Living Faith Moves Us

October 10: Friday of Week 27 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Galatians 3:7-14; Psalm 111:1-2, 3-4, 5-6; Luke 11:15-26

What is Jesus saying to us as stewards of his kingship? 

(To support Reaching Jesus:5 Steps to a Fuller Life... Step Five).

Living Faith Moves Us

“We receive the promise of the Spirit through faith...” (Galatians 3:14).

We can’t be saved by good behavior. Only “the one who is righteous by faith will live.” But the religion most of us were taught was almost exclusively good behavior. Our teachers took for granted we had faith or we wouldn’t be there. Big mistake.

We received faith as a gift at Baptism. But faith is like love: if you just receive it, you haven’t got it. We “have” faith when we look at what the words we hear are really saying, try to understand them, ask questions when we don’t, and make them our own by making choices based on them.

We only “have faith in what we hear” when we listen attentively to what the Holy Spirit is saying as we hear the words. When the words make us feel something, but we “do not know where it comes from or where it is leading us,” we are experiencing mystery. “So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (see John 3:8). If the words don’t move us, we are dead. Or have a hearing problem (diagnosed in Matthew 5:3 ff.).

Paul battled all his life that his converts “might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” The “Pharisee party” Christians battled against him, insisting the focus should be on laws and good behavior. Who is winning today?

PRAY: “Lord, speak to my heart!”

PRACTICE: Take responsiblity for promoting faith.