All right.
Can you open up the Scriptures to a few verses, starting in the Old Testament? Habakkuk—or Habakuk, whichever you wish to pronounce it—in chapter 2.
Starting in verse 4. Therefore, the law is ignored, and justice is never upheld, for the wicked surround the righteous. Therefore, justice—chapter 1, I’m sorry.
Sorry, you guys. They’re going like, “That’s not my Bible. Must be the Hebrew.” I’m sorry.
Behold, as for the proud one,
His soul is not right within him;
But the righteous one will live by his faith.
Then in Romans chapter 1, we have that same verse brought up again by Paul in verse 17 of chapter 1.
For in it, the righteousness—being the gospel—for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written,
But the righteous man shall live by faith.
And then Ephesians 2:8.
For by grace you have been saved through faith;
And that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
And finally, in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, starting with verse 1:
Paul and Silvanus, and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, constantly bearing in mind your work of faith.
Let’s look to the Lord.
Father, we thank You that You brought us to Yourself through Jesus Christ, and we stand in the place that You have given us in Him: a place of being Your children, of being born into Your family.
And we come to You as Your children this morning, looking to You to feed us our food, to speak to us as a father speaks to his children. Lord, we pray that our ears would be open to You.
And, Lord, we know it is only by Your Holy Spirit that You can communicate to us. So we ask, Lord, that Your Spirit would be free among us to speak into our hearts the things that You want, that we might be edified and built up. In Jesus’ name.
I want to take Jerry’s message from last week and build on it, okay?
I was wondering, because I knew I was going to speak this week a few weeks ago, and you wonder, “Lord, what do You want to say?” Sometimes you just don’t know.
And so I heard some things. You’re listening to the Lord, and the Lord speaks a verse, and you go, “Well, what are You trying to say?” I think that when Jerry spoke last week, a verse that had come to me when I was in California started to take shape.
That verse was out of 1 Thessalonians, about the work of faith. So, like I said, I’d like to take Jerry’s message from last week and run further with it.
This is one of the things I got from the message last week that I want to build on: faith is indispensable in the Christian’s life. It is indispensable.
We never graduate from the use of it. Notice I didn’t say the need of it. I said the use of it. We never graduate from the use of faith. We never outgrow the need to use faith.
As long as we live on this earth, we will never outgrow that need to use faith.
Faith is not a one-time key that you throw away after using it—a key that, once it unlocks the door and allows you to come into something, has no more use.
For a long time, I think many Christians—and certainly I did—think faith opens the door to God, and the rest of the way we trudge it out ourselves. We do not understand faith other than that faith believes our sins are forgiven.
We look at faith as something—and excuse me for saying this, because it is this—but in our minds it is so supernatural that we say, “How can I have faith? It’s just beyond me. That’s for the big saints. That’s for Moses. That’s for Abraham. That’s for Paul.”
But little people like me, I listen to their teaching, try to slug it out, and do not realize that I am called to live by faith.
What does that mean, to live by faith? Does that mean we do not take a step until the Lord—well, you know.
But all of us are called into such a relationship with God that, if we are not using faith, we never find out what it is He is doing, or even Who He is. Faith unlocks the door to Who He is.
It takes away the veil of Who He is, because you see Him working.
That is probably the biggest thing Christians need to know: that God works—not only in prayers such as, “Heal my sister,” or other things, but in life itself.
And faith is going to be the very thing that transforms us. The use of faith is a transforming power of God in our lives.
This is so important to us: not to let it go by, not to think faith is just a word that Christians use. It is actually our very life.
A life of faith. The just man, the righteous man, shall live by faith. The righteous man—those who are righteous in Christ—live by faith.
Now, we are to live by faith, and so long as we live, faith must be exercised. It must be exercised for us to live as Christians.
There is no knowing of God—real knowing of God. We have intellectual, philosophical knowledge of God, but real experiential knowledge of God only comes by faith.
