“My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.” (John 4:34)

When we eat bread, or any other food, the body converts it into energy, and the energy turns to action. So it is with the word of God: we “eat” by believing, then we turn that belief into action by our obedience. This is the dynamic of living faith. We know from scripture that “the word of God s living and powerful” (Heb 4:12). The Greek word translated as powerful, or “active” in other translations, is energes. The Word, like physical bread, delivers the energy to act. James is very clear when he writes to the church about action:

“But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”  And he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.”  (James 2: 20-24)

The flabby church
When we eat our fill but are inactive, the food we consume turns to fat and not to energy. We can become flabby and inert. If we fill ourselves with scripture and teaching and do not act on what we have read and heard, even though we believe it to be true, we risk turning into a flabby church, rich in theology but poor in active faith. When Jesus addresses the seven churches in the book of revelation He begins each message with the statement: “I know your works.” He didn’t say, “I know your theology or I know your worship meetings; He said “I know what you do.” The church at Laodicea thought that they were “rich” and that they needed nothing – they had got everything right – but Jesus called them “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” (Rev 3: 17). Because their works were lukewarm Jesus said He would ‘vomit them out of his mouth’ if they did not repent of their ways.

Laodicea was a flabby church. Great worship, great teaching, but not much action. It contrasts with the church at Philadelphia, of whom Jesus says: “I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name.” (Rev 3: 8-9). The word translated here as strength is the power-word “dunamis,” used almost exclusively in the NT for supernatural, miracle working power; the power of the Spirit. Clearly they saw some signs and wonders. Not a lot, but they did see a little. Moreover, they “kept His word”. They didn’t just hear His word, but they obeyed it. They “kept (His) command to persevere” (Rev 3:10). Their faith was active. They were a church of Word and Spirit, those whom the Father is seeking, who “worship in Spirit and in Truth.”

“Go your way, your son lives.”
The account of the nobleman’s son that I was also looking at in the last post (From Faith to Faith) (John 4: 47-54) Illustrates this kind of active faith. The man had begged Jesus to come and heal his son. “Come down before my child dies.” He wanted Jesus to come to his house and physically heal him. In his mind Jesus had to come with him to his house for his son to stay alive, but instead Jesus simply tells him  “Go your way, your son lives.” His faith was not just to believe in His power to heal, but to act on that faith by walking away and not trying to persuade Jesus to come with him. Verses 52-53 is significant: “Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, “Your son lives.” And he himself believed, and his whole household.”

There were no mobile phones in those days. This was a two day journey. Every step was a step of faith: he had to believe the word that was spoken to him if he was going to see his son alive again. What if…? What if…? And here in this short account is a model for the prayer of faith. We pray: (Lord, come down and heal my son!”); God answers (Go your way, your son lives); we believe the word He has spoken, but we have to wait to see that answer fulfilled (two days’ walk); yet as we wait we believe that the healing has already taken place. For new covenant Christians it was at the Cross (By His stripes we were healed), and for the nobleman’s son it was when Jesus released His word of life (Your son lives) and with it the command to believe (Go your way).

Believe, receive, and obey.
Very often our prayers don’t follow this pattern. We usually start well, in that we go to Jesus with our prayer; but we often miss the next step in this story, which was to hear the words that Jesus (by His Holy Spirit) speaks in response to our prayer. So our faith remains at the level of generalities: we hope Jesus will heal (or provide or whatever) because we know He can, rather than knowing what He has said to us about our situation and believing the word He has spoken into it. So for the first scenario we are “hoping and praying” for an eventual outcome: we endeavour to put our trust in who God is, but we don’t have an answer that He has spoken into our relationship with Him now, so there is no dynamic element to our faith.  In the second scenario we have met with Jesus in that moment, we have heard what He has said, we are believing that the word that has been spoken has already changed the situation in the Spirit, and we are walking towards seeing it in the flesh just as the man walked towards his restored son. We are in the reality of Mark 11:24: “Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.” We receive the answer to the prayer in the spiritual present, but we walk towards it in the material future.

The man received the healing of his son the moment he believed the word that Jesus had spoken, but he also had to obey the command to go his way in order to see it manifest. There is a very famous painting by Holman Hunt, picturing the words of Christ “Behold, I stand at the door and knock…” These words are generally applied to the state of the unbeliever’s soul, waiting for Jesus to come in with salvation. However He actually spoke them to believers, specifically to the Laodiceans, whom He had just chastised for their lukewarmness: “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” (Rev. 3: 19-20)

Jesus had set before the Philadelphians “an open door, and no-one can shut it.” By contrast, the Laodiceans had a closed door, which He was waiting for them to open. I think many of us may be more keen to have the experience of hearing God’s voice than we are to opening the door to actions of faith and love; but if we want to dine with Jesus we need to do what He says, and not just listen to His words.