When God sees your faith

God sees your faith. That might not come as a surprise to you, because He is omnipotent after all. But, have you ever wondered how God sees your faith?

There’s an account in the gospel of Mark that sheds some light on this. One day Jesus was preaching to the people in someone’s house and it was so packed that there was no more room for anyone to come in. That posed a problem for four men who wanted to bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus. Since they couldn’t get in the house, they went up on the roof and made an opening just large enough to lower their friend down on a mat right in front of Jesus. I’m sure the owner of the house wasn’t too impressed by their actions. But Jesus was. The Bible tells us that, “when Jesus saw their faith” (Mark 2:5) he responded graciously and he healed that man, both spiritually and physically.

How did Jesus “see” their faith? How does God “see” our faith? According to this story, the way He sees our faith is by seeing our actions. Our deeds showcase whether we have faith or not. The New Testament tells us that “faith without deeds is dead” (James 2:26). In other words, we can’t have true saving faith and then have no works to show it. If we’re saved, our life will show it by our deeds done in faith. How will it show it? Here’s two areas where it should show up.

1. Obedience
1 John 2:3–4 says, “We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” One sign of faith and knowing Christ is obedience. If we really believe in Jesus, we will obey his teaching.

2. Love
1 John 3:14 says, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.” Another sign of true faith is love for one another, particularly our brothers (or sisters) in Christ. If God is in us, and God is love, then we must love them. The Church is called the body of Christ. He is the head, we are the members. So, we can’t say we love Jesus but then hate the body. It’s like saying “I love my head, but not the rest of the body.” You can’t separate your body from your head. If we love Christ, we must love what Christ loves. And because Christ loves the church we must love the church.

So, love and obedience are two ways that faith is shown by us, and “seen” by God in our day to day life.