How Belief Plus Action Equals Faith: Examining God’s Equation for Your Child’s Spiritual Growth

Posted on Sep 07, 2022 Topic : Men's Christian Living, Women's Christian Living
Posted by : Tony Evans

What is real faith? That's a tough question for most adults to answer, let alone kids. Dr. Tony Evans explains to tween children (ages 8-12) how true faith in God takes belief and action in this excerpt from his new book Kingdom Heroes for Kids.

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It’s important to have faith, but we need to be careful not to put our faith in things that aren’t really real. Like believing that wearing what’s trendy will make you happy. Or that being in a popular friend group will change your life. Or even that taking a trip to Disneyland will make you the happiest person on earth. These things might make you happy in the moment, but they aren’t guaranteed to make your life better forever.

A lot of faith placed in something that doesn’t really matter will end up doing nothing. That’s because what makes faith work is the thing to which it’s attached. So if you want to grow your faith, you need to put your faith in something real and unchanging. And that something is God.

You can’t literally see or hear or touch or taste or smell God. But He is always there. And you can always put your faith in Him.

Faith is basing your actions on the belief that what God says is true.

Faith isn’t just feeling like God is telling the truth. Faith isn’t just saying that God is telling the truth. For faith to truly be faith, it’s acting like God is telling the truth. That’s why the Bible calls it walking by faith, not talking by faith or feeling by faith.

A few years ago, my church decided to install motion-detector lightingin certain rooms. That meant the lights would only come on when motion was detected. If there was no motion, there was no light. This also meant that the lights went off on their own when people left without turning them off.Then the lights came back on again when motion was detected.

Similarly, God will give you the power and light you need when you need it, but He’ll wait until He detects motion—or action—on your part. If you don’t move, He won’t give you His power and light. But when you do move—or act—He gives you His power and light.

Faith is all about what we do not see. It’s all about believing that what God says is true, and then trusting God enough to do what He asks us to do.

Think about a weather forecast. If the weather experts predict a rainstorm, your actions show that you believe it’s going to rain. You might wear a raincoat. Your family might reschedule an outdoor party. You might skip watering the garden because you know the rain is coming. And you know what? The weather experts are sometimes wrong, but we listen to them anyway.

How much more should we listen to and trust God, who is always right?

Believe what God says is true.

Act on what you believe.

That’s what kingdom heroes do!