NOT FEELING, BUT FAITH.
By Editor
THE Sunday-School Times gives the following excellent and helpful instruction to a professed Christian, and Christian worker, who was doubting as to whether she would be saved or not. The editor thus replies: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should indulge a hope that he is saved.”
“He that heareth My Word, and believeth Him that sent Me, hath a full realization of joyful, hopeful anticipation that eternal life will be granted.”
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth shall realize that he is saved.”
“Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be assured that he is saved.”
“Pray to thy Father who is in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret shall let thee feel as if communing with God.” How utterly perverted those precious promises would be, if they read that way! Yet the perplexed soul who writes of her difficulties, is troubled because those promises do not read that way. She “knows that God is true;” she believes the Bible; her chief desire is that God’s name be glorified. Her only difficulty is her feelings, and “feelings” is a word never once mentioned by Christ. Absolutely nothing is conditioned upon our feelings, throughout the entire Bible. One who, like this troubled disciple, has given herself to the Saviour, in belief that the Saviour can save, and in consciousness of her own need of salvation, is saved, whether she feels that she is or not. To doubt this, is to doubt the words of Christ. Our Lord does not say, in His offer of life, that whosoever believeth on Him shall have eternal life, if he feels that he has received eternal life. There is no such torturing condition as that attached to Christ’s promises. There is no command to feel saved. We are not saved because of our feelings. We are not lost because of our feelings. If we look to Christ for His salvation, He will save us, and the worst feelings in the world are not enough to stand in His way. Therefore, let us turn aside from our feelings, which are unstable, uncontrollable, often meaningless, results of physical conditions, and rest on the promises of the Father and the Son. Let us “realize” the regeneration that is God’s gift, not in the superficial way of simply “feeling” that we have it (for we may never be able to feel that), but by making it real in our lives. “Every one that loveth is begotten of God.” Loving is not feeling; it is living for others. And that we may all do.