Episode 852 The Reality of Faith
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 852 of the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:00:08] Stacy Henry: [00:00:08] I'm Stacy Henry owner and coach at center branch, where we grow great leaders. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your colleagues.
[00:00:28] Having the ability to deal well with change is key. And one way to be inspired to do this is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer.
[00:00:40]Scott Maderer: [00:00:40] Because of that, we struggle with understanding that what we're doing each day affects not just ourselves, but each other. It affects not just our own bodies and souls and minds and spirits, but it affects the relationship that we have with God. And it affects the [00:01:00] relationship. That we have with each other.
[00:01:03] Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be. Then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
[00:01:29]Today's spiritual foundation episode about impacting the world. I talk with you about Luke chapter 24, verses 36 through 48. I share how even the disciples wanted to feel the reality of their faith. And I also talk about why we continue to struggle with this today. Luke chapter 24 verses 36 through 48.
[00:01:52] Sounds like this. While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, peace, be with you. [00:02:00] They were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, why are you frightened? And why do you doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and feet.
[00:02:11] See that it is, I myself, touch me and see for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet while in their joy, they were disbelieving. And still wondering, he said to them, have you anything here to eat? They gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and he ate it in their presence.
[00:02:33] Then he said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. And he said to them, thus, it is written that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day.
[00:02:53] And that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from [00:03:00] Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. The thing I wanted to point out and talk a little bit about today is the fact that when it comes to faith, We talk about faith as being believing in things that you can't see, that you can't prove that you can't touch, that you can't feel, but this passage from Luke, and there's a similar one in John as well, talks about how the disciples themselves were having real doubts.
[00:03:29] They were having real challenges to their belief after Jesus. Had died in front of them. The, these traumatic events caused them to question their faith that caused them to question what they were doing, who they were following and what they were seeing in their actual experience here. It caused them to question.
[00:03:54] Their belief. It talks about them being locked in this room or hiding from the [00:04:00] world. And you have to imagine they were suffering grief and fear. They were suffering worry. They were wondering if everything that they had been done stood for nothing. They were wondering what was going to come next. And they were struggling with believing.
[00:04:17] And yet Jesus shows up and notice what he does. He doesn't yell at them. He doesn't confront them and say that you are doubting. Instead he allows them to feel the reality of their faith. And in this case, it's a tangible step of having them touch him and feel them. And John, he actually shows them the wounds in his body so that they understand the reality of his suffering.
[00:04:46] But here he's actually even more just showing them that this is where they're at, that this is the experience that they're having. He's allowing them to feel the reality [00:05:00] of their faith to feel the reality of their experience here. He's allowing them to see that he is real. And the truth is this is something that we struggle with in a way as much, or maybe even more today, because I don't think most of us have daily experience with miracles.
[00:05:25] We don't see things happening each day that. We recognize as miracles, even though we're often seeing them, we don't recognize them as such, even though we have faithful experiences in our day-to-day life, we just don't focus on them and pay attention to them. And because of that, we struggle with the reality of believers, our faith.
[00:05:49] We struggle with the reality of understanding, the real nature of our faith and our belief. And because of that, we [00:06:00] struggle with understanding that what we're doing each day affects not just ourselves, but each other. It affects not just our own bodies and souls and minds and spirits, but it affects the relationship that we have with God.
[00:06:16] And it affects the relationship that we have with each other. And that at the end of the day, what we're called to do. Is this repentance and forgiveness of sins to be proclaiming that to all nations, to be a witness, to the reality of the miracles in our lives and in the lives of others. And yet, because we are trained to not pay attention to that, we don't even see it.
[00:06:43] We don't even recognize it. We don't see the reality of our faith in action. So I challenge you this week to pay attention to what's going on in your life. That truly is a miracle in action. Thanks for [00:07:00] listening.
[00:07:00]So much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode, do me a favor. Go over to facebook.com/inspired stewardship. And like our Facebook page and market that you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and tips there until next time, invest your time.
[00:07:46] Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world. .