Undivided Life

“I Live by Faith”

Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1) But is that all Faith is? Is Faith without works not dead? (James 2:17) If someone were to go through his life proclaiming to be a Christian, but then lived his life and acted conversely to that statement, he wouldn’t be the best witness. His Faith wouldn’t be played out in his life and therefore the people around him wouldn’t see it.

Christians are called to live their faith out, to show the world what the most important thing in their life is. Ideologically, Christians’ “Ultimate Concern,” in the words of Paul Tillich in the words of James Fowler, should be God. However, as Fowler states, love, sex, work, power, and other ego boosting things tend to get in the way of the Unified Life that Christians should be living.

But how does someone’s living a Divided Life, divided between God and man’s greed and worldly desires, affect other people? A church camp counselor lives a good, godly life all summer long, impacts hundreds of children in the best of ways, and changes lives. That life’s a godly life, that person’s life can’t possibly be divided. After those 12 weeks of camp, that counselor becomes a “normal person” again. But can someone like that counselor ever really be a “normal person” again? In the fullest sense of today’s stereotypical college goer, that counselor can never return to “normal.” The “normal,” “average” person, doesn’t have hundreds of 5-17 year olds that look up to them and think that they are the epitome of everything godly and right.

But, a camp counselor can still live that divided life. At camp, they are surely the epitome of everything godly and right, but when they leave, when that “Mountain Top Experience” is over, they do become normal people again. While ideally, counselors, and all Christian people, for that matter, would keep setting a good example and keep showing their faith by what they do when they reach the “base” of that “mountain,” ideally is usually far from the reality. So these hypothetical counselors continue to live their divided lives, one person in the summer, or when they’re around their former campers, and another person everywhere else. Who does it affect? Ask the hypothetical camper that went to that party and saw their hypothetical counselor drunk as anything.

Living the “Undivided Life” that Palmer speaks of would suggest that those Christians who are concerned mainly with themselves and the things they have, may want to reflect upon the story of the Rich Young Ruler in Luke 18:18-23. This text deals with a young man, virtuous though he was, who was too much obsessed with his possessions to give them up and wholly follow Jesus. Had this ruler been more willing to give up the things he possessed and cherished, his life would have been possibly undivided.

Similar to Luke 18:18-23, Matthew 8:18-23 is about leaving worldly possessions behind and following God. There seems to be a pattern of people wanting to live undivided lives, but the world, their world, keeps holding them back. People that want that power, that love, that prestige, appear daunted by the idea of giving everything they’ve worked for up. Faith these days is stifled by the world and human greed. If Christians were to live with an attitude more like “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me,” then perhaps there would be less polarization in their lives. (Galatians 2:20)

Perhaps the people of God would remember that they are supposed to be just that, the people of God. What would happen if Christians lived like Christ was in them? What would the world be like if people didn’t keep God just in the church building, if people didn’t just take God to the work place or in the home? What would it be like if Christians let God live and work through every thing they did and everywhere they were? This world would be a better world, a more undivided world if people just lived their faith, if they didn’t let their faith die by not letting it out to breath every once and a while.