The Uncollected Inheritance: From Armchair Faith to Active Warfare
The other day, I was stuck in that special kind of chaos that is a Johannesburg highway at 5 PM. Rain was sheeting down, my windscreen wipers were fighting a losing battle, and the traffic report crackled with news of yet another truck breakdown on the N1. My phone, plugged into the car, offered a different kind of traffic—a relentless stream of reels and shorts. One showed a gleaming kitchen gadget that promised a five-star meal in three minutes. The next was a young prophet, draped in fine robes, declaring a "breakthrough blessing" for all who typed "Amen" and liked the video.
Sitting there, crawling past the glittering towers of Sandton—a monument to wealth that feels perpetually just out of reach for so many—a profound weariness settled over me. Not just from the traffic. It was a spiritual fatigue. It’s the fatigue of a gospel that’s been packaged for consumption, a faith sold as an instant solution, a divine vending machine where you deposit a prayer and wait for your blessing to drop. We scroll through promises of "your season is now" while our lives feel perpetually stuck in yesterday’s rainstorm. We are, I thought, a generation trying to claim a victory we haven’t fought for, singing songs of conquest from the comfort of our couches.
This is what I call Instant Coffee Faith. It’s quick, it’s stimulating, it gives a temporary warmth, but it lacks the depth, the aroma, the sustaining strength of something that has been ground, steeped, and brewed through process. We want the sweetness of the Promised Land without ever facing a giant, the comfort of the inheritance without reading the will, the victory of the Resurrection while avoiding the battle of the Cross.
My friend, the Promised Land is occupied by giants for a reason. Your inheritance requires your participation. You must suit up, show up, and fight. The battle is what builds the spiritual muscle to possess the blessing. God will not drop it in your lap. You must rise up in His strength and take what is rightfully yours in Him.
The Will and Testament of a King: Understanding Our Bequest
We misunderstand the nature of God’s promise because we confuse a bequest with a handout. A handout is passive; a bequest is active. It must be claimed, understood, and lived into.
The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, lays out the staggering terms of our inheritance with the precision of a celestial attorney. He writes of us being chosen, adopted, redeemed, and sealed. This is not future theory; it is present-tense reality for the believer. He speaks of an "inheritance" that is our guaranteed possession.
Let’s make this tangible. Imagine, if you will, that Jesus Christ, upon His ascension, left a Last Will and Testament. This is not blasphemy; it is the very imagery of the New Covenant. The will is read aloud in the courts of heaven. What does it bequeath?
· ARTICLE I: I appoint all who believe in my name as my personal representatives on earth.
· ARTICLE II: I bequeath my holiness and blamelessness before God to them.
· ARTICLE III: I grant the full right of adoption as children of God.
· ARTICLE IV: I devise a writ of forgiveness for all sins, paid in full from my account.
· ARTICLE V: I give insight into the mystery of God’s will—His master plan to unite all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
This is your spiritual deed. Signed in the blood of the Testator, sealed by the Holy Spirit. Yet, here is the pivotal truth many miss: An uncollected inheritance is a worthless inheritance. It would be like inheriting a title deed to a fertile farm in the Limpopo valley, but never leaving your flat in Akasia to work the land, plant the seeds, or bring in the harvest. The legal right is yours, but the practical abundance is lost. The promise is real, but the possession is nil.
The Battle for Possession: Why Giants Remain
Why, then, do giants remain in our promised land? Why do we struggle with persistent sin, financial lack, broken relationships, and spiritual lethargy if the victory is won?
The answer is found in the difference between a legal decree and an active campaign. When Christ died and rose again, He won the decisive, cosmic war against sin, death, and Satan. The legal authority of the enemy was crushed. That is the victory. But we now live in the mopping-up operations, where defeated enemy forces still occupy territory they have no right to, and they will not leave unless evicted by the authorized representatives of the King.
This is spiritual warfare. And we must approach it not with panic, but with a victorious mindset. We fight from victory, not for victory. The enemy is a roaring lion, but he is a defeated lion, whose teeth have been pulled at Calvary. His primary weapons are not physical force, but shame, accusation, and deception designed to make us forget our identity and question our inheritance.
