Chapter 30—Faith and Prayer
“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for.” “Believe that ye
receive,...and ye shall have.”
Faith is trusting God—believing that He loves us and knows best
what is for our good. Thus, instead of our own, it leads us to choose
His way. In place of our ignorance, it accepts His wisdom; in place of
our weakness, His strength; in place of our sinfulness, His righteous-
ness. Our lives, ourselves, are already His; faith acknowledges His
ownership and accepts its blessing. Truth, uprightness, purity, have
been pointed out as secrets of life’s success. It is faith that puts us in
possession of these principles.
Every good impulse or aspiration is the gift of God; faith receives
from God the life that alone can produce true growth and efficiency.
How to exercise faith should be made very plain. To every promise
of God there are conditions. If we are willing to do His will, all His
strength is ours. Whatever gift He promises, is in the promise itself.
“The seed is the word of God.”
Luke 8:11
. As surely as the oak is in
the acorn, so surely is the gift of God in His promise. If we receive the
promise, we have the gift.
Faith that enables us to receive God’s gifts is itself a gift, of which
some measure is imparted to every human being. It grows as exercised
in appropriating the word of God. In order to strengthen faith, we must
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often bring it in contact with the word.
In the study of the Bible the student should be led to see the power
of God’s word. In the creation, “He spake, and it was done; He
commanded, and it stood fast.” He “calleth those things which be not
as though they were” (
Psalm 33:9
;
Romans 4:17
); for when He calls
them, they are.
How often those who trusted the word of God, though in them-
selves utterly helpless, have withstood the power of the whole world—
Enoch, pure in heart, holy in life, holding fast his faith in the triumph
of righteousness against a corrupt and scoffing generation; Noah and
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