I’ll talk in a little bit about how this is not something we drum up. But as long as we live, faith must be exercised, and faith will always lead us to God—always lead us to God.
Now, we want to look at two things in this: the verse in Habakkuk and Romans, where it says the life of faith; and then the work of faith, or the outworking of your faith.
We are saved by grace through faith. Today we are saved; tomorrow we are saved; the next day, saved through faith.
Then we want to look at the work of faith.
Many Christians do not live a life by faith. Whether it is out of ignorance, because we do not realize it is there for us to live by, or whether it is our own choosing.
“I don’t want to live according to this. I’m happy to get in the door. I’m happy with the blessings of God and atonement, the peace He gives to my soul, and even the physical blessings—the blessings of worldly goods.”
We are happy with that. As long as we can live in a peaceful nation—we are to pray that we can live peacefully—as long as I can live in that peace and be assured that I am not going to hell, I’m happy. That’s enough for me.
And, like I said, I include myself in that. It is so easy to be happy.
What is it to live in the outer court? To live in the outer court.
Because if you live in the outer court, you are never confronted with God. He is in the inner court; I am in the outer court. I can do business in the outer court. I can live my life as I would like in the outer court.
But faith draws me to the inner court, because the veil has been torn in two. Faith calls me in within the veil.
Now, I told you—no, I didn’t read out of Hebrews 11, but I sent out a message: read Hebrews 11. Because in Hebrews 11, we actually have a picture of the life of faith.
It is showing us what faith brings us into. That is the life of faith. God brings us into His kingdom. God brings us into His plan and purpose.
In these verses, starting with verse 4 in Hebrews and going all the way to the end, you have this picture of what God is doing through faith.
The life of faith begins with Abel. Abel brings an acceptable sacrifice. He does not bring the work of his hands, like his brother Cain did. He brings another life.
He has nothing to do with that other life. It is a life apart from him, and he offers it to God.
In that, we find that he finds propitiation. Propitiation just means atonement. His sin is atoned for. His sins are forgiven.
The penalty of his sin is paid with this acceptable sacrifice. Nothing he has done with his hands presents another life to God on his behalf.
This sacrifice reconciles one to God and allows one to begin and continue in a relationship with God—a relationship in which He is my Father and I am His child.
That brings redemption. Redemption is the restoring of one back into the purpose that God originally had for you. That is redemption.
Redemption is not just the forgiveness of sins. Full redemption is to be restored.
It is like the prodigal son coming back and saying, “I’m no longer worthy,” and the father says, “No, bring in the robe. Bring in the ring and the sandals to put on his feet. He’s my son.”
That is redemption. That is the redemption we have in fullness; we are looking forward to that full redemption.
Life continues, as we see in the life of Enoch. This reconciliation has been accomplished, and he is now, by faith, walking with God.
It is walking with God. Hebrews tells us—and this is actually from Genesis—that God is pleased with him. We infer, going back to Genesis, why God is pleased with him: because he is walking with Him.
That pleases God. When we walk with God, God is pleased, because that is what He meant for us to do: always to walk with Him, to be in that relationship.
In Noah, we see a maturing relationship. Not a relationship just as a child, but a relationship where a father can say, “I have something for you to do.”
With Noah, we see faith allowing him to do the works of God as God makes His will known to him.
It is not just that He sets out a placard and says, “Okay, this is My will.” But out of that walking, out of that relationship, there is that speaking into his life: “Do this. This is My will. This is what I want for you.”
In Abraham, we see a man of faith being brought into God’s purpose and plan for his own life.
His plan is that he blesses all nations. A wonderful plan, isn’t it? To be a blesser—not merely to receive the blessing, but to be a blesser; to be one who gives blessing to others.
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and even Jacob’s sons become the heirs and sons of God because they are sharing the blessing they have been given. They are sharing what they are inheriting from God and giving it to others.
In Moses, we see a man of faith brought into the greater purpose God has for the sons of Israel.
God is redeeming a people for Himself—a greater purpose. God has a people so that they might be a kingdom and priests to their God.
