All Show and No Go

To me, it seems that for a lot of people, faith is like a four-wheel-drive vehicle. People will buy an amazing four-wheel-drive and then add lots of after-market equipment. They’ll raise it. They’ll get giant wheels and a big winch on the front, and then they’ll add huge lights. And when they drive up behind you, all you can see is the chassis of their vehicle in your rearview mirror.

Maybe they pull up next to you at a gas station, and you strike up a conversation while you’re fueling up.

“That thing is cool,” you say. “Do you do a lot of four wheeling?”

“What? Are you kidding me? Do you know how much I spent on this thing? There’s no way I’m going to take this out in the dirt. I’m on my way to the car wash.”

In a way, it is all show and no go. That is what faith is like for some people. They like to talk about faith, but they don’t use their faith.

Jude tells us, “But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray[ing] in the power of the Holy Spirit” (verse 20 NLT). This is telling us that faith does things. Faith is active. Jude is saying, “Be praying. Be staying. Be keeping.” In other words, do things with your faith. Don’t neglect it.

Faith is a lot like a muscle. The more you use a muscle, the stronger that muscle becomes. But if you neglect your muscles, they won’t develop. And if you neglect them for too long, they can even atrophy.

Faith doesn’t live in the realm of theory; faith lives in the world of activity. So let’s use our faith. Let’s put it into action. Then watch what God can do.