HOLINESS AND FAITH Part 6

The wisdom of the fathers

HOLINESS AND FAITH??Part 5

What are the the specific links between faith and holiness? Let us remember that it is not only faith that is dealing specially with Christ for sanctification, but all living faith that has the power to sanctify. Anything that casts the soul wholly on Jesus, that calls forth intense and simple trust, be it the trial of faith, the prayer of faith, or the work of faith, helps to make us holy, because it brings us into living contact with the Holy One.

It is only through the Holy Spirit that Christ and His holiness are day by day revealed and made ours in actual possession. And so the faith that receives Him is of the Spirit too. Yield yourself in simplicity and trust to His working. Do no be afraid, as if you cannot believe, for you have "the Spirit of faith" within you, so you have the power to believe. And you may ask God to strengthen you mightily by His Spirit in the inner man, for the faith that receives Christ in the indwelling that knows no break.

I have only so much faith as I have of the Spirit. Is not this then what I most need - to live entirely under the influence of the Spirit? Just as the eye in seeing is receptive and yields to let the object placed before it make its impression, so faith is the impression God makes on the soul when He draws near. Was not the faith of Abraham the fruit of God drawing near and speaking to him and the impression God made on him? Let us be still to gaze on the divine mystery of Christ our holiness. Then His presence, waited for and worshipped, will work the faith, that is, the Spirit who proceeds from Him into those who cling to Him in faith.

(from "Holy in Christ" by Andrew Murray)