PRACTICES OF FAITH   

 

Paul said we walk by faith not by sight. We direct our paths then by what the Word says, not by what we see, or what we think or what we feel or what we believe. If God doesn’t say it, you can’t have faith in it.

 

OK, what’s that got to do with anything? Well, it’s got to do with a lot. It’s got to do with a lot of folks who worship God in ways that He hasn’t stated. “Well, I like instrumental music” someone says. I do too. “Well, I like piano music and I like the bands.” Let’s just say here I like the banjo and I’ll say to all of that—I do too. But we don’t worship God that way because He hasn’t asked for it. It’s not in the Word, it’s not the truth. If it’s not in the Word, you can’t have faith in it. So you can’t worship God in faith with an instrument of music. You can’t light a candle as an act of worship to God because He hasn’t said anything about lighting candles. You can’t roll some beads through your hand and say “Hail Mary” and repeat these prayers and think they are going to do anything. You can’t do it in faith because God hasn’t said anything about that. If it’s not in the Word, you can’t have faith in it. You can’t form an organization, even between churches of Christ.

 

I think there are some Christians who think we’re so different we can do things that other people aren’t allowed to do. Other people aren’t allowed to form denominational organizations where all those churches are focused on central headquarters. They are not allowed to do that because that’s denominationalism and we’re opposed to that and that’s not in the Word. You can’t have faith in it. But what we think we can do—we can get a bunch of churches and we can send to one church and we’ll call it a sponsoring church. We got the same thing going on. It’s a centralized arrangement and it’s not found in the Word of God.

 

Every once in awhile someone asks, “How come you folks don’t have anything to do with Meadowbrook?” “How come you folks don’t have anything to do with Lindburg Rd?” “How come you folks don’t fellowship Columbus Avenue?” It’s because all those churches do what I am describing. And they’ve been doing it since the 50’s and 60’s and it’s not in the Word and you can’t do it in faith—that’s why! It’s not good Bible interpretation to pick some things that are not in the Word and say you can’t do those but practice some other things that are not in the Word and say those are OK. The denominational world will see our hypocrisy. Either we follow the Word completely or we don’t. We don’t pick and choose. That’s what the whole world does. We are Christians. We stand on the Word. If it’s not in the Word, we can’t have faith in it. We walk by faith, not by sight. All our doctrine, all our beliefs, all our practices have to be based on the Word of God.

                                                            Carl McMurray