A Simple Faith

The Christian faith is not a complicated faith. Repent and believe the Gospel, that your sins may be blotted out and times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord (Acts 3:19-20).

Believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead and in so doing, washed away all your sin and brought His Kingdom to earth that you may live under His Lordship and be resurrected to eternal life on the last day.

The evidence of your belief in that Gospel is also simple. Take up the teaching of Jesus Christ, along with His commandments, and follow Him in an obedient way of life that gives witness to the fact that Jesus, and not some other, is your Lord.

This is not only the way of life, says Peter, it is the way of rest and refreshment for your soul.

Anything that moves your attention away from this simple walk of faith is a damning distraction.

So, are we following Jesus or aren’t we?

You can answer that question by asking a few others. How’s your rest coming along? What are you toiling for? What are you fighting over or, what are you buckling under?

Are the demands on your time, money and labour demands that Christ has made or are they the demands of a pagan, money-loving, fear-driven, idol-worshipping, television-watching culture?

Take a look at your labour. We work because we are commanded to work as the means by which we bring material blessing and rest to others (Ephesians 4:28). If your work is not terminating in rest for you and those around you, it is not a yoke that belongs to Jesus. It’s some other heavy and unbearable yoke.

Take a look at your worship. God is to be worshipped because He is God. His Son is to be Honoured with our obedience because He is Lord and King. If you are not worshipping Him, you are worshipping something else and you will go wherever that something else is going. Somewhere near Capernaum, I am told (Matthew 11:23).

We have all heard the Gospel. We’ve tasted it. And with that hearing and tasting comes great responsibility. The responsibility to respond by repenting of our sin and believing in the Good News in a way that leads to obedience.

To say we have seen the light and not do, Jesus teaches, puts us in a more damnable position than those who have not seen (John 9:41).

To see, hear and do is the way – and the only way – of finding rest for our souls.

So live and work as those who have believed, whatever your work may be and whatever circumstance you find your life in. And so worship and rest as those who obey, rejoicing always with a simple, undistracted faith that comes from the Gospel.