I learned this not in a seminary, but in a season of deep personal failure. Years ago, after a painful ministry conflict, I retreated. I traded passionate worship for passive observation. I was like the woman in the story who bought a workout DVD hoping for transformation, but day after day, she only watched it, eating chips and salsa from her sofa. She knew the truth about exercise, but she didn’t engage with it. I knew the truth about God’s love, but I wasn’t engaging with it. I was trying to claim a peace I wasn’t fighting to protect, a joy I wasn’t cultivating, an authority I was too afraid to wield.
Suiting Up: The Armor of Active Faith
So, how do we move from armchair faith to active warfare? How do we build the spiritual muscle to possess the land? Paul gives us the non-negotiable equipment in Ephesians 6: the full armor of God.
This armor is not a magical costume. Each piece represents a foundational truth about our inheritance that we must actively believe and apply.
· The Belt of Truth is actively rejecting the lies of the enemy about your identity.
· The Breastplate of Righteousness is daily choosing to walk in the holiness Christ has given you.
· The Gospel of Peace on your feet is taking the message of reconciliation into your chaotic world.
· The Shield of Faith is consciously trusting God’s promises when circumstances scream otherwise.
· The Helmet of Salvation is relentlessly protecting your mind with the truth of your secure destiny.
· The Sword of the Spirit is not just owning a Bible, but wielding its specific promises in prayer against specific strongholds.
This is the active participation. This is the fight. You don’t get the muscle by watching the training video. You get it by the repetitive, disciplined, often wearying act of lifting the weight of faith against the gravity of your circumstances.
The Mind of Christ: Our Intellectual Inheritance
There is another giant we often ignore: the giant of anti-intellectualism. In our righteous rejection of cold, godless rationalism, we sometimes swing to the dangerous extreme of divorcing our faith from our minds. We want a faith that feels true, but we neglect to know why it is true. This leaves us vulnerable.
Jesus was not just a spiritual guide; He was the consummate philosopher. He engaged the intellect. He reasoned from Scripture. He presented a coherent worldview that explained reality. To give Jesus spiritual authority but deny Him intellectual authority is to create a schizophrenic faith. It results in believers who are passionate on Sunday but whose Monday-to-Friday worldview is shaped more by cultural influencers, political commentators, and pop psychology than by the mind of Christ.
Our inheritance includes a renewed mind (Romans 12:2). We are called to love God with all our mind (Mark 12:30). This means doing the hard work of studying the Scriptures not just for devotion, but for understanding. It means being able to "give a reason for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:15). In a South Africa wrestling with decolonisation, with competing truth claims from diverse spiritual and political traditions, a mushy, sentimental faith will not stand. We need a faith that is intellectually robust, historically grounded, and biblically precise.
The Call to Rise: A Personal and Communal Mandate
Therefore, my brother, my sister, sitting in your traffic jam of life, weary of the instant-coffee gospel, hear the call.
The inheritance is yours. The will has been read. The Spirit is your seal and your pledge. But the land of your promise—your marriage, your finances, your mental health, your calling, your community—is still occupied by giants of fear, addiction, lack, bitterness, and deception.
God will not drive them out for you. He has given you the land. He has given you His strength. He has given you His armor. He has given you His Spirit. Now, you must rise and possess it.
Start today. Identify one "giant." Is it a habit of complaint? Put on the helmet of salvation and take that thought captive. Is it a financial fear? Lift the shield of faith against the lie that God will not provide. Is it a broken relationship? Strap on the shoes of peace and take a step toward reconciliation.
This is not a call to a lonely war. We are a family, an army. We stand together. We fight for one another. The battle builds our individual muscle and our collective strength.
The victory is assured. The outcome is certain. But the fight is mandatory. So, in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, the ultimate Philosopher-King, and the Executor of our glorious inheritance… suit up. Show up. Fight. Your promised land awaits.
Harold Mawela writes from Akasia, Pretoria, where he serves as a pastor and strives to cultivate a faith that is as deep and robust as the African soil, and as unshakeable as the testimony of Christ.
Comments
Post a Comment