Inside Out Connection - Part 1

DAILY BYTE

How can I live outwardly what I believe inwardly? How are inner convictions translated into outer actions? How can I take who I am and what happens inside of church, and live it and share it outside of church?

Questions like these touch on a crucial part of the life of discipleship that will be explored in this coming week, namely that our faith was never intended to be just one dimension of our lives, distinct from all the other aspects of who we are. No, rightly understood, faith lies at the centre of who we are and should directly impact every dimension of the lives we live out in the world.

Many people describe how they struggle to make the connection between their faith and their everyday lives. They feel a sharp disjuncture between their worship on Sundays and their work, family & social lives from Monday to Saturday. It’s not that they are hypocrites, it’s just that they are honestly do not know how to translate the things that are spoken about on Sundays into the tough nitty-gritty situations of their weekday reality. Understanding the principles of God’s Kingdom is one thing, but putting that understanding into practice within a worldly context is altogether another. Even more difficult for many Christians is finding meaningful ways to be an effective witness to their faith that won’t turn people off completely.

Added to all this is the further concern of how to be “in the world but not of the world.” In other words, how can we engage meaningfully with people in secular and multi-faith contexts without compromising our distinctive convictions and beliefs as Christians? What’s the difference between being insulated or isolated as Christians?

All of this points to some of the challenges and complexities of cultivating a real-world faith. This is what we will be exploring this week, in our worship tomorrow, and in the daily devotions and small group material this week.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Loving and gracious God, it’s easy to sing songs to you in church and acknowledge you as Lord with our lips on Sundays, but it’s not so easy to worship you with our lives during the week. We want our faith in Jesus to work from inside our hearts out into the wider world of which we are a part. We pray that by your Holy Spirit, you would open us this week to hear how in practical ways we can carry you with us and acknowledge you every day. As we gather tomorrow as the community of faith to worship together, may we be an encouragement to each other as we acknowledge that we all need help and guidance to live out our faith in the world. Amen

FOCUS READING

James 2 (selected verses) - Faith in Action

Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup - where does that get you? Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense? Use your heads! Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and works in two and not end up with a corpse on your hands? The very moment you separate body and spirit, you end up with a corpse. Separate faith and works and you get the same thing: a corpse.