“You have such potential!” “This is potentially the best…(fill in the blank) ever” “This company has the potential to make millions.” “This team could potentially go all the way.” Potential…there is perhaps no other word in the English language pregnant with as much implied hope. It’s actually a very powerful word.
I’ve been reading about “potential energy” this week. Did you know that the same amount of energy is present in each of the following: a bowling ball falling from 20 feet up, a bowling ball landing on your head after falling from 20 feet up, and a bowling ball sitting on a shelf 20 feet above your head? I know what you’re thinking. “Wait a minute, how in the world is there as much energy present when that ball is sitting still as when it smacks me in the head?” The answer is that while on the shelf its energy is in the form of potential energy! When the ball falls, its potential energy is transformed into kinetic energy, and when it lands on you a good bit of that energy is transferred into your skull.
Think about how we use the word in other situations and it becomes clear what we really mean when we say someone or something has potential. What we mean is that all the ingredients needed for something great to happen are there. They just need the right circumstances to be realized.
I know your wondering, “Why all this talk about potential and potezntial energy?” It’s because, as I’ve been studying on the topic, it’s become clear to me that potential energy is, potentially, one of the best analogies we can find to explain true saving faith. Let’s follow this course for a moment…
The letter to the Hebrews contains one of the most well-known explanations of faith in Scripture. “Faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) In other words, real faith carries immense potential because it’s more than just hoping or wishing. Faith is knowing! And, really it’s more than just knowing because real faith inevitably leads to something. With all of its amazing potential, faith takes what can’t be seen, namely belief in a great and wonderful God and a relationship with Him through Jesus, and makes it real!
You may be thinking, at this point, “I believe that faith is real, but how is faith a real thing?” Enter James. James, the half-brother of Jesus, shows us how real faith finds its completion. In other words, he explains how the potential of faith is transformed into the reality of faith. “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can his faith save him?…Faith, if it doesn’t have works, is dead by itself.” (James 2:14,17) Did you catch that? James makes it clear that works are what transforms the potential of faith into something real! In fact, James would say that if the potential of faith is not realized by a transformation into works, then there really is no potential…and, therefore, no real faith!
Now, before you get too upset and claim that to be works based salvation, I’d like to remind you that someone else had something similar to say about. Oddly enough it was James’ half-brother, a fella by the name of Jesus who said, “If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me will not obey my teaching.” (John 14:23-24) So according to Jesus, obeying His teachings…or the right works…are tantamount to having a real relationship with Him.
Do these works save you? By no means! You can’t earn a right relationship with God by doing good things. However, works do take the potential energy that is present in your faith and transform it into something real and demonstrable! So obedience, born out in one’s good works, are the realized potential of true faith! WHILE WORKS DON’T DETERMINE YOUR SALVATION, THEY VERY MUCH DEMONSTRATE YOUR SALVATION. The question you and I have to ask ourselves today is, how well are we living up to our true potentials?
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