Saved Through Faith

«By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.»

Faith is trusting God—believing that He loves us and knows best what is for our good. Thus, instead of our own, it leads us to choose His way. In place of our ignorance, it accepts His wisdom; in place of our weakness, His strength; in place of our sinfulness, His righteousness. Our lives, ourselves, are already His; faith acknowledges His ownership and accepts its blessing. Truth, uprightness, purity, have been pointed out as secrets of life’s success. It is faith that puts us in possession of these principles. Every good impulse or aspiration is the gift of God; faith receives from God the light that alone can produce true growth and efficiency.

Wonderful is the work that God designs to accomplish through His servants that His name may be glorified. It is His purpose to manifest through them the principles of His kingdom. Through the humble receiver of His promises, God allows His blessings to flow out freely to the world. Every believer in whose heart Christ abides through belief of the truth will be a representative of the Saviour to show forth God’s love before all with whom he comes in contact. Through faith he will lay hold of divine strength, and become a laborer together with God, a blessing to himself and to his fellow men.

It is a mistake to suppose that we must feel ourselves accepted of God before we can appropriate the promises of His word. Faith must not rely upon feeling, but upon the promises of God. Faith takes hold of the divine word; whereas feeling often eclipses faith in a «Thus saith the Lord.» «If thou wilt enter into life,» Christ says, «keep the commandments.» Live out My law «as the apple of thine eye.» God’s commandments obeyed are «life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.» God bids us walk by faith in a «Thus saith the Lord,» and stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.

The Lord says, «Call upon Me in the day of trouble.» He invites us to present to Him our perplexities and necessities, and our need of divine help. He bids us be instant in prayer. As soon as difficulties arise, we are to offer to Him our sincere, earnest petitions. By our importunate prayers we give evidence of our strong confidence in God. The sense of our need leads us to pray earnestly, and our heavenly Father is moved by our supplications.

If we surrender our lives to His service, we can never be placed in a position for which God has not made provision. Whatever may be our situation, we have a Guide to direct our way; whatever our perplexities, we have a sure Counselor; whatever our sorrow, bereavement, or loneliness, we have a sympathizing Friend. If in our ignorance we make missteps, Christ does not leave us. His voice, clear and distinct, is heard saying, «I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.» «He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper.»

The Lord declares that He will be honored by those that draw nigh to Him. «Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee: because he trusteth in Thee.» The arm of Omnipotence is outstretched to lead us onward and still onward. Go forward, the Lord says; I will send you help. It is for My name’s glory that you ask, and you shall receive. I will be honored before those who are watching for your failure. They shall see My word triumph gloriously. «All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.»

The Lord will give precious victories to those who put their faith in Him and seek to become one with Him, enabling them to work out His righteous will. What joy it gives to parents to bestow good gifts upon their children! Yet the Saviour says, «How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.» The Father is more willing to bestow His grace than we are to ask for it. «If ye shall ask anything in My name,» He says, «I will do it.» «The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.» Whatever we ask in Christ’s name, and in accordance with His will, He gives us. But it means much to ask in Christ’s name. It means to ask in the simplicity of a little child, and with full trust that what we ask for we shall receive.

The world’s Redeemer came to our world to live the life of humanity, that humanity through faith in Him, might lay hold of divinity, and escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. The agencies of Satan are always at work to hinder the work that will make man successful over the powers of darkness; but this should not discourage us or cause us to cease our efforts. Christ was tempted in all points like as we are, yet He did not fail nor become discouraged. Ever before His mind was the result of His mission. He knew that truth would finally triumph in the great contest with evil. To His disciples He says, «Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.» A life of sanctification and joy in believing is held out to every soul who in faith will claim the promises of the word of God, and draw upon divine strength for the work of overcoming. It is the privilege of the Christian to wax strong under difficulties. If the religious life is constantly sustained by relying on the Author and Finisher of our faith, God will give a rich experience. A true discerning of Christ will lead to a true confiding in Him, and this will give comfort and courage and hope in Him.

Let a living faith run like threads of gold through the performance of even the smallest duties. Then all the daily work will promote Christian growth. There will be a continual looking unto Jesus. Love for Him will give vital force to everything that is undertaken. Thus through the right use of our talents, we may link ourselves by a golden chain to the higher world. This is true sanctification; for sanctification consists in the cheerful performance of daily duties in perfect obedience to the will of God.

