CHILD-LIKE, TRUSTING FAITH

“People were bringing little children to Jesus for Him to place His hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, He was indignant. He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’ And He took the children in His arms, placed His hands on them and blessed them.”  (Mark 10:13-16 NIV)

Faith is sometimes equated with credulity, but it can be so equated only when the profound mistake is made of thinking of faith as primarily a matter of intellectual assent.  As the New Testament uses the word, faith is trust, acceptance, commitment, vision.  It is not a belief in this or that creed, it is a quality which lies rather in the realm of intuition than the intellect.  Faith has indeed an element of true simplicity; it is one of the qualities -- perhaps the fundamental quality -- of the child-like spirit without which no one can enter the Kingdom of God. 

-- Author Unknown

#6178

THE GOSPEL OF GRACE

"After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’” (Revelation 7:9-10 NIV)

Because salvation is by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9), I believe that among the countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands (Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me she could find no other employment to support her two-year-old son.  I shall see the woman who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions; the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually-abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last "trick" whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school; the deathbed convert who for decades had his cake and ate it, broke every law of God and man, wallowed in lust and raped the earth.

"But how?" we ask.  Then the voice says, "They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

There they are.  There we are -- the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life's tribulations, but through it all clung to the faith.

My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace. 

-- Brennan Manning in “The Ragamuffin Gospel” 

#5933

OUR HOPE IS IN CHRIST

Romans 5 begins with these words: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through who we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand” (vv. 1-2). Paul then explains that the result of experiencing the grace of God is that “we rejoice in the hope of the glory God” (v. 2). For a Christian, no situation is completely hopeless. Christians have hope in Christ…

Many people have hope, but they have not based it on anything solid. It is an artificial, pump-yourself-up hope. And many people base their hope on the wrong things: the stock market, their good looks, a big salary, a nice job, a good family, [the next election]. But all those things are temporary and can be taken away. When they disappear, so does hope. And joy is impossible without hope.

By contrast, Christians have a reason to be positive. We can rejoice because we rejoice in hope. In Romans 12:12 Paul reminds us, “Be joyful in hope.” Paul is talking about our hope in Christ. The hope we have in Christ is the reason we can rejoice, even in difficult situations. 

-- Rick Warren in “God’s Power to Change Your Life”

#5820

BESIDE US IN GRIEF

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." (Psalm 29:2 NKJV)

God does not cheapen Himself or us by offering us easy answers to the anguished, "Why?" that we who are human cannot help but ask.  The mystery of life and death and suffering remains a mystery in all human generations, and it is no less a mystery for us.  We don't get a quick fix from our faith.

But we do encounter a God who sits patiently beside us in grief, usually silently, like an orthodox Jew sitting shivah with his bereaved friend, offering no words to explain away a mystery that is beyond words.  God sits with us in our sorrow. In the days and weeks after a loss, as we sit together in the silence, something new begins to creep into our consciousness. The faith that has sustained our whole lives will begin to knot our sorrow over this death together with what we believe about the life to come [through faith in Christ].  Faith and experience will knit together like a broken bone knits together as time passes.  We begin to be able to see for ourselves what is already a reality for those who have gone on ahead of us, something the tears of early bereavement make it hard for us to see at first.  They begin to appear in our vision of heaven, taking their place in the communion of the saints. We begin to feel their presence, not just their absence.  Once again, the resurrection faith to which we cling gently bathes our hearts, and our hearts are healed. 

-- Bishop Edmund Lee Browning from "A Year of Days with the Book of Common Prayer" 

#5734

IN CHRIST

In worship recently our pastor reminded us of what is available to us “in Christ.” It brought to mind that over the years of my ministry whenever I would lead a small group study of Paul's letter to the Ephesians one of the exercises I would do with the group is to point out in Ephesians 1:3-14 all that is ours in Christ. First, I would have the group underline each time Paul uses the phrase "in Christ", or "through Christ", or something similar. I have done that for you in the text below. Then I invite them to circle what it is that we receive in or through Christ. I invite you to print out today's quote and do that for yourself, or underline and circle the text in your Bible. It is truly amazing what God has done for us IN CHRIST.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before Him in love. He destined us for adoption as His children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace that He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace that He lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight He has made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure that He set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of Him who accomplishes all things according to His counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of His glory. In Him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in Him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance towards redemption as God's own people, to the praise of His glory."  (Ephesians 1:3-14)

 -- Rev. David T. Wilkinson, SOUND BITES Ministry

#5627

TRANSCENDING PRESENT POSSIBILITY

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."  (1 Peter 1:3)

Of all the mysteries our faith invites us to contemplate, the Resurrection is by far the most astonishing.  Not simply in the sense of being difficult to believe in a logical fashion.  That, in a way, is the very point of it.  The very idea of resurrection shatters all the categories of comprehension with which we make sense of our world. It draws us instead into a reality that transcends present possibility.  

