Everyone has their own perspective. We encounter different situations, not knowing what the outcome may be. As a person who believes that there is a much higher power than just man on earth, we often get put in these confrontational situations.
Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church said, “We often think of Jesus ministry as a ministry of comfort, but also a ministry of confrontation... God comforts you in trials, but will also confront you in dysfunction in order to change you.”
In this world that we are living in today, there has been so much dysfunction. It is almost as if that higher power is trying to give us a wake-up call or trying to wake our whole country up from this slumber that we are in. All we are doing as citizens is hitting that snooze button every day. Yet, in times that tragedy has occurred, we have all become unified as a country and have faith that we will rise above all the chaos that has happened.
With that being said, what is faith? What is functional faith? Well, Pastor Furtick calls functional faith “the kind of faith that doesn’t just give you knowledge in your head, but gives you strength in your heart.”
Now, believe it or not, we all practice a functional faith. We practice it in times of tragedy. But do we ever just practice faith? The Bible says in Hebrews 11:1, “Faith is the reality of what we hope for, the proof of what we don’t see.” Most things often have opposites, but does faith have one? We often just look at the "pros" and "cons" to everything, but what are the "pros" and "cons" to faith?
“The opposite of Faith is certainty.” -Unknown
There is no “con” to faith. Think about the meanings of faith that I had mentioned earlier. If you have faith, you are hoping that you come out on top no matter the situation. How do we apply faith to our lives and what is faith for? Here are four points that we can try to apply to our daily lives:
OBJECTIVE
What is your objective of faith?
OCCASION
What has your faith done for you lately?
OUTCOME
“Faith doesn’t wait on an outcome, faith is an outlook.” -Pastor Steven Furtick
This is where you have to change your perspective on situations because you are only looking through one lens.
ORDER
Do you have enough faith to take a stand?
“Faith will command you to do what you never have been able to do.” -Pastor Steven Furtick
I say all of this because no matter what country we live in or how we go about our daily routines, we are never promised tomorrow. It’s as if we go through these cycles of tragedy and go through life as if it didn’t happen. This world we live in is only hiding the dysfunction. The dysfunction only appears when we are least expecting it. When you go through your week, Pastor Steven’s challenge is to do something that you couldn’t do without faith. Although that sounds like a tough challenge, you are truly putting your faith to the test. Maybe you had more faith than you ever realized or maybe this challenge will allow you to start building a much stronger faith.
