Scripture

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. 

~Romans 10:17, NASB

Quote

“That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness, and say to Him, “Thou art my refuge.”

~George MacDonald

We are saved by the atonement, Christ death on the cross. In a nutshell, we are saved by God’s gracious work at Calvary but the human side of this great salvation is faith. Paul said to the Ephesians elders in Acts 20, I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear, either publicly or in your homes. I have had one message for Jews and Greeks alike—the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God, and of having faith in our Lord Jesus. Hebrews 6 begins with these words…So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God. Both John the Baptist and Jesus preached repentance. Now we have folks who say we cannot repent or put our faith in Christ; that we have no ability to do either, but this is not what the scripture teaches. Repentance and faith are not works and we never pat ourselves on the back for repenting and trusting Christ. There is absolutely no question that the Holy Spirit is the One who convicts of sin and brings us to repentance but without repentance, there is no salvation. Everyone has faith. Everyone has the capacity to believe in something. Even an atheist has great faith but unfortunately, their faith is in the wrong object.

Our faith is in Jesus and His atoning blood. How do we encourage this faith? How do we nurture it? How do we increase it and make it stronger? By getting into the WORD of God. The word of God feeds our faith. Our problem is, we spend more time reading the news paper than we do the Bible. The world system will not encourage your faith in Christ; but they will do everything in their power to undermine you faith. There are some misconceptions about faith. Many times we convince ourselves that miracles and signs will increase our faith but this is not what the Bible teaches. Jesus had a lot to say on this subject. In John 4:48, Jesus asked, “Will you never believe in Me unless you sees miraculous sings and wonders?” John records in 12:37, ^“But despite all the miraculous signs Jesus had done, most of the people still did not believe in him.” Remember the story in Luke 16 about the Rich man who died and went to hades, he prayed…“Please, Father Abraham, at least send him{Lazarus} to my father’s home. For I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them so they don’t end up in this place of torment. “….“But Abraham said, ‘Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read what they wrote.’ If people will not heed the word of God, they will never get faith by seeing signs and wonders. Lazarus returning from the dead and paying a visit to that lost household would be some kind of miracle but Abraham knew that it would not work.

So if miracles and signs don’t strengthen our faith, what does? Reading the word of God and obeying it! Trust and obey, there is no other way to be happy in Jesus.

Extra

Busy day LORD willing. I will be at Peck’s for much of the day and then Mid-week worship at 6:00. Why do people plan Christmas parties on Wednesday night. I have to miss one tonight because I can’t be in two places at one time. I love Christmas parties. I will not be visiting nursing homes today due to the two COLS.