Tag: Faith

Digging in Deeper: Lamentations 3:21-24

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“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.'”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Lamentations is a series of complaints to God.  Jeremiah wrote these toward the end of his ministry when Babylon had conquered and destroyed Jerusalem.  It is mostly a bitter book.  It’s tone is both corporate and personal.  Chapter three here in particular is very personal.  The prophet describes feeling totally abandoned and even actively attacked by the Lord.  They are words that ring with familiarity to those who have experienced loss and grief and seasons of great distress today. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Hebrews 11:1

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“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

As the writer of Hebrews defines it here, faith is, by definition, a conviction about the positive existence of something we have not seen.  For instance and as the writer observes in v. 3, it is by faith that we conclude the world and everything in it was created by God.  We weren’t there and so we could not possibly have seen it.  And yet we believe it all the same.  The question here we must address in light of modern misunderstandings about the nature of faith, though, is this: Is it reasonable? Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Ephesians 2:8-10

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For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  For we are his workmanship; created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.  (ESV – Read the chapter)

For anyone who would argue that our salvation has in even the tiniest of ways to do with our good works, this verse puts the lie to their position.  Any individual, church, or even whole faith tradition that says otherwise is mistaken.  That’s a pretty strong way to put it, but there really isn’t any other way around what Paul says here.  Salvation comes by grace through faith and not by works.  Period.  We didn’t have anything to do with it being given to us beyond receiving the gift by faith. Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Galatians 2:21

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“I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Verses like this one are a big part of why protestants tend to be so radically committed to salvation by faith alone.  Look at what Paul is saying here closely because this is really important.  If we could somehow get ourselves into a right relationship with God by means other than the grace of God as mediated through the death and resurrection of Jesus, then His death was without purpose.  It was entirely pointless. Read the rest…

An Exclusive Club?

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“Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. . . .The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritual discerned.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Now we’re getting into some tough stuff here (and we’re only into the second of 16 chapters!).  Let’s start with what Paul seems to be saying and then we’ll deal with whether or not it’s true and what it means.   Read the rest…