18) Forasmuch
as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and
gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;
19) But
with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without
spot:
20) Who
verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in
these last times for you,
21) Who
by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the
dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.
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aith
is that which is accepted though its reality is unseen. And the beautiful thing
is, though we cannot see its reality we believe in it. It is in believing that
the effect we desire comes to pass.
Inarguably,
we are brought into existence by a power greater than ourselves. In order for
us to question His ability to care for us we must forget this fact. For
obviously, if God was able to create us and make us as inexplicable and complex
as we are, He had and has to be all-wise. If He has the ability to make and
save Man, He must have the ability to
take care of us.
Man
is basically dishonest. How can one say this? Because if we were naturally
honest, we would acknowledge that our past plans were not good and our thinking
lead us into bad, destructive choices.
We
are participants in the Plan of which the Lord is the author. It is He and only
He Who knows the end from the beginning. As its originator, He is the only One Who can bring it to pass. No
matter what we feel we have accomplished, or what we would like to claim for
ourselves, we actually have no plan.
Self-determination, at best, is an illusion.
In
case we are under any misconceptions, the Lord wants us to understand that it
is Jesus, Himself, Who establishes the plan of salvation. We were drawn by the
power of God and were able to nothing (on our own behalf) to come to salvation.
We
are saved to carry out God’s will, period. We are saved to do and to find that
will. Too many people seem to take the acceptance of salvation as an “arrival”;
a time to relax. The fact is, that it is quite the
contrary. We are brought into salvation, by God, to work. Whenever we are given something to do for God and we refuse,
we are rejecting it and denying Him.
We
must never feel that God will overlook our failings and transgressions. God’s
records are perfect and He will bring past sins and transgressions
to mind and into account.
Why
is it so often said that we are living on borrowed time? Because in that the
devil wishes us to give up our lives (spiritually and physically) before we
have a chance to come to God, most of us narrowly escaped death before
salvation. Since, if not for the protection of God our lives would have been
required, once we enter God’s plan, we enter His time and become indebted to
Him.
Man
tends to “make light” of what is required of Him. Oh, we know what is required
and we know the magnitude of those requirements but in order to psychologically
avoid the responsibility of that knowledge we trivialize many things and make
them much less important than they are. “Faith and hope in God” cannot be
feigned. If we expect God to believe our profession, we must align ourselves
with His will, for He changes that will for no one—despite how much we feel He
ought to esteem us or how much should be done for us.
Never
has an outward show of anything been acceptable to God.
Particularly now, a show of faith
profits nothing. Perhaps now, more importantly than ever, faith is not evidence
by what one talks about, but by what one does.
Faith
is a requirement and is that for which the Lord will be looking for when He
comes back. Without faith, we cannot be pleasing, nor pleased. Why do so many exist
without what they could have and are meant to have? Because
they are without faith.
Just
as natural man cannot exist without food and water, spiritual man (the saint
of God) cannot exist without faith and hope in the very One Who delivered
saved and preserves us. If we intend for our “diet” to be well-balanced and
complete, we will have to learn to allow ourselves to be nourished by the
Creator and Sustainer of all.