes we have not built our faith up in order to receive the desired results. Think of faith like a muscle instead of a fire extinguisher. You must exercise your faith muscles every day if you want to be strong in the midst of adversity. So, pull that Bible and those teaching CD’s off the shelf. Begin to read and listen to God’s Word every day, and then put into practice what you have heard – every day. Don’t let life tell you what your experience will be. Instead, Experience LIFE God’s way: by Faith!

Meriam L. Franklin