Act or React?

In every circumstance today you will get a choice: will you act or react? Most people never give it any thought. They go through life as if they were a ball in a pinball machine, reacting to this and that all day, every day, never in control of their path. Others make a decision about who they are, what they will do, what they will not do, and how they will honor their belief system regardless of any "action" in their way. They are faith heroes. And you can be one.

Look at Hebrews chapter 11. It is considered the faith chapter, the honor roll of faith. You might know the chapter very well but I would like for you to check something out: look for the verbs. When you do, you discover that the chapter is a primer on HOW to live by faith. Real faith has a verb attached to it; a purposeful, decisive action.

11:4 -- by faith Abel offered...
11:5 -- by faith Enoch pleased God...
11:7 -- by faith Noah prepared...
11:8 -- by faith Abraham obeyed...
11:9 -- by faith he dwelt...
11:11 - by faith Sara conceived...
11:17 - by faith Abraham offered...
11:20 - by faith Isaac blessed...
11:21 - by faith Jacob blessed...
11:24 - by faith Moses chose to be known as a son of Israel... forsook Egypt... kept Passover...
11:29 - by faith the Israelites passed through the sea...
11:30 - by faith the walls of Jericho fell...
11:31 - by faith Rahab received the spies...
11:33 - subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped mouths of
lions, quenched violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, went from the
weakness to strength, became valiant in battle, drove away the invaders, the dead
walked again...

These people did not merely believe (as some weak form of intellectual assent), but they matched that faith to a verb and so became great heroes. The scripture tells us that God honored their choice to act by:

1. God Himself witnessing that they were righteous.
2. They became heirs of righteousness.
3. They did not see death.
4. They received the inheritance.

You have a choice today and every day. You can either act or you can waste your life in reacting. Once I was partnered with three non-believers during a golf match. My opponent took every opportunity to curse, make noise while I putted or teed off, and never gave me a putt regardless of how close it was to the hole. In response, I helped him look for his errant tee shots, gave him putts well outside the normal range, and gave him every compliment on his good shots. The other two players in our foursome watched this almost the whole match before finally coming over to me. "Why are you still giving him putts and treating him so nice? He's cheating! He's rude!" and so on. I responded, "I decided before I left my house this morning what kind of person I was going to be. He doesn't get to change that decision."

I learned that from Hebrews 11. Faith means nothing without a verb. Choose your verb. Don't let the world choose it for you.