Romans 5:1-2 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. --- It is the most debated and most revealing aspect of the true nature of God. It is faith. .... Where does it come from? Is it a choice we make? Or a choice God makes for us? And how, being of the world and therefore unable to judge what is His, do we know that ones faith confessed is the faith they possess? 3 are about to confess with their mouths. ---- The first, kneels before a band of hostile muslims. The life of his family is threatened unless he renounces faith in Christ. ---- The second is but a child. His parents have decided to have their son baptized and today is the day. ---- And the third, he is inmate awaiting prison. A man that preaches each Thursday at the jailhouse asks, Would anybody like to be born again new, today? The inmates hand reaches up. So which is it? --- Does faith and the eternal life it gives come from works.... Including the works of our mouth when we confess our faith in God? --- Or, are the works of a man, including the confessions of the mouth, -- are all works born upon faith? One of the many reasons that this is so debated is because it falls to the very foundation of what we know, what we believe in ourselves,-- including free will... and what we believe in God and his all powerful will and purpose. It really comes down to this: ..... Does God react to what we do? Or do we react and irresistably do by his will and purpose? Its a question where the only answer can come from God, himself.... So I turn to His word and pray his grace in what you see: ..... For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 .... for Gods gifts and his call are irrevocable. Romans 11:29 ---- So if His gifts are irrevocable, is faith unattainable without him first giving it? .... In the book of John, Jesus addresses this question: ....Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life. -- John 5:24 ..... He goes on in describing those that will hear and believe as those that will come to me, be declaring: ..... All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. John 6:37 ---- God the Father, alone decides who will hear, who will believe, who will come to Christ and who will not. He and he alone decides the measure of faith to each. .... Jesus affirms that faith is the work of God the father, alone---when he says, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.” ---- As for the 3 about to confess. .....I cannot know what the kneeling man, who believes in the true and living God, will do--- but God does... He prepares all things. ....I cannot know whether the sons confession is made by the faith given him or the faith given his parents---- but God does... He chooses all things. ....As for the inmate, this I do know. For he was me. And just as He chose death for me and then life... God prepares, chooses and gives all things. So I ask.... Does God react to what you do? Or in all things, do you do by His will? To each, the answers your gift---- A gift that only He can give or change. It is your gift of faith.
Posted on: Sun, 18 Jan 2015 21:15:29 +0000
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