All Christian ministry and service must be
grounded in faith. Faithlessness will
eliminate the blessing of Jehovah.
Furthermore, your spiritual enemies are not merely natural, but
supernatural—you have the world, the flesh, and the devil to fight, and you
cannot overcome them on your own. How
will you slay the indwelling lusts that, before your regeneration, held you in
an unbreakable grip, without the strength of the Lord through faith? Do you think you will defeat the devil and
his vast hosts of demons without taking to yourself the “shield of faith”
(Ephesians 6:16)? How necessary it is to
trust in the Lord your God in all situations—and also how sweet it is so to
do! He is a sure and unfailing
confidence. Do not fear, but place all
your confidence in Him. He is a certain
refuge, a strong rock, and a high tower.
Men may, and will, fail, as will their devices, but the counsel of the
Sovereign and Almighty One shall stand.
Indeed, the righteous trust in the Lord—not in outward action only, in
their inward disposition. Do you act
like the righteous when times are easy, but abandon their Rock in times of
trial? What, then, is this weakness of
faith? Meditate upon the revelation of
the character of God as the faithful God, as your own God in covenant with you,
for He reveals Himself, and gives His people precious promises, to quicken and
strengthen their trust in Him. He is a
good Father, who gives abundantly to His own children out of His overflowing
abundance. He will strengthen you in
your weakness, strengthen your wavering faith, and fill you abundantly with His
grace.
Trust, without doubting, that you have
from your Father what you ask, and God will answer your prayers. His promises indicate His desire to hear and
answer you: “And all things, whatsoever
ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive” (Matthew 21:22). His character is such that He will certainly
fulfill His promises. Therefore, meet
the conditions for answered prayer: 1.)
Ask! “Ye have not because ye ask not”
(James 4:2). You will not receive if you
do not ask; therefore “ask, and ye shall
receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24). 2.) Ask in faith. This is impossible unless you have an upright
heart. “If I regard iniquity in my
heart, the Lord will not hear me”
(Psalm 66:18). You cannot ask in faith
if you are wilfully cherishing sin. If
you are right with God, then you can always ask in faith for anything that God
has promised you in His Word, for you can know without a doubt that all such
promises are as certain as God’s own self-testimony. Do you lack wisdom? “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of
God, that giveth to all men
liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (James 1:5). Are you being tempted? “There hath no temptation taken you but such
as is common to man: but God is
faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but
will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear
it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). Do you long for holiness? “[H]is divine power hath given unto us all
things that pertain unto life and
godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and
virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that
by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the
corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Peter 1:3-4). Furthermore, you are encouraged to pray about
everything, since God “is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask
or think” (Ephesians 3:20). When it is
His will (2 Corinthians 12:9) to fulfill your request, your Father can give you
faith for that need (James 5:15).
Christian, do you come to your Father with confidence, or are you vacillating
and doubting when you cry to Him? Do you
even cry? Do you seek the Lord in prayer
in such a manner as befits your deep duty and astonishing privilege of coming
to Him?
Faith is
the instrumentality through which God fills you with spiritual joy and peace,
as well as other holy attributes (Romans 15:13). Saint of God, you have tasted that the Lord
is good. You know that you possess a
rich spiritual banquet that the world knows nothing of, and cannot even
comprehend. Would you be filled with
greater measures of this blessed joy and peace?
Such sweet spiritual treasures are part of the glorious inheritance of life that those who are just receive by
faith. Exercise your faith, so that it
will grow! Moreover, do not just grit
your teeth and seek to endure trials, but value them as occasions for the
strengthening of faith. The “trial of
your faith” is far more precious than “gold that perisheth,” and the fact that
the successful passage of such trials will bring “praise and honour and glory
at the appearing of Jesus Christ” can bring you, believing, an anticipatory
“joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:3-9) even before the certainly
coming final consummation of joy.
Since life in all its blessed fulness comes to those who entrust themselves to the Lord, and
greater measures of life are found in those who more closely trust their God,
how essential it is that you entrust yourself to Him! The worldly pleasures that the wicked prefer
to God, that keep them from trusting in Him, will not last. These rebellious ones are living on borrowed
time; life, even in its physical sense, is not promised to them. The physical, as well as the incomparably
glorious spiritual delights, that will be partaken of forever in the New
Jerusalem are inconceivably superior to anything possessed in this present
time, but they will be shut out from them all.
They chose to go from iniquity to iniquity, and wrath will fall upon
them to the uttermost. In contrast, in
the regenerate, spiritual life increases as they go from faith to faith. Therefore, by God’s grace, grow in faith, for
then you will receive greater measures of life from God. What a blessing that, instead of going, as by
nature you would certainly have done, from iniquity to iniquity, you can go
from faith to faith, receiving from the fulness of Christ grace for grace! What is there in this dying world that could
be better than this? Eternal glory is
but the consummation of that spiritual and eternal life you can possess, in
growing measure, now. Do you treasure
spiritual life as you ought? Are you
increasing in your possession of this blessed life?
This post is part of the complete study here.
This post is part of the complete study here.
-TDR
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