What is Faith?
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How is grace received?
What is faith?
What is the right direction?
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In order to receive grace, God calls all people to respond by
faith. God's grace is only received through faith.
But what is faith?
Faith is to have trust or
confidence in something or someone as being sufficient to meet the
need.
Here is an analogy to help us understand faith which leads to
repentance.
Let's say you and a friend decide to take a road trip south, so you get
in the car and start driving. After a while you start to notice your
destination has not been on any of the road signs, but it doesn't fully
hit you until you reach a sign that says: welcome to Canada.
At this point you wouldn't just say to your friend I'm sorry and keep
driving north. Rather, you would say I'm sorry and you would turn
around and head in the opposite direction. Your whole reality has
changed.
You initially
had faith in your own ability to navigate and were fully convinced you
were heading in the right direction, but now you know you were actually
a bad navigator and headed in the completely wrong direction. So,
humbly you confess you are wrong AND you turn around, this is
repentance.
So what is the right direction?
The right direction is
having confidence that God's grace provided by Jesus Christ's life,
death, burial, and resurrection is sufficient to pay your sin
price. Therefore, you can do nothing to pay the debt you
owe. To think that you can make yourself more acceptable to
God by doing “good” is simply a form of bribery, but God is a good
judge. He cannot and will not accept bribery, He cannot and
will not accept those who are trying to work their own way to heaven,
or those who refuse to respond in faith to His Grace.
God's grace is a gift freely given to those who respond in faith this
is the only right direction. Now your faith is in Christ
alone. And this is called saving faith.
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of
yourselves, it is a gift of God. Not as a result of works, so that no
one may boast.
Do
not wait any longer -- respond in faith and get plugged in so you can grow
in your new-found faith!
