Monday, July 13, 2020

Right Faith and Right Living

WORD 2day: Tuesday, 15th week in Ordinary time

July 14, 2020: Isaiah 7: 1-9; Matthew 11: 20-24

Unless your faith is firm, you shall not be firm. What is that which differentiates, sets apart a Christian in this world - it is not the name or the external signs or the identification by belonging to a group or the other; instead, it is a matter of faith, an internal disposition towards the Lord who has called you and commissioned you. 

Right faith has to create right living; right belief and right action are after all essentially dependent in so many of the religious traditions, as we know of. The Integrity that Jesus demands of us is basically one of right belief and right living. It is not enough to have theoretical correctness in what we believe, the essential factor is that this theoretical knowledge translates itself into a practical living.

Sometimes circumstances and situations can force us to take decisions or make choices that are not proper to the life that we have been called to. It is not so strange to commit such a mistake. But it is not only strange, even highly unbecoming of a child of God when he or she has received all possible warnings and all possible signs of God's directions but still makes a choice that is not worthy of a child of God. Worse still, if the person justifies that choice. And worst of all, nothing can help the one who decides to remain with that choice in spite of all this.

Faith which is not translated into right living and a living that is not guided by right faith, are totally alien to a true child of God. Even if the simplest of signs is given, a child of God will acknowledge it, make sense of it, hold on to the light that the Lord provides and and shape his or her life according to God's will. Where do I stand in this regard?