A friend of mine made a comment in Sunday School that has stuck with me. Here it is:
"All we need is faith and devotion."
I don't even remember the context, but the words have really stuck with me. That sentence is only 7 words long and yet we could have days long discussions on it or several volumes of books written on it.
Faith is a huge word encompassing complicated feelings and varying amounts on knowledge. It is understood by 4 year old children and not comprehended by university scholars. Even so, I think, of the 2 nouns here, it's the more concrete.
How does one explain devotion? You can't see or touch it any more than you can faith, and yet it is the expression of that faith. It has implied measurement. It includes love and respect and obedience and diligence and every other word in the Bible Dictionary. All of our acts of love and service; our worship; our repentance; everything lies somewhere on our own personal but invisible devotion scale.
This scale isn't one where we can measure against others either. It's personal, which is why it is so hard to define. Whatever I say about it could be refuted by someone who sees it completely different.
It makes me think of the Chinese characters for faith. Belief and Heart=believing heart. I don't know what the characters are for devotion. I should do some research. To me they should be Belief and Hands=believing hands. Devotion is what we do with our faith.
No, I guess what I should say is Devotion is what I do with my faith. Everyone else can define the term the way their own faith dictates.
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