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Faith and works should travel side by side, step answering to step, like the legs of men walking. First faith, and then works; and then faith again, and then works again -- until they can scarcely distinguish which is the one and which is the other.
William Booth in The Founder’s Messages to Soldiers, Christianity Today, October 5, 1992, p. 48.
The circumstances of life often speak to us like Lucy one day spoke to Charlie Brown. Lucy said to Charlie Brown "Sometimes, I feel we are not communicating: You, Charlie Brown, are afoul ball in the line drive of life. You’re often in the shadow of your own goal post you’re a miscue. You ‘re 3 putts on the 18th green. You are a 7-10 split in the 10th frame. You have dropped a rod and reel in the lake of life. You’re a missed free throw. You’re a shacked 9-iron, a called 3rd strike, a bug on the windshield of life! Do you understand? Have I made myself clear?"
But the Christian who is living as a disciple considers that which he is confidently assured of-that he will be like Christ one day and that as he lovingly surrenders to God, he can be blessed by becoming more like Christ today. Then he replies like Paul in verse 31, "God is for me!"
Jeff Strite
A man often walked through a cemetery on his way home. One night, though, unaware that a new grave had been dug in his path, he tumbled in. For some time he struggled to get out of the 7 foot deep grave, but finally gave up and settled down for the night.
An hour later, a farmer out possum hunting came walking through the cemetery and he too fell into the grave. He began a desperate attempt to get out, unaware that there was anyone else in the grave. The first man listened to him for a few minutes, then reached over in the pitch darkness and laid a hand on his shoulder. "You can’t get out of here," he said... but he did.
A story… It was autumn, and the Indians on the remote reservation asked their new Chief if the winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was an Indian Chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky, he couldn’t tell what the weather was going to be. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he replied to his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect firewood to be prepared.
Also, being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, "Is the coming winter going to be cold?"
"It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold indeed," the meteorologist at the weather service responded. So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood in order to be prepared.
A week later, he called the National Weather Service again. "Is it going to be a very cold winter?"
"Yes," the man at National Weather Service again replied, "it’s definitely going to be a very cold winter." The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of woo...
"As I look ahead, far ahead, two to three years down the road, I do see God doing it, even though I may not know all of the details today. That’s what vision is. Vision is not a crystal ball or hearing audible voices. It is the belief in one’s heart that God is going to do something that is consistent with His Word and consistent with His will, and believing that what God is going to do will have an amazing impact on your life. Having vision is having the confident belief that the promises of God are going to be realized in the future of our church." ~ Pastor Tony Miano
MELVIN NEWLAND
Josh McDowell, a dedicated Christian intellectual, wrote, "I was invited to speak in a university in South America. Because of the university’s Marxist leanings, I was the first American to speak there in four years, & it was a tense situation.
"Big photographs of me had been posted all over campus, & the Communist students, trying to influence the other students to stay away from the meeting, had painted `CIA Agent’ in red letters across the posters. But it backfired on them. Most of the students had never seen a CIA agent, so they came to the meeting to see what one looked like, & the room was packed.
"However, as is often the case when someone speaks in that part of the world, professional Marxist agitators had also come, & their intent was to disrupt the meeting. And what happened next was horrible.
"One after another, these agitators would jump up & throw accusations at me, call me `a filthy pig,’ & hurl words at me in their own language that I didn’t know. Right in front of the audience they twisted me around their little fingers. I couldn’t answer them; I didn’t even know what they were saying.
"I felt so sorry for the Christians who were there because they had looked forward so eagerly to my coming to the campus & to seeing people come to Christ.
"After 45 minutes of this heckling, I was ready to give up. Every time I even mentioned the name of Jesus they laughed. And I thought, `God, why aren’t you doing something? Why are you letting Satan win?’ Well, evidently, I wasn’t walking by faith. You see, God works when it brings the greatest honor & glory to His name, not to ours.
"Finally, God started to work. The secretary of the Revolutionary Student Movement stood up, & everyone else became silent. I figured she must be someone important. She was quite an outspoken woman, & I didn’t know what to expect. But this is what she said, `Mr. McDowell, if I become a Christian tonight, will God give me the love for people that you have shown for us?’"
Dr. McDowell ends by saying, "Well, I don’t have to tell you what happened. It broke just about everyone’s heart who was there, & we had 58 decisions for Christ."
Back in 1830 George Wilson was convicted of robbing the U.S. Mail and was sentenced to be hanged. President Andrew Jackson issued a pardon for Wilson, but he refused to accept it. The matter went to Chief Justice Marshall, who concluded that Wilson would have to be executed. "A pardon is a slip of paper," wrote Marshall, "the value of which is determined by the acceptance of the person to be pardoned. If it is refused, it is no pardon. George Wilson must be hanged."
2,000 years ago God the Son – Jesus the Christ issues a pardon….
BUT just like in the case of George Wilson – the value of the pardon is determined by the acceptance of the person to be pardoned… If it is refused, it is no pardon….
I heard a story about a train traveling through the night in a very violent rainstorm. The lightning flashes were almost blinding, the rain hitting the windows was deafening and the strong gust winds rocked the train from side to side. When the lightening flashed and lighted up the darkness, the passengers could see the rising water along the tracks. This created terror in the minds of the passengers. Several passengers noted that through all the noise, lightening and wind, one of the passengers, a little girl, seemed to be at perfect peace. The adult passengers couldn’t figure out why the little girl was so calm during all this exci...
What does living by faith mean today? It means deciding what is the controlling principle in our lives. Is it luck or chance? I had just parked my car at the office and a lady came up to me and said, "That’s a nice car but I wouldn’t want to drive it!" I was rather puzzled and asked "Why not?" "Well" she said, "it’s green, and what’s more the registration number adds up to 13!" Fancy life being governed by superstition! It begs the question - what influences us? Is it fate or faith? Is it worldly wisdom? Or is it the Word of God, warning us that this life and this world are things that will pass away and both of them are merely a preparation for the world to come?
“I prayed for faith and thought that some day it would come down and strike me like lightning. But faith didn’t seem to come. One day I read in Romans that “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” I had up to this time, closed my Bible and prayed for faith. Now I opened my Bible and began to study and faith has been growing ever since.”
D.L. Moody
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