FAITH’S RECKONINGS
BY CARRIE F. JUDD
While God’s Word
abounds in the richest and most gracious promises, we find Christians
continually mourning over their inability to claim these promises as their own,
and seeming to regard them as so many veins of precious metal which would
require so much labor to render them available that they must rest content to
know that such riches exist without reaping any benefit from them. But if we
would bear in mind that the question is not one merely of our enjoyment of
God’s mercies, but of His honor and glory, we should more vividly realize that
“whatsoever is not faith is sin.”
In nothing,
perhaps, is the adversary more persistently crafty than in the discouraging
suggestions which he heaps up before that believer who catches a glimpse of
God’s open treasure-house. It is indeed strange that we, as God’s dear
children, can ever be persuaded that He, Who “of His own free will” uttered
these promises of wondrous bounty, should have any reluctance to fulfilling His
gracious word, but Satan turns our eyes from the plains avenue leading to God’s
mercies, and rivets our attention on worldly circumstances and so-called
natural impossibilities.
O, to think of
our “limiting the Holy One of Israel” by any conceivable condition of His own
creation! What if the way does seem completely hedged up to our small human
comprehension, is it therefore hedged up to the Almighty God-“the Creator of
the ends of the earth”? We may be “entangled in the land,” as were the children
of Israel in their flight from Egypt, but if we are trusting the Lord when
Pharaoh’s host pursues, He will open a path for us through the mighty waters.
We must ever remember that what is impossible with man is possible with God, and
that no earthly circumstance can hinder the fulfillment of His word if we look
steadfastly at the immutability of that word and not at the uncertainty of this
ever-changing and disappointing world.
Very simple and
plain is our part in the obtaining of God’s promised blessings, and this laying hold by faith is much easier of
accomplishment than most of us are willing to believe. Our part is simple to
reckon our prayers as answered, and God’s part is to make faith’s reckonings real. This is by no means a question of feeling faith, but of acting faith.
We always find
ourselves acting upon what we really believe, and just as far as we act faith, so far shall we be expressing
our belief in God’s faithfulness. It is not necessary to feel some particular emotion in our hearts, but to act as though we believe what we profess to believe. God would first have
us believe His word without other confirmation, and then He is ready to give us
“according to our faith.” It could not be consistent with God’s truth that our petitions
should be granted while we were looking to circumstances to confirm His
faithfulness. This would be on our part a sort of experimental trust, a
presumptuous testing of the Divine character, above which are the infinite
dignity and holiness of God must forever hold itself exalted.
Belief in God’s
word in spite of feelings or circumstances is a Divine truth which we can only
comprehend by the aid of the Holy Spirit. We find this essential principle of
faith plainly given by our blessed Lord in His words to His disciples after the
withering of the fig-tree-(St. Mark xi: 22-24.) He first exhorts them to “have
faith in God,” and proceeds to explain the nature and power of such faith as
His followers should exercise. This power of this faith would be no less than
to enable them to remove a mountain and cast it into the sea, and the
conditions of such a miracle as here set forth, are, first, belief in God’s
word and not in the natural
possibility of such a result; and, second, belief in the transpiring of the
event before circumstances justify the belief. The real condition of the
miracle is, of course, “faith in God,” and Christ’s further exposition of that
faith shows what is essentially the state of believing heart.
As a necessary
consequence of his faith in God the true Christian “shall not doubt in his
heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass,”
and then, as an inevitable result of God’s faithfulness, our Saviour adds, “he
shall have whatsoever he saith.” Directly afterward, as if to add strength upon
strength to this marvelous truth, our blessed Lord utters this wondrous faith
principle once again in these explicit words: “Therefore I say unto you, What
things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye
shall have them.” “Believe that ye receive them” is an injunction to believe in
the immediate conferring of the
desired blessings, while the promise, “ye shall have them,” implies a future
possession. This manifest possession may, and does in many cases, instantly
follow the claims of faith, but it is nevertheless subsequent to our believer
in the reception of the gift. We are to believe that the blessing prayed for is
our solely on the assurance of God’s word, without any reference to the apparent
state of things. We are to rest wholly on God’s word for the surety of our possession,
and then in God’s own time, be it longer or shorter, we shall have that
possession made manifest to our human sense as well as to our faith.
Having the
assurance that our petition is granted before we see that it is granted, we must proceed to act upon faith’s
reckoning and take a course which will justify our professed belief. For
example, if we plead holiness of heart, and then reckon ourselves “to be dead
inside unto sin” (Rom. vi: 11), there will be no anxious watching of the
workings of our own heart, for if we believe that we are “crucified with Christ” and “alive unto God” we shall keep our
eyes fixed upon Him “Who is our life,” and not upon the corpse of our old nature.
The very fact of
our watching that evil nature, which we claim to be dead, would indicate that
we are still trying to perceive in our crucified flesh, signs of that very
carnal life which we have claimed to be extinct. We are told repeatedly in God’s
Word to “watch and pray,” but we are not by any means commanded to watch the
workings of self. Such a course never fails to result in disaster; we must be
constantly “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” We have
great need of watchfulness, but it is the watchfulness which rivets our
attention on the Holy One to whose image we would be conformed. We must look out of self not at self. Jesus said to his disciples, “Watch ye therefore: for ye
know not when the Master of the house cometh.”-(St. Mark xiii:35.) Were we to
turn our eyes towards self we could not be watching for our Lord, but the very
fact of our watching for His appearance will keep us in the right attitude to
revive him.
If we will
constantly reckon our evil nature dead, we shall feel no more need of giving it
our attention, and God will make faith’s reckonings real unto us. We are slow
in learning this, but until we do we cannot understand “the glorious liberty of
the children of God.”
And to my dear
invalid readers let me say that what is true of this precious spiritual
healing, is likewise true of physical healing by the “Great Physician.” Christ
bore our sickness as well as our sins, and if we may reckon ourselves free form
the one, why not from the other? And if, after prayer for physical healing, we
reckon reckon the work as already accomplished in our bodies we shall not fear
to act out that faith, and to make
physical exertions which will justify our professed belief in the healing. And
I can say from a full experience that when venturing on Christ’s promises in
this way, I have never failed to receive according to faith, and this very act
of talking God at His word was an expression of my faith.
Dear reader,
whatever your individual needs may be, will you not begin now to reckon God’s word as fulfilled in you? After each venture of
faith look steadfastly at Jesus without regard to your apparent weakness, and
you will surely receive according to your faith
and not according to your feelings.
“Has thou not
known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of
the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of
His understanding. He giveth power to the
faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength. Even the
youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew
their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run
and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint.”-(Isaiah xl: 28-30.)