-- Wendy M. Wright in “The Rising”   

#5583

THE WRATH OF GOD

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”  (Romans 6:23 NLT)

God's wrath is not capricious anger, like some divine rage that erupts occasionally. Wrath is the holiness of God yearning for the wholeness of creation. Wrath is goodness offended by evil, compassionate love recoiling at hatred. Wrath stands over against sin, condemning it and ultimately destroying it… All can be made right with God through faith in Jesus Christ.

-- Richard and Julia Wilke in “DISCIPLE: Remember Who You Are”

#5515

FAITH INFORMING LIFE

There is no need to multiply examples of what is so patently an essential condition of the Christian walk. We are saved through faith – an unflagging, unwavering attachment to the person of Jesus Christ.

What is the depth and quality of your faith commitment? In the last analysis, faith is not a way of speaking or even thinking; it is a way of living. Maurice Blondel said, “If you want to know what a person really believes, don’t listen to what he says but watch what he does.” Only the practice of faith can verify what we believe. Does faith permeate the whole of your life? Does it form your judgments about success, about death? Does it influence the way you read the newspaper? Do you have a divine sense of humor that see through people and events into the unfolding plan of God? When things are turbulent on the surface of your life, do you retain a quiet calm, firmly fixed in ultimate reality? As Therese of Lisieux said, “Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you. All things are passing.”

How has your faith shaped this past year? How will it shape the year ahead? 

-- Adapted from “Reflections for Ragamuffins” by Brennan Manning

#5506

A HOPE THAT IS SOLID

Jesus said, “Everyone then who hears these words of Mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.”  (Matthew 7:24-25 NIV)

Nineteenth-century hymn writer Edward Mote (1797-1874) wrote the following: "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness… On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand." If we understand little else on our Advent journey toward Christmas, let's understand that.

There is nothing else that solid, and there is nothing else that real… Through Jesus Christ, we can have a hope that means something. 

-- Derek Maul in “In My Heart I Carry a Star: Stories of Advent”

#5486

THE LIFELINE OF HOPE

“For You, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth.”  (Psalm 71:5 ESV)

Hope is the lifeline tossed out to us from God. It sustains us when we feel like we are drowning, and God gently pulls us and the lifeline toward the shores of spiritual growth. With hope we also have faith -- not faith that we will be spared pain and despair but faith in the God who will lead us through the difficult times.

Therefore, in our struggle to understand God’s will, let us not concentrate solely on our pain and despair. Instead, trusting in the Lord, let us look with hope and faith toward attaining new, rich experiences of the abundant life God has given us. 

-- Adapted from John R. Wimmer in “Blessed Endurance: Moving Beyond Despair to Hope” 

#5485

FAITH AND WORKS

"But someone will say, 'You have faith and I have works.' Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works."  (James 2:18 ESV)

Faith and works should travel side by side, step answering to step, like the legs of men walking. First faith, and then works; and then faith again, and then works again -- until they can scarcely distinguish which is the one and which is the other.  

-- William Booth in “The Founder’s Messages to Soldiers” 

#5362

UNEARNED AND UNDESERVED

“For it is by grace [God’s remarkable compassion and favor drawing you to Christ] that you have been saved [actually delivered from judgment and given eternal life] through faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [not through your own effort], but it is the [undeserved, gracious] gift of God; not as a result of [your] works [nor your attempts to keep the Law], so that no one will [be able to] boast or take credit in any way [for his salvation].”  (Ephesians 2:8-9 Amplified Bible)

Salvation is worth working for. It is worth one’s going around the world on one’s hands and knees, climbing its mountains, crossing its valleys, swimming its rivers, going through all manner of hardship in order to attain it. But we do not get it that way. It is to the one who [simply and humbly] believes [in Christ]. 

-- Dwight Lyman Moody

#5351

FOR ME

"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." (Galatians 2:20 NKJV)

Every one of us must face the cross. Every one of us needs to come personally. "He died for me." Put the "me" into it. Only when you begin there, will the love of Christ begin to dawn in you. 