They are a people through whom man and all creation can see the glory of God, know that He alone is God, and worship and serve Him alone.
The greater purpose of God is that all the earth is filled with His glory and worships Him. The greatest purpose: we see God for Who He is.
Beyond Moses, past about verse 29, we have so great a cloud of witnesses—those who worked the works of faith in their generation, to the glory of God and the salvation of their souls and the souls of others.
How great a thing we have been called into. How humbling it is to think that someone like me, or someone like you, would be called into such a great thing. Only God can do something like that.
Now, faith is not self-generated. I do not work up faith. Matter of fact, it is not even my faith. It is a faith that God gives me.
And when I say faith God gives me, I do not mean, “Here, Jim, here’s some faith.” No, that is not how He gives faith.
Let me put it this way: faith is God-initiated.
Every work of faith comes after an encounter with God. Look at the Scriptures.
Think of Enoch. What made him walk with God? The commentators say God showed him, when he named Methuselah, “After him, it will come”—speaking about the great deluge, the flood.
That had an effect on Enoch. “God, You’re going to do this. I want to know what else is good.” And, if you look in Jude, he became a preacher of righteousness. Amazing.
Noah: God came and initiated. “Noah, I want you to build an ark.” He appeared to Abraham. He appeared to Isaac. He appeared to Jacob. He appeared to Joseph in a dream. He appeared to Moses.
Everywhere faith is shown, it is always initiated by God. It never just comes out of ourselves.
I do not have faith. If you cut me open right now and were looking for faith, you would find nothing.
But when it says, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”—which Jerry used last time—it does not mean I am just reading the Word, and then I obey it.
God speaks a word to us. Jerry mentioned the rhema. Rhema is—what was Chuck Smith’s radio show? The Word for Today. It is the word for right now.
The first Christian radio station in New Zealand, because I was in New Zealand at the time, was called Radio Rhema: for the word of God to be spoken.
But not just the word to be spoken: the word has its effect. “I do not speak My word without having it come back to Me full. It does not come back to Me void.” So His word initiates faith.
We have a divine encounter of God speaking into our lives—to us, to me, just as I am.
Abraham was an idolater. Moses was running away from God. He speaks to me just as I am, in the condition I am in. It does not change anything, because He is God.
Because He is God, He can speak to me where I am, even in His holiness, even in His righteousness. He can come to me and speak to me even in my sin, like He did to David: “You’re the man.”
And it is because He is trying to move you—move you to Him.
So we have this divine encounter, and that births faith in us: faith in God through Jesus Christ, leading us to the open door which is a life of faith in God.
Not just a life of faith. It is a life of faith in the living God.
We can have faith in many things. “I have faith the Dodgers will beat the Yankees today.” We have faith in ourselves to do certain things. We have faith in another person.
But that is not the faith we are talking about. It is faith in the living God—the God Who says, “I would dwell among you.” Not only that: “I would dwell in you.”
The reason He opens the door and brings us into the life of God is so we can experience everything those men and women in Hebrews 11 knew of God—in reality, in their experience.
That is what He wants. He wants us to experience Him as God.
That encounter with God gives us faith that leads us to the sacrifice which brings forgiveness of my sins, reconciles me to God, and redeems me back into His purpose.
Faith leads me to all those things. Notice it is not given all at once. It shows you this, and then as a result, this; and it rolls into this. It is not that I have to check off my list. It happens.
That is the life that comes out of faith in God. It happens.
Faith opens the door to Him and allows me to walk in relationship with Him Who redeemed me. It enables me to work the works of God, which is to do His will.
It brings me into God’s plan and purpose for my life, which is to be His son. It brings me into the larger purpose He has for the whole universe: that He have all the glory.
That is what a life of faith does. That is the end of a life of faith. These things are included in the life of faith.
God would not just have us know this; He would have us experience Him through this. This is what He wants for us: this life of faith.
Now, really, this is what I want to talk about. Thessalonians says, “Your work of faith.”
