Faith and Service

As a Christian we always dispute with the questions what is much greater Faith or Good works or Faithfully doing Good works. I see whoever it may be, every one of us deal with this difficult question. On one side we see non believers but still working for a Good causes and on other side faithful working for the same purpose. Sometime I personally argue with my own self asking, what’s the difference? .

Last week I was just studying about Atheism and I noticed an article on Patheos website, this article was about Mr. Spencer Troxell , an atheist social worker who works at homeless shelter in Ohio. Mr. Spencer explained why he chose this line of work, he says ,

The spirit that led me to my current station was the realization that there was no other Kingdom……………Isn’t it obvious, that if you want yourself and the people you love to be safe and sound and free from want and ignorance , maybe it would be a good idea to make sure our neighbors are safe from as well?……

Initially after reading this I thought , See an Atheist also doing the same, that too without faith in God. But wait …… I reread his whole comment and stopped at many word. I was surprised to see that he was speaking about his inner Spirit, Love , Neighbor’s safety . I found these thoughts little contradicting to Atheism. Actually he was able to judge between Love and hate , safe and unsafe , Good and evil. As C.S Lewis said, A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of Straight line. Bible tell us that , God is Love not God has Love but he itself is Love. Thus in the very act of proving that God doesn’t exist, that is Love doesn’t exist he has unknowingly preached about God, the Love. And it’s this Faith of Love that led him in doing what is good.

Faith and Good/God’s work; Daily we see people judging the truth in terms of Faith and Actions. We see two different kinds of people. One claims, “Good actions are all that matters. The best Good action is charity. The best kind of charity is giving money. The best thing to give money to is the Church. So hand over 1000bucks and Church will see you through. The nonsense about this person is, good actions done with that motive, done with an idea that Heaven can be bought. Second claims, “Faith is all that matters. So if I have full faith in God, its doesn’t matter what I do. It doesn’t matter whether I am doing it Good or evil because Christ will see that it makes no difference in the end. The nonsense about this person is, His faith in Christ doesn’t involve the teaching of Christ, what he meant us to do. This is not a faith at all but just an Hypothesis , an accepted Theory. It same like accepting the theory of realtivity but practicing it in daily life.

Still I was not satisfied because I didn’t came out with an answer to a Question, What exactly is the proportion of Faith and Good works in Christian life, which one is Greater . If we just rethink about the person I mentioned above , who claims to be an atheist. His Good actions were the result of what he feared and cared about the people, it is this fear that brought Love in his heart. And this Love made him do Good works. He had full faith that this Love will accomplish his task, no matter how it will be.

So can we say that this Love is the link between my Faith and my Service? With this Love the both Fith and Service become unmeasurable .May be this Love is so big that we Humans can’t measure the depth or I must say its proportion. May be this Love has no ending or Beginning. May be this Love is Omnipresent, it’s around us without our Knowledge. May be this Love is not biased with anyone making even an atheist to work for Good Cause.
Love is the most powerful thing on universe, we have all seen in our life what it can do and it can do amazing things. Without this Love my faith is dead, without this Love my service is dead.
I can see this Love, as GOD because Love is God and God is Love.

“Prayer in Action is Love , Love in Action is Service”………. Mother Teressa