THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH

Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div

“ Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draws back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.” (Hebrews 10:38).

Seemings and feelings are often substituted for faith. Pleasurable emotions and deeply satisfying experiences are part of the Christian life, but they are not all of it. Trials, conflicts, battles, and testings lie along the way, and are not to be counted as misfortunes, but rather as part of our necessary discipline.

In all these varying experiences we are to reckon on Christ as dwelling in the heart, regardless of our feelings if we are walking obediently before Him. Here is where many get into trouble; they try to walk by feeling rather than faith.

One of the saints tells us that it seemed as though God had withdrawn Himself from her. His mercy seemed clean gone. For six weeks her desolation lasted, and then the Heavenly Lover seemed to say:

“Catherine, thou hast looked for Me without in the world of sense, but all the while I have been waiting for thee; Meet Me in the inner chamber of thy spirit, for I am there.”

Distinguish between the fact of God’s presence, and the emotion of the fact. It is a happy thing when the soul seems desolate and deserted if our faith can say, “I see Thee not. I feel Thee not, but Thou art certainly and graciously here, where I am as I am.” Say it again and again: “Thou art here: though the bush does not seem to burn with fire, it does burn. I will take the shoes off off my feet, for the place on which I stand is holy ground.”

Believe God’s word and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your Rock is Christ, and it is not the Rock which ebbs and flows, but your sea.

Keep your eye steadily fixed on the infinite grandeur of Christ’s finished work and righteousness. Look to Jesus and believe, look to Jesus and live! Nay, more; as you look to him, hoist your sails and buffet manfully the sea of life. Do not remain in the haven of distrust, or sleeping on your shadows in inactive repose, or suffering your frames and feelings to pitch and toss on one another like vessels idly moored in a harbour. The religious life is not a brooding over emotions, grazing the keel of faith in the shallows, or dragging the anchor of hope through the oozy tide mud as if afraid of encountering the healthy breeze. Away! With your canvas spread to the gale, trusting in Him, who rules the raging of the waters. The safety of the tinted bird is to be on the wing. If its haunt is near the ground–if it flies low–it exposes itself to the fowler’s net or snare. If we remain grovelling on the low ground of feeling and emotion, we shall find ourselves entangled in a thousand meshes of doubt and despondency, temptation and unbelief. “But surely in vain, the net is spread in the sight of THAT WHICH HATH A WING” ( Proverbs 1:17). Hope thou in God.

When I cannot enjoy the faith of assurance, I live by the faith of adherence.