"Faith is man's response to what God has already imitated on his behalf.
God is always the initiator. We are the responders. Our faith responds to the totality of what God has accomplished on our behalf through Christ Jesus, but our faith is never the cause of it.
The faith that pleases God recognizes that there's no area of our life that God hasn't recognized. He knows our past, He knows our present, and He knows or future. He knows every hidden motive of our heart and every thought. And because He is a God who loves us, He has initiated a unique plan for our happiness. When we RESPOND to God and learn to walk by faith in Him, we live contented, productive lives -- even in the midst of seeming adversity.
Faith is believing that God knows best and is faithful even when we are faithless. The Christian life is not to be lived through self-effort in obedience to the law, but by faith as we are led internally by the Spirit of God. The reason people insist on hanging onto the law is that they have never experienced being led by the Spirit. It thus becomes easy to fall into the trap of being an initiator instead of a responder.
But that's not God's plan nor His desire for us. He will not keep us wandering in the wilderness if we allow ourselves to be led by Him.
The Christian life is a life of faith from beginning to end. The faith in Christ that first saved us is the same faith by which we grow and live. Our proper response of thankfulness to God's gift of grace changes as we see how grace provides for us what we could not provide for ourselves."
--adapted from THE FAITH THAT PLEASES GOD, by Bob George published by Harvest House.
Good words for us to ponder on this May 3, 2005
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