You believe that there is one
God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! (James 1: 19)
I have three questions for you.
Question #1: How much faith does an angel have?
The correct answer
is NONE.
You see, faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrew 11: 1)
Angels live every
moment in the direct experience of God’s presence. They don’t hope to enter Heaven. They live there. They don’t BELIEVE that the unseen God is
real; they SEE Him every day. Therefore,
angels don’t have faith. They don’t need
faith. They KNOW. And because they KNOW,
angels OBEY.
Question #2: How much faith does a demon have?
That’s a little more
complicated. Demons are, after all,
former angels. They have seen God
directly. They’ve spent time in
Heaven. And, according to Job chapter 1,
demons (or at least the head demon) have been called before God on multiple
occasions since their fall from Heaven.
But according to
James 1: 20, demons BELIEVE in God. So
maybe, for the angels who’ve fallen,
Heaven is something they can’t see anymore.
God’s direct presence is lost to them, and all they have to convince
them that what they once knew was really real is ------ faith.
So the answer to
question #2 is: Demons have as much
faith as you and I do.
Which brings us to
-----
Question #3: What makes us humans better than angels or
demons?
Demons believe in
God, but they disobey Him. They have faith but not good works. Angels
obey God, but they don’t have faith. (Faith
isn’t necessary when there’s certainty.)
They have works but no faith.
Human beings, among
all known sentient life forms, are capable of both faith AND works.
But someone will say, “You have faith, and I
have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my
faith by my works.
You believe that there is one God. You do
well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish
man, that faith without works is dead? (James 1: 18-20)
In the resurrection we
will, as Jesus said in Matthew 22: 30, be like
angels of God in heaven. We will
KNOW God, and faith will be fulfilled and finished.
But in this life, we
get to be more than angels---- the fallen ones and the glorified ones. In this life we get to trust God even when we
can’t see Him. We get to listen hard and
hear God’s voice through all the static of earthly life. We get to obey God’s Word in an environment
that has evolved to get us to do anything except obey God’s Word. We get to show the angels and the demons how it’s
done.
When you look at it
like that, we’ve got a pretty cool opportunity here.
Do you not know that we shall judge angels?
How much more, things that pertain to this life? (1 Corinthians 6: 3)
---Anderson T. Graves II is a writer, community organizer and
consultant for education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T.
Graves II is pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church in Montgomery, Alabama, executive director of
the Substance Abuse Youth Networking Organization (SAYNO) and director of rural leadership
development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Email atgravestwo2@aol.com
Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves
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