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A STUDY IN FAITH

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 10, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 28.

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A STUDY IN FAITH.

THIS is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith," says the beloved disciple.
It was shown last week what faith is not, as well as what it is. Faith is not feeling; it is not mere belief. Faith is yielding all to God, to be or not to be, to wait or work as God wills, so that God will live in His children to will and to do of His good pleasure.
The exercise of faith is not an arbitrary command of God. Not to exercise His authority does God demand faith. While the Word declares that “without faith it is impossible to please God,” it is equally true that God is pleased only with the highest good of His children. And He demands faith because it is for the highest good of ourselves and all His children, and even more for the universe.

And How Is This?

Its philosophy is not difficult of comprehension, tho we can never fathom the depths of the results of its exercise.
Unbelief centers man's thoughts upon himself, and therefore promotes and fosters selfishness. If man could, by his unaided power, overcome sin and attain to a character of righteousness, he would boast in himself alone. All his fellows would each do the same; and we should have a divided and jealous universe. Man, believing in himself, looking to himself, trusting in himself, would cease to grow beyond himself, and would forever remain a creature of circumstance, self-centered, and dwarfed in character and understanding. Having no life in himself, he would ever pass on to his eternal doom—death.
But faith looks ever outward to the infinite God and His works. It sees Him in Jesus Christ, in His glorious works of nature, in His wonderful providences. Man beholds His righteousness, His mercy, His love, His wisdom. He drinks in of the Fountain of life; he lets Christ into his heart to rule; he opens his whole soul to the glorious, expansive influences of the Infinite. He is ever growing, ever expanding, ever receiving, ever giving of the life-force of the universe. The love of God in Christ fills his own soul. He forgets self, and lives that he may labor for others.
“But will not man lose and fail by forgetting “self?” He may seem to fail in this world. He may lose property; friends may forsake him; he may be persecuted; he may even die; but he that loveth his life shall lose it; but “he that loseth his life shall keep it unto life eternal.” He who gives himself to God, who yields up his life for others, has God to care for him. And in that better world, when by choice of every soul God's sweet will shall rule in all His boundless universe, each will be served by all others save himself. Who could be better served than by all the good of the boundless kingdom of God! Well may he afford to forget himself for others, when he is remembered by all the rest. Well may he yield the few things over which he is steward that others may be blessed, when all the boundless resources of God are at the demand of his welfare.
The above may seem a selfish way of looking at it, a profitable investment to even a selfish heart. But the selfish heart will never make the investment; for faith in the blessedness of its exercise comes only to the heart wholly yielded to God. Moreover, the greatest blessing is not to the child of faith in receiving, but in giving. “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” are the words and life of the Lord Jesus. In fact, he only truly receives who truly gives; and he only truly gives who by faith in Christ Jesus pours out his soul for others' saving.
The child of faith is a minister of God's life; and the very life he ministers constantly enlarges and purifies and refines his own life. Constantly giving, ever receiving; constantly blessing, ever being blessed by the heart-enlarging, mind-expanding blessings of God.
Walking by Faith will be our next study.