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Hope
Unlimited
Chapter
6: By Grace Through Faith
"By
grace are ye saved, through faith" (Eph 2:8).
I
THINK IT WELL to turn a little to one side that I may ask my reader
to observe adoringly the fountain-head of our salvation, which is
the grace of God.
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Grace
= God's infinite kindness, poured out in limitless measure, upon a
people who are wholly undeserving of such kindness.
Faith
= Trusting and believing in God's provision for your salvation - coupled
with a total mistrust in your own ability to save yourself. |
"By grace are ye saved."
Because God is
gracious, therefore sinful men are forgiven, converted, purified,
and saved. It is not because of anything in them, or that ever can
be in them, that they are saved; but because of the boundless love,
goodness, pity, compassion, mercy, and grace of God.
Tarry a moment,
then, at the well-head. Behold the pure river of water of life, as
it proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb!
What
an abyss is the grace of God! Who can measure its breadth? Who can
fathom its depth? Like all the rest of the divine attributes, it is
infinite. God is full of love, for "God is love." God is
full of goodness; the very name "God" is short for
"good." Unbounded goodness and love enter into the very
essence of the Godhead. It is because "his mercy endures for
ever" that men are not destroyed; because "his compassions
fail not" that sinners are brought to Him and forgiven.
Remember
this; or you may fall into error by fixing your minds so much upon
the faith which is the channel of salvation as to forget the grace
which is the fountain and source even of faith itself.
Faith is the
work of God's grace in us. No man can say that Jesus is the Christ
but by the Holy Ghost. "No man comes to me," says
Jesus, "except the Father who sent me draws him." So
that faith, which involves entering into a relationship with Jesus, is the result of divine
drawing. Grace is the first and last moving cause of salvation; and
faith, essential as it is, is only an important part of the
machinery which grace employs. We are saved "through faith," but salvation is "by
grace." Sound forth
those words as with the archangel's trumpet: "By grace are ye
saved." - By God's unmerited kindness are ye saved. What glad tidings for the undeserving!
Faith
occupies the position of a channel or conduit pipe. Grace is the
fountain and the stream; faith is the aqueduct along which the flood
of mercy flows down to refresh the thirsty sons of men. It is a
great pity when the aqueduct is broken. It is a sad sight to see
around Rome the many noble aqueducts which no longer convey water
into the city, because the arches are broken and the marvellous
structures are in ruins. The aqueduct must be kept entire to convey
the current; and, even so, faith must be true and sound, leading
right up to God and coming right down to ourselves, that it may
become a serviceable channel of mercy to our souls.
Still,
I again remind you that faith is only the channel or aqueduct, and
not the fountainhead, and we must not look so much to it as to exalt
it above the divine source of all blessing which lies in the grace
of God. Never make a Saviour out of your faith, nor think of it as if it
were the independent source of your salvation. Our life is found in
"looking unto Jesus," not in looking to our own faith. By
faith all things become possible to us; yet the power is not in the
faith, but in the God upon whom faith relies. Grace is the powerful
engine, and faith is the chain by which the carriage of the soul is
attached to the great motive power. The righteousness of faith is
not the moral excellence of faith, but the righteousness of Jesus which faith grasps and appropriates. The peace within the
soul is not derived from the contemplation of our own faith; but it
comes to us from Him who is our peace, the hem of whose garment
faith touches, and virtue comes out of Him into the soul.
See
then, dear friend, that the weakness of your faith will not destroy
you. A trembling hand may receive a golden gift. The Lord's
salvation can come to us though we have only faith as a grain of
mustard seed. The power lies in the grace of God, and not in our
faith. Great messages can be sent along slender wires, and the
peace-giving witness of the Holy Spirit can reach the heart by means
of a thread-like faith which seems almost unable to sustain its own
weight.
Think more of Him to whom you look than of the look itself.
You must look away even from your own looking, and see nothing but
Jesus, and the grace of God revealed in Him.
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