Your ShelfYour Projects

THE FAITH OF JESUS

13%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 30, 1900

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 77, No. 5.

Read the full edition

THE FAITH OF JESUS.

By Mary C. Baldwin

MARY C. BALDWIN.
(Sheridan, O. T.)
In James 2:14–26 is a lesson on faith, showing that without works our faith is useless. “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”
Of what use is our body without the spirit? — It is dead; and nothing but the quickening, or life-giving, Spirit of God can again give it life. Then we must count our dead faith as useless as the body without the spirit, and rely on the same quickening Spirit of God to give us the living faith that will work.
For some time the message has gone forth, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” We believe that this message is for us as a people; but, says James, “The devils also believe, and tremble.” Now shall we receive this message with our old dead faith, as Satan would have us do, and only believe and tremble, as do he and his angels? Shall we not rather flee to the Life-giver, and earnestly “contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints”? The Lord is holding out many blessings to us, beseeching us to accept them. How our refusal to receive his proffered mercies must grieve him who has suffered so shamefully for us! He is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” We have been slow to receive his blessings of justification; and now, as he extends the blessing of glorification, our dead faith receives the blessing in a grave, as it were. Shall we not turn to the Lord, and contend for a living faith, for “the faith of Jesus”? His faith is a living faith, a faith that works.
When on earth, he healed the sick, cast out devils, and performed many wonderful works; and he said to his disciples, “He that believeth on me, . . . greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.” Before he left them, he promised to send them the Holy Spirit, which he says he is more willing to give us than we are to give good gifts to our children. Shall we receive this blessing with a dead faith, or with the faith of Jesus, the living faith?
Long have we been teaching the commandments of God; but have we had a full realization of the faith of Jesus? May the day hasten when it may be said of us, “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the FAITH of Jesus.”