| TUESDAY | April 7 |
Exercising Faith
In their telling of the stories of Christ’s healing miracles, the Gospel writers emphasized that the underlying factor was not magic but faith. The people who were healed were challenged to exercise their faith. “ ‘According to your faith will it be done to you,’ ” Jesus said (Matt. 9:29, NIV). Extraordinary experiences that carry an undeniable stamp of miraculous divine intervention do not always result in faith, however. The truth is that many people find ways of explaining such divine interventions away.
Read Luke 16:30, 31. What important point can we take from here?
Our faith will be strengthened by the experience of seeing God at work in our own lives and in the lives of others, but our faith often will precede God’s interventions in our life. Faith will expect God to show His hand. God has promised that He will act through us and on our behalf if we have faith in Him. In that trusting faith we must take Him at His word.
How do Romans 1:17; Galatians 5:6; James 2:17, 18; and 1 John 5:4, 5 reflect various aspects of this “living through faith”?
What is, on the other hand, the tragic result when faith is absent? Rom. 11:20, Heb. 3:19.
The context of Romans 11:20 makes it clear that Paul was speaking about the ancient Hebrews, who had received the promise of salvation in a covenant relationship with Him. They could have experienced the abundant life in Christ that faith brings to all who exercise it, but their experience, and failure, is a clear reminder to us that “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6, NIV).
| Though your faith is a gift, what good reasons do you have for it? Also, even more important, what are practical ways in which you can strengthen your faith? At the same time, what are sure ways of losing it? |
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