«Herein Is Love»

Christ was not only an expression of the Father’s love, but a channel to convey the love of God to men. Christ loved us, and gave Himself for us. He gave His life that He might bring salvation to perishing sinners. Man could not satisfy the claims of justice; no human hand could apply the atoning blood and cleanse the heart from sin. Christ alone, by clothing His divinity with humanity, could reach mankind and bring it near to God.

And «God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.» In the compassionate life of Christ we behold the character of the Father. «He that hath seen Me,» Christ declares, «hath seen the Father.»

God does not love us because Christ died for us, but it was because He loved us that He gave Christ as a ransom for our sins. Satan has represented God as selfish and oppressive, as claiming all, and giving nothing, as requiring the service of His creatures for His own glory, and making no sacrifice for their good. But the gift of Christ reveals the Father’s heart. It testifies that the thoughts of God toward us are «thoughts of peace, and not of evil.» It declares that while God’s hatred of sin is strong as death, His love for the sinner is stronger than death. Having undertaken our redemption, He will spare nothing, however dear, which is necessary to the completion of His work.

No truth essential to our salvation is withheld, no miracle of mercy is neglected, no divine agency is left unemployed. Favor is heaped upon favor, gift upon gift. The whole treasury of heaven is open to those He seeks to save. Having collected the riches of the universe, and laid open the resources of infinite power, He gives them all into the hands of Christ, and says, All these are for man. Use these gifts to convince him that there is no love greater than Mine in earth or heaven. His greatest happiness will be found in loving Me.

When Christ came to the time of His great trial, His thoughts were not for Himself, but for the disciples whom He was to leave in the world to meet its trials and conflicts. «Little children,» He said to them, «yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek Me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go ye can not come: so now I say to you. A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one for another.»

The Demonstration of His Love.

«As I have loved you,» the Saviour said. The fulness of that love was yet to be more fully demonstrated in His sufferings and cruel death at the hands of men who hated Him because His piety and grace revealed their own great lack. To the disciples this commandment was new; for they had not loved one another as Christ had loved them. He saw that new ideas and impulses must control them; that new principles must be practised by them; through His life and death they were to receive a new conception of love. The command to love one another had a new meaning in the light of His self-sacrifice. The whole work of grace is one continual service of love, of self-denying, self-sacrificing effort. During every hour of Christ’s sojourn upon the earth, the love of God was flowing from Him in irrepressible streams. All who are imbued with His Spirit will love as He loved. The very principle that actuated Christ will actuate them in all their dealings one with another.

This love is the evidence of their discipleship. «By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples,» said Jesus, «if ye have love one to another.» When men are bound together, not by force or self-interest, but by love, they show the working of an influence that is above every human influence. Where this oneness exists, it is evidence that the image of God is being restored in humanity, that a new principle of life has been implanted. It shows that there is power in the divine nature to withstand the supernatural agencies of evil, and that the grace of God subdues the selfishness inherent in the human heart.

Love Begets Love.

God and Christ alone know what the souls of men have cost. For our sakes the Son of God became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich with eternal riches. His love has bought for us immeasurable grace. «His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness,» that we «with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord,» may be «changed into the same image, from glory to glory.»

It is not possible for the heart in which Christ abides to be destitute of love. If we love God because He first loved us, we shall love all for whom Christ died. We can not come in touch with divinity without coming in touch with humanity; for in Him who sits upon the throne of the universe, divinity and humanity are combined. Connected with Christ, we are connected with our fellow men by the golden links of the chain of love. Then the pity and compassion of Christ will be manifest in our life. We shall not wait to have the needy and unfortunate brought to us. We shall not need to be entreated to feel for the woes of others. It will be as natural for us to minister to the needy and suffering as it was for Christ to go about doing good.

Tho now He has ascended to the presence of God, and shares the throne of the universe, Jesus has lost none of His compassionate nature. To-day the same tender, sympathizing heart is open to all the woes of humanity. To-day the hand that was pierced is reached forth to bless more abundantly His people that are in the world. «And they shall never perish; neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.» The soul that has given himself to Christ is more precious in His sight than the whole world. The Saviour would have passed through the agony of Calvary, that one might be saved in His kingdom. He will never abandon one for whom He has died. Unless His followers choose to leave Him, He will hold them fast.

Because we are the gift of His Father, and the reward of His work, Jesus loves us. He loves us as His children. Reader, He loves you. Heaven itself can bestow nothing greater, nothing better. Therefore trust.