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Most governments have several departments dealing with different subjects, but in some cases there is hardly any interaction among them. They may be acting independently of the others. What if that happened to our department of faith?

This department may be very busy, learning correct doctrines, rejecting heresies and even making a propaganda of its accepted list of beliefs. This is all very well, except if this department has no interdependence with the department of practical affairs! Imagine if our practical life is based on another set of values which are not connected with the faith we profess?

"Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses" (1Ti.6:12). One major aspect of this fight of faith is to strive to live more and more according to what we believe. In other words, our faith is not to be something we keep as a separate department in our life, while we continue to live like everyone else – doing things that are regarded as great in the eyes of people, which will get us the pleasure, fame or wealth that we are looking for, etc. (Lk.16:15). Has our so-called faith made any real change to our life? If not, that kind of faith is actually dead – without life and which will not give us the result that we hope for (Jas.2:17).

The greater danger is that, while this faith will not produce the result that we hope for, it also deceives us into thinking that everything is fine with us because we have faith! We think, salvation is by faith and so we are on the right track! Jesus warned us against the Pharisaical type of people who would go to great lengths to make disciples. But since they themselves were only legalists and did not have the life of God in them, their disciples too would not have any life. But now these disciples are given to think that they have life, and so they don't even bother to look for life! Jesus called them 'doubly children of hell' (Mt.23:15).

How tragic is this situation! They think they have believed and become children of God, but this belief is only a set of ideas they believe. These ideas have not touched their heart, they have not become convicted realising how sinful they are in the sight of God, there is no repentance from their past sins and their sinful nature, and there is no striving to order their life according to the will of God. Another way to describe them is as those who hear the word but do not obey them (Mt.7:26).

How can we know if we belong to this group? Just see how much of a match there is between what we profess to believe and how we actually live from day to day. Of course, in every case there will be some mismatch. But then ask this question, whether we are fighting this fight of faith, seeking to bring our practical life more and more in line with what we claim to believe.

If we don't see this fight going on in our life, we aren't even born again!

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