SAVING FAITH.
BY A. W. P.
“Ye believe in
God, believe also in Me.” Do you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? “Oh yes,” I
hear some professing Christian say, “why, certainly, I believe on Him. I
have been an active member of the Church for many years, a teacher in the
Sabbath-school, a regular attendant upon all the means of grace. I give
liberally to the cause of missions at home and abroad, and visit the poor and
the sick whenever I can, and try to ‘about unto every good work.’” Quite
possibly. But the Bible says, “The just shall live by faith”; and again
“By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the
gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Do you believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ? Is He to you a personal Saviour and a perfect One? Does
He save you with an uttermost salvation day by day? Is yours a “faith
which works by love?” Do you love Him supremely, and have you forsaken all
to follow Him? Would you rather be counted “nothing” by the world; yes, and by
your dearly loved friends who now admire and exalt you, that He may be
glorified? Is your sole purpose in life to life Him up before all whom
you meet and let yourselves sink out of sight?
How often do you
think of the words, “He must increase, but I must decrease”? How
much and how long are you willing to trust Him? Can you say, in all His
dealings with you, that “He doeth all things well”? Can you say with Job,
“Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him”? Is Jesus to you the One
“altogether lovely,” and do you ‘sit down under His shadow with great delight”?
Do you dare to step out upon His promises and claim them as your own, and even
though it be in the dark? Are you quite willing that He should test your
faith in any way and as often as He sees fit? Has your reputation ceased to be
a tender point, and have you really laid it upon the Alter and left it there?
Are you lying passively in His hands at this moment willing to be molded into
any kind of vessel, great or small, for His service?
Dear soul, if you
and I can respond “Yea Lord” to each of these inquiries, we know something of
what it means to believe.
“O for faith that
will no shrink,
Though press’d by every foe.
That will no
tremble on the brink
Of any earthly woe;-
“A faith that
shines more bright and clear
When tempests rage without;
That when in
danger knows no fear,
In darkness feels no doubt;-
“Lord, give us
such a faith as this,
And then, whate’er may come.
We’ll taste, e’en
here, the hallow’d bliss
Of an eternal home.”
