HOLINESS AND FAITH Part 4

The wisdom of the fathers

HOLINESS AND FAITH??????Part 4

And as by effort, so faith is also hindered by the desire to see and feel. ‘If you believe, you shall see;’ the Holy Spirit will seal our faith with a Divine experience; we shall see the glory of God. But this is His work: ours is, when all appears dark and cold, in the face of all that nature or experience testifies, still each moment to believe in Jesus as our all-sufficient sanctification, in whom we are perfected before God.

Complaints as to?want of feeling, as to weakness or deadness, seldom profit: it is the soul that refuses to occupy itself with itself, either with its own weakness or the strength of the enemy, but only looks to what Jesus is, and has promised to do, to whom progress in holiness will be a joyful march from victory to victory. ‘The Lord Himself does fight for you;’ this thought, so often repeated in connection with Israel’s possession of the promised land, is the food of faith: in conscious weakness, in presence of mighty enemies, it sings the conqueror’s song. When God appears to be not doing what we trusted Him for, then is just the time for faith to glory in Him.

There is perhaps nothing that more reveals the true character of faith than joy and praise. You give a child the promise of a present to-morrow: at once it says, Thank you, and is glad. The joyful thanks are the proof of how really your promise has entered the heart. You are told by a friend of a rich legacy he has left you in his will: it may not come true for years, but even now it makes you glad. We have already seen what an element of holiness joy is: it is especially an element of holiness by faith. Each time I really see how beautiful and how perfect God’s provision is, by which my holiness is in Jesus, and by which I am to allow Him to work in me, my heart ought to rise up in praise and thanks.

(from "Holy in Christ" by Andrew Murray)