-- H. S. Vigeveno in “Jesus the Revolutionary”

#5327

DEPENDENCE ON THE SAVIOUR

“God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”  (Ephesians 2:8-9 NLT)

To have faith is to rely upon Christ, the Person, with the whole heart.  It is not the understanding of the mind, not the theological opinion, not creed, not organization, not ritual.  It is the koinonia of the whole personality with God and Christ, ...  This experience of communion with Christ is itself the continual attitude of dependence on the Saviour which we call faith. 

-- Kokichi Kurosaki in “One Body in Christ”

#5275

A DUAL RISK

“Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.”  (John 1:12 NIV)

Every commitment is a sort of gamble. But for the person experiencing the acute sense of risk that comes at the moment of making a decisive commitment, there is a dual risk: Not only the risk of exercising faith and making a commitment, but the equally acute risk of NOT exercising faith and making a commitment. It is what Sheldon Vanauken, in his book “A Severe Mercy” describes so well as the “gap behind” -- the sense that one cannot draw back from the risk that is to be taken, except at even greater risk.

Vanauken wrote, “The position was not, as I had been comfortably thinking all these months, merely a question of whether I was to accept the Messiah or not. It was a question of whether I was to accept Him -- or reject. My God! There was a gap behind me, too. Perhaps the leap to acceptance was a horrifying gamble -- but what of the leap to rejection?” 

-- Maxine Hancock in “Re-evaluating Your Commitments: How to Strengthen the Permanent and Reassess the Temporary”

#5222

A LIFE OF FAITH

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”   (Hebrews 11:1)

Faith is the way we begin the life in Christ; faith is also the way it is maintained; and faith is what will bring us at last in triumph through the gates of glory into the very presence of the Lord Himself.

-- Ray C. Stedman

#5168 

ONLY THROUGH FAITH

“My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.”  (Galatians 2:20-21 NLT)

Trying to get right with God by keeping a bunch of religious rules is a formula for frustration and failure. First problem, whose rules? Such requirements vary from religion to religion, person to person, and generation to generation. What if you’re working from the wrong list? Second problem, how do we define what it mean to “keep” those rules? Do we have to follow them perfectly? Or are we allowed a reasonable number of mistakes and missteps? And what is considered “reasonable”? The gospel of Christ eliminates all this confusion by stating categorically that no one but Christ is good enough. Only through faith in Him, only by relying on His efforts on our behalf, do we qualify for heaven.

Father, we are not made right with You by human efforts, and we do not stay right with You by works. Remaining “in Your good graces” means counting on Christ alone to live in us. Amen. 

– Max Lucado in “Life Lessons: Galatians – Free in Christ”

#5124

A FALSE IDEA

Many centuries ago there was a man from Britain who visited Rome. He noticed that many Christians were not living very holy lives. Pelagius became disgusted and frustrated by it. He began to preach sermons focusing heavily on morality. He also taught that people could learn to be good if they'd just try harder. Have you ever caught yourself doing that? Many people leave Jesus behind because they think they can solve their problems on their own. This kind of false idea of God only reinforces their actual separation from Him. Pelagius was wrong, and his approach to human problems has been proven wrong again and again. The Bible says that, "Without faith it is impossible to please God." (Hebrews 11:6) 

-- Rev. Michael P. Walther

#5108

JESUS CHRIST – SAVIOR AND LORD

Believing is not merely giving mental assent to what Christ did and then living any way we want.  Saving faith has four important steps.  First, we must decide to leave behind our past life.  Second, we must admit that we cannot help ourselves.  Third, we must accept what Christ has done on our behalf.  Fourth, we must entrust ourselves to Him in this way; we accept His way of life as our way of life.  So when He becomes our Savior, He also becomes our Lord.

Why is faith so important for salvation?  Faith is the opposite of the basic sin that separates man from God.  Man's fall took place when he chose to decide for himself what is good and what is evil.  He chose to build his own system of values.  So man's basic sin is independence from God.  Faith is the opposite of independence from God.  When one exercises faith, he rejects his own ways of saving himself and controlling his life and submits to the way God provided for him in Christ Jesus.

Here then is the gospel in a nutshell: God has, in Christ, done all that is necessary for our salvation and we must accept that by faith. 

-- Ajith Fernando in “The Christian's Attitude Toward World Religions”

#5054

GROWING IN GRACE

“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever! Amen.”  (2 Peter 3:18 NIV)

When I speak of a person growing in grace, I mean simply this -- that his sense of sin is becoming deeper, his faith stronger, his hope brighter, his love more extensive, and his spiritual-mindedness more marked.   He feels more of the power of godliness in his heart.  He manifests more of it in his life.  He goes on from strength to strength, from faith to faith, and from grace to grace.

-- Bishop J. C. Ryle (1816-1900)

#5030