Morning Moments

FAITH

“Faith” is one of the most dynamic words in the Old Testament. Furthermore in the New Testament, Paul’s assertion in Romans that “the righteous shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:17) lays the foundation stone for the gospel: the gospel of faith in Christ. The author of Hebrews defines faith as the assurance in our heart and mind of what we hope for, the certainty of what we do not see (Heb. 11:1). And the author also notes that it was “faith” that was the “basis” for the approval of the saints in the Old Testament (Heb. 11:2). The author of Hebrews was right, for without faith it is impossible to be approved by God. 

• Holman Treasury of Key Bible Words: 200 Greek and 200 Hebrew Words Defined and Explained.

Faith can mean that personal ability or capacity to take God at His Word regardless of what we can see or feel, or it can refer to that “body of truth” that was once and for all delivered unto the saints.  The context generally makes it clear which is which.

We are saved, stablished, secured, satisfied, and settled by grace through faith.  Think of it this way - faith is a gift from God and grace is the reason He gives it.  

When we realize our helpless and hopeless condition as sinful creatures before the Holy God and express the willingness to abandon ourselves to Him as our only hope and help, we are saved.  When that happens, God then gives us grace to express that personal faith by “confessing with our mouth Jesus as LORD as an indication that we believe in our hearts God raised Him from the dead.  THAT is the expression of personal faith.

That is only the beginning, for the “Just shall live by faith”, which is to say that, if our experience of faith is truly genuine, we begin the journey of living moment by moment, day by day, by that same faith (trust, reliance, dependence).  That is the journey of the Christian life, and that journey is base upon and guided by The Faith, which is that “body of truth” once for all delivered unto the saints.  God has made is simply, but we have mastered the complication of it.

We are saved by faith, kept by faith, stand by faith, love by faith, pray in faith, forgive by faith, rejoice in faith - everything expression of the Christian Life is an expression of faith - ‘the faith of the Son of God who loves us and gave Himself for us”.  Hence “It is not I, but Christ who lives in me, for I am crucified with Christ.”  “I am dead, and my life is hid with Christ in God, and now Christ is my life”.  THAT is the Christian Life, which, as Griffith Thomas has said, “Is not a difficult life, but an impossible one, for it can only be lived BY HIM, IN US!  HALLELUJAH!

BLESSINGS!