The New Life

Faith.
to what God has said or promised. Wheu an honorable
man says anything, he also does it : on the back
of the saying follows the doing. So also is it with
God : when He would do anything, He says so first
through His word. When the man of God becomes
possessed with this conviction and established in it,
God always does for Him what He has said. With
God, speaking and doing always go together: the
deed follows the word :
" Shall He say it and not do
it?" 1 When I have a word of God in which He
promises to do something, I can always remain sure
that He will do it. I have simply to take and hold
fast the word, and therewith wait upon God : God
will take care that He fulfils His word to me. Before
I ever feel or experience anything, I hold fast the
promise, and I know by faith that God will make it
good to me.*
What, now, is faith? Nothing other than the certitude
that what God says is true. When God says
that something subsists or is, then does faith rejoice,
although it sees nothing of it.' When God says that
He has given me something, that something in heaven
is mine, I know by faith with entire certitude that it
is mine.* When God says that something shall come
to pass, or that He will do something for me, this is
1 Gen. xxi. i, xxxii. 12 ; Num. xiv. 17, 18, 20, xxiii. 19 ; Josh.
xxi. 45, xxiii. 14 ; 2 Sam. vii. 25, 29 ; i Chron. viii. 15, 24 Ps.
;
odx. 49.
2 lyuke i. 38, 45 John iii.
; 33, iv. 50, xi. 40, xx. 29 ; Heb. a.
XX. x8.
3 Rom. L 17, iv. 5, V. I ; Gal. iii. 27; Eph. i. 19, iii. 17.
* John iiL 16, 17, 36
; i John v. 12, 13.
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