FAITH THAT WORKS | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 22, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 49.

FAITH THAT WORKS.

THE Bible has made faith a household word. We hear and read a great deal about it. We ought to know just what it means. And yet a great many people talk and act as if they thought it was some kind of a holy pillow for Christians to sleep on. God is good. Christ has died for us, Christ pleads for us in Heaven. The Bible is full of exceeding great and precious promises. "All things work together for good to them that love God." So let us not fret or worry; let us take things easy; have a good time; dream on our faith pillow sweet dreams, and we will wake up in paradise.

Now in opposition to this vague and shadowy notion Paul writes to the Galatians about "faith that worketh." And he exhorts his Philippian converts to work out their own salvation. And James declares that faith without works is dead, being alone. The truth is that a faith which does not work is no faith at all. . . .

There is a sense in which we of ourselves can do nothing. But that is no reason or excuse for our not trying to do something. God has promised to work in us both to will and to do. Yet he will not and cannot work in us when we refuse either to will or to do. . . . His power waits for more efficient co-operation on our part, as the electricity waits in the battery until the operator connects the conducting wires with its poles. Comparatively small as our part is, he has made it indispensable. He gives us faith in order that we may work.—Occident.