FactFaithFeeling

What Faith Is - 6

Faith is preeminently the receptive faculty.

It not only reckons that God gives, but it stretches out its hand to take.
"As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name"
(John 1:12).

We receive the atonement from the Lord who died, and we receive the abundance of God's grace from the Lord who ever lives, so that we reign in this mortal life as we hope to reign when the heavens and earth have fled away, and there is no more sea to divide us from our beloved (Romans 5:11, 17).

The beautiful garments are prepared, faith arrays herself in them.
The armor hangs on the wall, faith girds herself in it.
The water of life gushes at her feet, but faith catches it up, as did Gideon's three hundred men.
Faith thus deals definitely with God.

Faith does not simply see His gifts as the passer-by admires the jewels in the shop window, but faith knows that all the regalia of God's kingdom are hers, and Faith takes them as she will.
Faith hears the voice of her Father saying: "Thou art ever with Me, and all that I have is thine."

It was not enough that God should give the land of Canaan by promise and covenant to the chosen race. They had to go in to possess it, to put their foot down on its soil, to till its acres, and to live in its rich products.
So it must be with the believer.

• He is first united with Jesus by a living faith, which rests in Him as Savior, Friend, and King;
• then he reckons that the Son of God is well able to make him His joint-heir of all His boundless wealth;
• and, lastly, he learns the art of receiving and using the plenteous heritage, and year by year presses the fences of his possession further back, taking in more and more of that vast extent of territory which has been assigned to him in Jesus.

Oh! settler on the boundless continent of God's fullness in Jesus,
get yourself up into the high mountain.
Look northward, southward, eastward and westward, over the lengths, and breadths, and depths, and heights of the love of God.
It is all yours from the river of Time which rises at your foot to the utmost sea of Eternity.
Be not slack to go up and possess the land, and to inherit all which God has freely bestowed on you in the Son of His love.

Father,
today I hear and believe Your rich promises to me in Your Word,
and I also reach out and take all that You are laying at my disposal,
in Jesus' name,
Amen.