Accomplishing Faith: an instrument for overcoming material challenges
Lest We Offend - WAGNER, Karl (2011)
When we think about life, reality strikes us. Every day we go to bed thinking about our needs, either material or spiritual ones.
Definitely the material “screams” in our ears. Why? Because it’s right in front of us. But is it louder? I would argue that it isn’t. Our spiritual necessity is way more present in our lives than we can imagine.
The idealized material satisfaction
The passage in the Gospel of Christ where they charge taxes on Him (Matthew, 17:24-27) is one of the more realistic passages we can read because it evokes in us materiality. In the sense of making it material, real.
Money makes us materialize an idea: the necessity of it to sustain our life.
Because of that, we feel all sorts of things: anxiety, despair, anger, power, authority… It’s the idea of buying the world, changing it to our own will, our own volition.
We are created in a system that makes us believe money can make everything possible, and it can while we believe in it. But, we forget, and that’s precisely the detail: money is a very fragile idea, it needs believers to exist, to become real.
God on the other hand don’t. He doesn’t need us to exist, to be real. It is us that need Him to make things real. It’s through Him that we can make the impossible, possible.
How so? Do you want something more real than what we testify in that passage? Christ was able to not only pay the taxes that were charged to Him but also Peter’s.
This only shows us that when we work for God, everything that is necessary for our lives and the completion of our Spiritual Mission is given to us. For us to have a balanced life.
Here we see the Most Urgent Economy Law of Christ, as Brother Paiva names it, in action: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, and all material things will be given to you as well” (Matthew, 6:33).
Seeking the Immaterial
Now, how can we do this? How can we seek the “Kingdom of God and His Righteousness” so when we are in a pinch situation, thinking that nothing is possible, the solution will appear?
Doesn’t matter how materially wealthy we are if the spiritual is not developed. There will always be a pinch situation.
When we seek the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, we are being true to our spiritual nature and working to do what is good. Not good for us or for others, but good in the eyes of God. This attitude can be expressed as Accomplishing Faith, believing that God will do His part, while we do ours. We just have to believe in it to make it true.
Why not risk it? We already do it for something so little as money. Risk almost everything in our lives to keep in account what is charged to us. So why not risk using the Most Urgent Economy Law of Christ so that Spiritual Wealth can be present in our lives?
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Apocalypse of Jesus, according to John, 5:12).