I want to emphasize that word your, because your is very personal. He is speaking to those people themselves.
God is speaking to us not just corporately, but individually, because for all of us there is a work of faith.
And it is not just one work. “Oh, okay, my work of faith is done. I can go now.” No. Our life has a work of faith, then another work of faith, and another work of faith, until we see Him as He is.
Now, who were the Thessalonians? You can say, “Oh, they were a bunch of Greeks.”
If you read Acts 17, where the church of Thessalonica was started by Paul, Paul then got chased out and went to Berea. There is this great description of the Thessalonians:
The Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians.
What does that say about the Thessalonians? They were no one special.
Brothers and sisters, that is a word to us. Who does God want to have a life of faith? No one special.
That includes me. That includes you. It even includes some of you who are special.
Because it says, “Not many noble,” in 1 Corinthians 1. That means there were some noble who were taken.
The people in Berea were more noble-minded, but there was something that set the Thessalonians apart from all the other people in the region of Achaia, which is in Greece.
What set them apart was that they responded to the word of God in the gospel.
If you read 1 Thessalonians chapters 1 and 2, it talks about this. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 2:13 that they received the gospel not as the word of men.
Greeks loved their philosophers. But they received it not as the words of men, but for what it really is: the word of God.
In other words, God was speaking to them, and it moved them. It says the word of God “also performs its work in you who believe.”
So, faith is initiated into a work—a work of faith.
What is your work of faith? Your work of faith, through all your life, is going to be this: what God would have you do.
That is simple. It is what God would have you do. When He speaks to you and says, “This is what I want you to do,” your work of faith is, “I believe You are speaking to me, God, and therefore I am going to respond.”
It is the will of God for you at that specific moment.
The rhema we talked about as being the word for the day—Chuck Smith—but it is the word for the moment.
It is like this analogy I have used before. You all have cars, right? Have you ever had the little red engine light come on? Oh, yeah? So what did you do? Pulled over. You act immediately.
If you do not act immediately, you find out there are consequences. You lose something—maybe your whole engine.
When that red engine light comes on, it means you need to do something now.
The word of God to us—the rhema—is that red engine light coming on. The Lord is saying, “I want you to do something now.”
That “now” might be tomorrow, but He is preparing you and saying, “I am preparing you for this.”
It is like Peter when he was on the roof napping and had that dream. The Lord said, “Okay, I’m sending you somewhere. I want you to go.”
It was not until a few hours later that people came and got him, and it was not for another day until what God wanted him to accomplish was accomplished.
It is the will of God for you personally to do, at that specific moment, what God is speaking to you. That is your work of faith.
For the Thessalonians, when Paul was preaching the gospel, at that very moment they responded to the gospel. How?
It says in verse 9 of chapter 1 that they turned away from idols to serve a living God. The New American Standard says “a living God”; some other versions say “the living God.”
That was their work of faith: to turn away from idols.
It was not that Paul showed them a commandment: “Okay, now the Bible says you should have no other gods before Me.” But when they realized that this was the living God and His gospel, God showed them their idols were not living. They were nothing.
“I am the living God.” Therefore, from recognizing what God was showing them, they could turn away from idols to serve a living God.
When God inspires us to faith—initiates faith—He also brings us to the place where, if we start to step out in obedience, we find we are able to do what God is telling us to do.
But there has to be a stepping out. There was no arguing here: “Well, let’s talk about these idols.” No. All of a sudden, they turned. They just turned.
Does it even say Paul spoke to them about idols? He spoke the gospel. He told them about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and God showed them the rest.
Now, I want to talk about works. There are a lot of things we could say are works of faith, but first of all, these are common things. These are not necessarily great works.
We shy away: “Oh, I can’t do works of faith.” But if God is speaking to you to do something, it is not like He is not going to enable you to do it.
He is going to give you the grace and the life to do what He is asking you to do.
Sometimes this work of faith is actually God working in us. It is not just us working; it is God actually working in us. It is a transforming work. He is working it in us.
