Meaning that the all wise God chose not to provide
any hard and fast evidence or any proof of His love and provisions for our
temporal or our eternal well-being. He
chose rather to base our complete bond on nothing more than the not-so-simple
task of us taking Him at His word.
He told us to believe on His Son, Jesus Christ and confess
our sins to Him and if we choose to do that, if we choose to believe, without
proof, then He will forgive our sins and accept us as His adopted children,
into His eternal family. Today we call
that being Saved from our sins, and becoming Christians.
Secondly, we are told and have experienced that after we
become Christians there is that inclination, that pull, that proclivity that
causes us to return to our own selfish ways.
We are pushed around by evil and willingly submit to its power over us.
We seem like a washed hog ever too ready to return to our wallowing in the slop
from which Christ has forgiven us. The
very thing we say we will never do again is the exact thing we find ourselves
doing.
However, if we come to God recognizing our plight and being cognizant
of our need and relinquish our control over into His hands and if we ask and by
FAITH believe then He will give us His Holy Spirit to live within us to cleanse
us and give us the power to live a holy life.
We call that the second work of grace or Sanctification.
God saves us by faith.
God sanctifies us and fills us with His Holy Spirit by faith. He has given us His word and our
responsibility our part of this relationship is to simply (or sometimes, not so
simply) have faith (trust) that He will do what He says He will do.
As I said before however the entire essence of our
relationship with God is by faith. Now
get this. Not just our salvation, not
just our sanctification but our entire relationship must be based on our trust that
God will do what He says.
Recently my little granddaughter was playing on the hay
wagon. She called me over and wanted me
to “get down” after a few attempts at understanding what she wanted I realized
that she wanted me to kneel down so that I could catch her when she jumped from
the wagon. To my knowledge we had not
played this game before. I’m not sure
why she decided to play it now. But of
course I knelt down and she counted “one, two, three” and without hesitation
she jumped from the wagon into my waiting arms. She laughed with glee as did I
and immediately she climbed back on the wagon and yelled “again”. This went on for a while until she and I grew
tired and went to play another game.
Why did Kinsley jump to me?
Did it ever enter into her little blonde head that she would jump and
that “Bump” would let her fall onto the ground?
Absolutely not! She believed, she
knew, she had FAITH that when she leaped off of the wagon, Bump would catch
her.
Christian, I don’t know what trial you are going through
today. It may be financial. It may be physical. It may be mental. It may be relational. It very well may be
spiritual. Can you at all doubt that our
Heavenly Father is any less of a Father than I am? Do you believe that He will encourage you to
jump into His arms and then fail to catch you?
We find ourselves in troubling times. We think there is no way out. We have done all we know to do and in a last
breath effort say, “I can do nothing
else, I must simply fall into the arms of God”.
That is the best thing that we could do. That is the first thing we should do. Before I work my spiritual fingers to the bone trying myself
to work out an answer, wouldn’t I be much better off to simply turn loose and
fall……fall into the loving arms of my Father.
That is only done by FAITH.
The writer of the letter to the Hebrews tells us that we
must “come boldly to the throne of grace” so that we can find mercy, grace and
help in our time of need. I don’t
know about you but I for one need mercy, grace and help on a daily basis.
You might say, “Is that all I can do is believe? Is that all I can do is have faith? Friend that is not all you can do THAT IS THE BEST YOU CAN DO! That is your best option. That is what we
should do first and continue to do until God answers.
There is no safer more secure more relaxing place and time
in our lives than the place and time we let go and let God take control of
the situation. That is called
FAITH.
God I believe, Help my unbelief.
