Faith Suicide

A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To one person the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice; to another the same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge. The same Spirit gives great faith to another, and to someone else the one Spirit gives the gift of healing. He gives one person the power to perform miracles, and another the ability to prophesy. He gives someone else the ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit. Still another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is given the ability to interpret what is being said. It is the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts. He alone decides which gift each person should have. [I Corinthians 12.7-11]

If anything about Christianity really depresses me, it is in this area of spiritual gifts. Now, before I go on, first let me say to those who declare spiritual gifts as "passed away" that you are the primary reason this topic is so depressing. These gifts were given for the survival and sustenance of the church. To take them away is to break the legs of a runner and then commission him to run a race - the very tools by which he is to accomplish victory are taken away before the race is even begun. It is no wonder the church today is struggling! And, what's more, the world is laughing because we've declared "victory" and yet limp along in agonizing handicapped defeat.

So, back to the primary reason: to declare spiritual gifts as "passed away" undermines the very set of standards by which the true body of Christ may be measured. The reason for this is that it became increasingly necessary to develop new theology to adapt to decreasing faith. In other words, pride disallowed an honest evaluation that the church had moved away from God evidenced by the absence of power (spiritual gifts). Instead, theology had to be concocted to protect the faithlessness of the proud.

And so, the church has continued to decline in power, comforted by its own proud theology that short-circuits the very power it lacks. It is nothing less than faith suicide.

When will we ever look at this list Paul has given and cry out in anguish and grief that we have fallen so short? When will we ever strive once again to operate and function as THE CHURCH evidenced by these spiritual gifts? When will we ever realize that what we call "faith" and what God calls "faith" may indeed no longer match up? When will we drop our pride and theology and simply take the Bible for what it says? When?

The thing is, I am not so sure a crippled runner will win the race! I am not so sure he will even cross the finish line! And yet, in the church today, we comfort ourselves that the race will be won when we die and go to heaven... How can we be so arrogant and proud that we are going to heaven by faith when here on earth (when the race is to be run) we are faith quadriplegics?

Oh, be sure I will be corrected here... Tomorrow's NT reading contains the very "passed away" scripture that has been so deceptively twisted to propose that the spiritual gifts have passed away... And yet, I challenge any reader to actually READ what Paul is saying and see that he is indeed saying the day will come when these gifts are no longer necessary - but that day has not yet come!

Father, we (the church) are pitiful and faithless. And what's worse is that we have been too proud to admit it. Instead, we have committed faith suicide by declaring ourselves okay when our faith is absent. God, revive us! May our pride be broken! May real faith once again define the church! And may the world once again see and declare we are Christians because we are like Christ!