20131110
In this tech-savvy age, many in Singapore own several IT devices. These can be smart phones, iPads, tablets, note-books and others. They update contact info or appointments on one device but this info will need to be updated in the other devices. This inter-device process is called “in sync” or “synchronisation”. In a similar way Christians may profess to know God but their talk are not “in sync” with their walk.
The Apostle Paul informed Titus about false teachers: “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny Him” (Tit. 1:16). They admit openly, freely and continually that they know God. They make professions acknowledging God. They have theoretical knowledge of God but in their negative walk they don’t show their belief in God. Head knowledge (belief) has resulted in no change in their hearts (behaviour). Their live according to their own wills and not God’s will.
Saving faith is not just mental agreement with truth – it is to walk in this truth. It is a firm conviction, surrender to truth and a walk resulting from that surrender. Faith shows itself genuine by a changed life. Of course, only God can evaluate a person’s heart. But by the bad way the person lives, it will reveal the real thing. This was the case with the false teachers in the Churches at Crete. Jesus quotes Isa. 29:13 to drive home this “in sync” matter: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.”
Many of our loved ones or colleagues and friends could be rejecting Jesus because we do not “in sync” talk of our Christian faith (belief) with our daily walk (behaviour). Are we the barrier that is preventing them from coming to receive Jesus as Saviour? We must search ourselves as what the Psalmist did in Ps. 139:23–24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” We must allow the searchlight of the Bible to check our actions and thoughts and let the Holy Spirit speak to us. We must humbly respond to His mercy and grace and live lives that will glorify God. To God be all the glory!
