Category: Devotion of the Day

BELIEVING IS OBEYING

And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
I John 3:23

It is often overlooked that God commands us to believe. He does not merely invite or urge, He commands it. Living in unbelief or uncertainty is outright disobedience. We do not honor God by indecision and doubt. It is faith that pleases Him. We ought to come to Christ immediately and trust Him and never waver, because He has bidden us come and believe and we can do anything we ought to do. He inclines us to come by His Spirit, for certainly neither the flesh nor the devil ever impelled a man toward Christ. You may be sure that He is working in you to will and do of His good pleasure, and if you will to obey Him by believing as best you know how, you may be certain He will not cast you out.

It is simple obedience to believe. Therefore “repent ye and believe the gospel.” “God commandeth all men everywhere to repent.” “And this is his commandment, that we should believe.”

END AND BEGINNING

Woe is me! For I am undone.
Isaiah 6:5

Isaiah was come to the end of himself. Like Moses in Midian, like Job when he saw God, like Daniel with his comeliness turned to corruption and Habakkuk with rottenness entering his bones; like Peter at Tiberias and Paul with his thorn, he has come to the end of all feeling and trying and praying, the end of all he is and has, to where God begins.

Blessed is that hour of holy desperation when a man reaches that extremity which is God’s opportunity and moves out of the wreck of himself into Christ. Nothing in his hand he brings, but just as he is without one plea he takes up residence with Christ in God. He puts no value on anything he has or is, attaches no importance to his feelings or faith or prayers. Christ is everything. We waste many years trying to construct some sort of refuge out of the rubbish of ourselves, until we abandon it all and dwell in Another. From then on we have no confidence in the flesh but humbly look unto Him for salvation and the “all things” that go with it, His sufficient grace for the whole man, for every day, for any need, that we, having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.