post 20

WORDS OF FAITH from PEOPLE OF FAITH

Faith is not an instinct. 

It certainly is not a feeling 

– feelings don’t help much when you’re in the lions’ den 

or hanging on a wooden cross. 

Faith is not inferred from the happy way things work. 

Faith is an act of will, 

is a choice, 

is based on the unbreakable Word of a God 

who cannot lie.

[elisabeth elliot]

Faith does not operate in the realm of the 'possible'. 

There is no glory for God in that which is humanly possible. 

Faith begins where man's power ends.

Faith has nothing to do with feelings

 or impressions,

 or improbabilities,

 or outward experiences. 

If we desire to couple such things with faith, 

then we are no longer resting on the Word of God.

Faith rests on the naked Word of God. 

When we take Him at His Word, 

the heart is at peace.

[george muller]

Faith never knows where it is being led, 

but it loves and knows the One who is leading.

[oswald chambers]

Sight is not faith, 

and hearing is not faith,

 neither is feeling faith; 

but believing when we neither see, hear, nor feel is faith.

 Therefore we must believe truth before we feel to truly be 'in faith'.

[hannah whitall smith]

Faith is a living,

 daring confidence 

in God's grace, 

so sure and so certain 

that a man could stake his life on it a thousand times.

[martin luther]

By faith Abraham

went when he was called

to go to place.

And he went,

not knowing where he was going.

By faith, Noah...

concerning events unseen,

constructed an ark.

By this he condemned the world,

and became an heir of the righteousness

that comes by faith.

[hebrews 11]

 For we are powerless against this...

We do not know what to do, 

but our eyes are on you...

Believe in your God, 

and you will be established; 

believe His words, and you will succeed.

[2 chronicles 20]

post 19

"Rest in the Lord, 

and wait patiently for Him"

psalm 37:7

 In all circumstances 

of faith's trial, 

of prayer's delay, 

of hope deferred, 

of hearts' testing,

the most proper and graceful posture of the soul 

 - that which insures the largest revenue of blessing to us and of glory to God -

 is a patient waiting on the Lord. 

The moral discipline of patience is most costly. 

It keeps the soul humble,

 believing, 

prayerful. 

The mercy in which it results is

 all the more prized and precious 

from the long season of hopeful expectation.

God's time, though it tarry, 

when it comes

 proves always to have been the best.

 "My soul, wait only upon God, 

for my expectation is from him."