There are millions of people in churches across America and the world who profess faith but find no power in it.
Why is that?
Welcome to the American Faith and Freedom Podcast.
I'm Jim McCraigh.
God wants us to have a personal relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ, but He is also asking us to do something that is considered radical in today's world, both inside and outside the church.
He wants us to become a person of radical faith.
Only those who know Christ in a personal way have already figured out that there is power only in true and radical faith.
Hebrews 11:1 reads, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”
The Greek word most often used in the New Testament for faith is pistis.
It indicates a belief or conviction with trust.
So then, a person of radical faith believes in the power of God and trusts God, not in the power of government, not in the power of money or possessions, and not in the power of religion.
A person with radical faith believes and trusts that only God, not celebrities, athletes, or politicians can make them whole.
A person of radical faith trusts that only God has the power to forgive sin and that they alone do not have the power to work their way out of sin.
And someone who has radical faith has turned from their sin and repented of it.
On the other hand, those who have a squishy faith have no expectations of God except as a last resort in prayer when everything else fails.
Their squishy faith doesn't affect their character, what they do with their money, or what they do with their time.
For them, the church is a club, a social commitment, or an opportunity to find new clients.
Their Bibles are stowed away in a closet, not within easy reach for daily reading.
People with squishy faith miss out on the presence of the Holy Spirit in their daily lives.
And those with squishy faith continue a pattern of unrepentant sin in their lives without regard for its consequences.
They are like ships on the sea without rudders, blown and tossed by the wind.
You see, radical faith helps us weather major life crises by trusting in God.
As Christians, we need to seek a faith radical enough so that we can see true miracles when they happen.
We need to have a faith radical enough that we can reach out to others who find themselves in darkness so they too can desire the same depth of relationship with God through Christ.
We can't give anyone else radical faith.
We can only be witnesses of our own hope and pray for them.
It's in this radical trusting in Christ that we can begin to see our lives change and become more confident that only He is capable of meeting our needs.
As believers with radical faith, we need to be radical enough to know that He will provide for us through the tough times in our lives under His power and not our own.
Anything less than radical faith is dead faith that lifelessly plods along, incapable of standing firm against the growing evil that we face in our world today.
Until next time, I'm Jim McCraigh…
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Do You Have Radical or Squishy Faith?