Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Our salvation and sanctification are dependent upon faith

And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him." Hebrews 11:6
Faith is the vital to everything regarding God and His relationship to man. This relationship will only exist if man has faith in God. If a person does not truly have faith in God, they cannot have a relationship with Him!
Our salvation and sanctification are dependent upon faith. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10)
Grace is the power of salvation while faith is the means of salvation and all is of God.  God’s salvation is extended to man by his grace and man is given faith by God to receive it.
The gift of faith continues as the ability to see God’s purpose in a situation and to trust His wisdom and power to accomplish that purpose. It is the gift of faith vision which enables one to believe God for what seems impossible. Faith is the way we see God and relate to God in all of life.
While we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.  For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 
2nd Corinthians 4:18
We read in Hebrews 11:27 that Moses “endured as seeing Him who is invisible.” Indeed, the gift of faith enables us to see with spiritual eyes. It provides us with spiritual sight.  The end result of faith is courage to surmount the challenges of life, to overcome our trials, and to experience peace in those challenges and trials.
Faith is the eye of the soul.  Our faith is the organ by which we are enabled to see the invisible order; and to see it with certainty, just as our eyes behold the physical world around us.
The key biblical definition of faith is found in Hebrews 11:1.  Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  In just a few words the essence of our relationship to God is captured in this verse. While volumes have been written about this one verse and its meaning to believers it is truly beyond understanding to the mind of man.
Faith’s character is, in a word, certitude — a dynamic certainty about what God has promised. It is not a feeling, like the line from Oklahoma: O what a beautiful morning, O what a beautiful day. I’ve got a wonderful feeling, Everything’s going my way! It is not optimism or bootstrap positive thinking either.  It is not a hunch.  It is not sentimentality. An old pop song says, “You gotta have faith”—the sentiment being that if you somehow have faith in faith, you will be okay.  
Faith is not "blind." Spiritual faith is confidence grounded in the reality of God’s revelation through creation, history and the testimony of men.  It rests upon His Word, proven over time to be infallible. God is real. He is reliable. That is why we trust Him!

Scripture to Claim:
And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you. Psalm 9:10 ESV

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