What good is faith if it doesn’t inform the way you live?
I collect toys.
I used to collect so many, it was pathetic. Or awesome, depending on how you look at it.
My old room at my parent’s house looked like a booth at Comic-Con, stocked floor-to-ceiling with action figures, vehicles, and playsets, mostly from Star Wars, with some G.I. Joe/military figures thrown in.
Toy-hunting was my primary hobby in the days before I met Soo; i.e., the days when I was a lonely, single nerd with nothing better to do in my free time than to spend hours on the internet, find out which stores would have which exclusives, and hit every one of those stores within a 50-mile radius, several times per week, to score the latest piece for my extensive collection.
The best finds were at Walmart after midnight, when the stocking crew would haul out fresh new cases of toys and leave them on palettes in the middle of the aisle. I’d tear into the cases, using my car key to slice the packaging tape open, and carefully removed brand-new toys straight out of the case. These boxes, fresh out of the shipping case, were they holy grail of toy collecting: these were “mint-in-box” (MIB), also known as “mint-in-packaging” (MIP) or “mint-on-card” (MOC) collectible toys.
No dents on the packaging. No scuffs on the windows. Not a single crease or gash on the card stock, which reeked of fresh printing ink. It was glorious.
My shelves were stocked with pristine packages that, for all I know, could contain nothing but rocks. I’d never opened them to see what’s actually inside.
Later, when Soo learned about my collection, she asked, “What’s the point of buying all this stuff if you never open it, play with the toys, or even look at them?”
I never really did have a good answer. First, I tried the old, “Well, if you keep them in the package, you can sell them at a premium someday.”
“So are you planning to sell them?” she asked.
“No,” I replied.
This led me to wonder why I had ever amassed such a huge collection. Was it for bragging rights? To show other people that I had what they didn’t even know existed?
Well, no, it couldn’t have been that. I didn’t have any friends to invite over, for one thing.
So why was I so obsessed with completing my collection?
I came to realize how silly it was to spend such an inordinate amount of time–and money– hunting for toys, only to keep them on a shelf and never even gaze upon, touch, or use the coveted contents of the boxes. Sure, the packaging was slick and fun to look at, but was that it? I was like that kid who’d receive a new toy on Christmas only to chuck it aside and end up playing with the box. Why didn’t I just collect empty boxes and save some money?
What’s the point of having something if you never use it? Never enjoy it? Never fulfill its purpose?
Is your faith–your relationship with Christ– like a mint-in-box collectible?
1. Is your faith all about the slick packaging? What if everything looks good on the outside, but no one knows what’s really on the inside?
Jesus talked about people who are like whitewashed tombs, beautiful on the outside but full of dead bones inside. “On the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness” (Matthew 23: 27-28 NIV).
Granted, we are all wicked by nature and cannot be righteous on our own. However, we can live by the Spirit, turning away from our natural tendencies AKA “the flesh” and cultivating fruit of the Spirit–love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-24).
Not living by the Spirit means living by the flesh, and the acts of this are “sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like” (Gal. 5:19-21).
2. Is the Bible something to be kept neat and tidy, high up on a shelf where it hardly ever gets touched? Or is the word of God something to be unpacked, handled, and engaged?
James 1:22 says, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” We can’t do what the word of God says unless we first listen to it, and listening is different than merely hearing. One listens to music and hears noise. A child who listens to instructions is different than a child who hears instructions but does not obey them. (“Amen,” parents?)
Listening to the Word of God is more intentional, more proactive, than simply reading it. Listening is allowing the living and active word of God to cut you, “dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). We don’t grow unless we allow the Holy Spirit to convict us to change.
3. What good is my faith if I don’t live out what I believe? There’s a book called The Christian Atheist: Believing in God but Living As If He Doesn’t Exist. I haven’t read it, but the title alone nails it.
It is entirely possible to memorize large sections of Scripture, pray, and call oneself a Christian while living as though God does not exist. This happens when we pray but do not trust God to answer, when we trust in our own abilities but not in God’s power, when we claim the name of Christ but do not follow His teachings.
James 2:14-26 is the well-known passage about faith without works being dead. James isn’t saying that our deeds save us, because they can’t (Eph. 2:8-9). Rather, James argues that faith is not real without deeds that demonstrate that faith. He mentions Abraham, the father of faith, who demonstrated his faith by offering his son, Isaac, on the altar and was considered righteous for it (v. 21-23).
Your actions reflect what you believe. Ask anyone whom you’ve ever said “I love you” to. Would they believe you if you did nothing to demonstrate that love?
But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. (James 2: 18 NIV)
When I started this post, I didn’t know where it was going, but as I worked through these verses, I see that maybe it’s time for me to tear open some boxes.
