Spiritual but Lacking Faith

In a recent Bible study, one of the participants made a statement that really got me thinking. He said a certain group of people were “spiritual but lacking faith”. Wow!!! How true is that for many churchgoers? We may know our Bible very well and be able to quote Bible verses to suit the occasion however, knowing the Bible and living it are two different things. And living the Bible does not mean being legalistic as some people may think, as legalism tends to move us away from God instead of getting us closer to Him as we stray from Him while striving to follow manmade rules. Neither does being a doer of the Word mean being busy doing what we believe we should do for Christ while missing the most important thing which is to sit in His presence and rest at His feet.

And she had a sister called Mary, who was also seated at the Lord’s feet, and was listening to His word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do the serving by myself? Then tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; but only one thing is necessary; for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:39-42

In order to build our faith in Christ, we need to put away the distractions and sit in His presence. We need to ask Him not only to increase our faith, but also to help us identify areas of doubt in our lives. It is important to also sit at God’s feet and meditate on His Word and His character. To accomplish all of these we must be intentional about putting aside time to be present in His presence. These days it seems like so many of us are busy, even with our ministries, and so we miss out on spending time in the Word, pray and praising God. We too often do not have enough time to reflect on His goodness.

I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies, as much as in all riches. I will meditate on Your precepts and regard Your ways. I shall delight in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word. Psalm 119:14-16

When we meditate on God’s Word and His character, we will want to rejoice in Him because of His goodness, mercy, faithfulness, and love. This increases our faith and makes us want to delight in Him even more and to tell others the good news about Him. We will also grow in deeper intimacy with Christ as we yearn for Him. When we are consumed by busyness, we sometimes lose our appetite for God, and we do not have time to taste and see that He is good. (See Psalm 34:8).

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; the one who comes to Me will not be hungry, and the one who believes in Me will never be thirsty. But I said to you that you have indeed seen Me, and yet you do not believe. Everything that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I certainly will not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. John 6:35-38

It is very sad that we may go to church and may even see the works of God around us, but we do not truly believe and instead, we choose to lean on our own understanding, which never supports us well as this just highlights our lack of faith. Therefore, it is so easy for us to fall and lose sight of Jesus. We can easily be overtaken by fear forgetting that we are overcomers through Christ and so we should not be overwhelmed by the problems in this world. Then, we often use worldly strategies to try to solve our problems and choose what seems like common sense methods, rather than take the steps of faith God is calling us to do as they make no sense to us. God’s ways go contrary to the flesh and requires us to move in faith, but we falter in this and therefore miss out on the supernatural that God can do in our lives. How many miracles have we failed to experience because we did not obey God as His ways went against our nature? We may choose to sacrifice so much in our lives, yet we do not get the blessings we had hoped for because we did not obey God fully.

Then Saul said to Samuel, “I did obey the voice of the Lord, for I went on the mission on which the Lord sent me; and I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have completely destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took some of the spoils, sheep and oxen, the choicest of the things designated for destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God at Gilgal.” But Samuel replied: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. 1 Samuel 15:20-22

Saul was thinking God would be pleased with His sacrifices, but He wasn’t. God wanted his complete obedience. Saul’s burnt offerings and sacrifices showed his lack of faith in God. He was unwilling to wait on Samuel to make the sacrifices, so he did things his way and thereby incurring the wrath of God not only on himself, but for generations to come. If we have faith, we will wait and obey God even when it feels uncomfortable. When we have faith, we will not do what seems spiritual, which could be in direct disobedience to God, but we will obey Him completely at all costs.