Until We act on what we know, our knowledge is nothing more than a theory. Real learning comes through doing.~B.Johnson~

This blog is written in dedication of my sweet Aunt Margie Eidson, my best friend and my spiritual Momma.  Margie  went on to be with the Lord in December 2010.  She lived out loud and passionately as she pursued Jesus and taught me how to do the same! 

In my last blog I wrote about “The great grace exchange.”  The exchange was trading my inability for his grace so that I can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me, however I also wanted to write about balance.   In the Kingdom of GOD there is always balance.  unfortunately more times than not we tend to go from one extreme to the other.  I feel this is one reason that the world  some times looks at a Christian in such a dim light.  We have to have grace to fulfill our destiny no doubt about it, however unless we move out or act upon what the Lord is telling us and showing us in his word,  we will never get anywhere! His grace is not given for us to sit and wait for something to happen in our lives, but it is the power that we need to step out and cause something to happen!

I was so blessed  in my life to have had spiritual Momma’s. These were  Godly women who just spent time with me and taught me about the things of God, especially about using faith! Faith is a verb, not a noun.  If you know anything about English, nouns are person, places or things, where as, verbs are action words.  Faith implies action, we act upon the word of GOD!  Faith without works or “action” is dead… 

One time my sweet Aunt Margie, who was my spiritual Momma, and I were sitting at my kitchen table.  She came over every morning and we would pray.  In this time she taught me so much. I was a baby Christian and was  really struggling to get free from a habit of smoking cigarettes.  (Please, if you smoke cigarettes this is in no way a judgment of you, this was just a habit that I personally wanted to be free from.)   Morning after morning I would ask her to agree with me in prayer that “the Lord would just take the desire for this thing away from me.”  Finally one morning, just like a Momma would do,  she looked me right in the eyes and told me that she was not going to pray over my habit anymore! You could imagine that I was shocked, but she said “Honey, when are you gonna act like God’s word is true to you?  Faith without works is  dead! You have to act like GOD’s word to you  is true and trust him!  You act and you will find out that He has already answered your hearts cry.  He has already delivered you from that thing when Jesus died.  He’s not gonna crawl back up on that cross because of your little habit, NO, He’s already done what you’re asking him to do for you!”

As I sat there just digesting all Aunt Margie had boldly said to me, I then literally stood up from the table ,walked over and took my new carton of cigarettes off of the top of my refrigerator.  I opened each pack and placed the cigarettes into the kitchen sink.  I then ran water over them to assure that they were destroyed.   I simply acted upon the truth of GOD’s word.  You have to realize that at that time I was smoking around three packs of cigarettes a day.  They consumed my life in that I always had to have them with me and allow myself time to smoke them no matter what!  They had become little gods to me that controlled how I lived in a sense.    Anyway, as I poured water over the cigarettes and made this horrible mess of my sink, everything in me was crying out “you big dummy, you just ruined a whole carton of cigarettes!”  I didn’t feel delivered!  Hello?  Your feelings and your faith are usually in opposition with each other, However I knew something was different in me.

It took about three whole weeks for me to obtain complete deliverance over that habit in my life, hey I smoked for thirty years, I thought that three weeks was pretty great! I would tease my Aunt and tell her that in those three weeks out of my life that I literally could not stand the sight of her, because every time I would desire a cigarette, I could see her face that morning and hear her say to me “Honey, faith without works is dead!”  I believe this is one of the number one keys to faith.  We must be held accountable to someone. I feel like this is why the power of agreement is indeed so powerful, because it holds us accountable to one another.

I love the quote from Bill Johnson above, because until we truly put GOD’s word to the test in our lives they are just beautiful words written on paper.  But to have to words come alive, we must act upon them.  Take the word of GOD literally to you.  The word is a will and testament written and you are its beneficiary.  A will only goes into effect after death.  Well Jesus not only died so that we could receive all that was his, he than rose again to sit beside our Father and pray that we indeed receive it all.  If you need something, I would encourage you to go to the “will” which is the word of GOD and know that He left everything to you.  All is available to you, will you act like it is true today!  “Honey, Faith without works is dead!”