For the Thessalonians, there was more to come. Do not think that after they turned from idols, there was nothing else to do.
“Oh, I turned from idols. Now we can just live our lives.” No. After this, there was more to come.
It is veiled to us, but it was not veiled to them. They had it, and they walked in it. Later on, we see brothers and sisters from Thessalonica coming to get Paul and take him back to Jerusalem after a third visit.
There was a work being done in them, and it is the same thing with us. There is an initial work, but there are continuing works of faith.
T. Austin-Sparks wrote that our first work of faith is to turn to the Lord Jesus. That is our first work of faith: to turn to His saving sacrifice.
Then the other works that come have to do with walking with Him, working with Him, and being brought into the plan for His life—just like I mentioned in Hebrews.
Sometimes the work of faith God has given us for the moment is a work God is using to seal us as His.
For example, the Thessalonians turned from idols.
You see the same thing in Amy Carmichael’s story of Mimosa. Mimosa could not allow the ashes of Shiva to be smeared on her forehead to mark her as his devotee.
It was not because some commandment had been given to her, but because in her heart, because she had met the living God, God spoke into her heart and said, “This is not the God you met.”
That is an amazing thing—to be able to speak. And this is a child. How wonderful is our God?
You see Nicky Cruz. You guys know who Nicky Cruz is? Oh, some of you do? Oh, no, huh? After school. No, Nicky Cruz—what was his book?
No, that’s David Wilkerson. Oh, Run Baby Run.
Nicky Cruz was a member of one of the most feared gangs in New York City in the 1960s, the Mau Maus. Through the ministry of David Wilkerson, who wrote The Cross and the Switchblade, Nicky Cruz was saved.
His work of faith brought him out of that gang, and he became a servant of God. He has a wonderful testimony and a wonderful life that went with it.
John Newton turned away from a life of open, flagrant sin and blasphemy against God. “There is no God,” that kind of thing—even to cursing Him.
It is even on his tombstone: “Here lies John Newton, once a sinner”—and all these things—“but saved by God, saved by grace.”
His work was turning away. God turned him away. Notice: it was not him turning; God turned him away. God turned the Thessalonians away. God turned Mimosa away. God turns you and me away.
Works of faith like this happen throughout our life. I am talking about works that seal us as God’s—that we belong to God, not that we are gods. God apostrophe S. They seal us as His.
For example, in Hebrews 11, you have Moses. Moses came to a point in his life when, it says, he came of age—when he could decide for himself.
It says he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.
He turned his back on all the world could give him—the place he had in the world. He could have had it. He could have just gone with it. But no, he turned his back on it. God sealed him as His.
Or Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. You guys know who they are?
He knows those Babylonian names. Now I’m giving them the real names, okay?
They refused to bow to the idol of the religion of the kingdom of this world—refused to bow down to the powers of the world, to the things we worship in the world.
Not just riches, but ideas about who should be worshiped—what it is to be a man who is worshiped.
They took their stand even with the sentence of death upon them.
To me, this is really important. Their faith was this: “Our God can deliver us.”
Notice they said, “Our God can deliver us.” They did not say, “Our God will deliver us.” Many times we as Christians say, “Well, we’re Christians. God will deliver us.”
But they said, “Our God can deliver us. But if He doesn’t, we still aren’t going to bow.”
Sometimes our work of faith puts us in the fire.
That does not mean God necessarily is always going to bring you through the fire. He did these brothers, but look at the myriads and myriads of martyrs.
What about them? What was God’s word to them at the time of their ordeal?
It was the same word He gave to the thief on the cross: “Stand in this, and truly, truly, I tell you, today you will be with Me in paradise.”
That was the word that made them endure to the end. It marked them, and it was such a public testimony that they were His.
All these are examples from the lives of these people. It is really an example that faith leads us to the cross, but it does not leave us at the cross.
It brings us through the cross—whether it is being brought through to glory, like the martyrs, or brought through to higher ground, like Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
They received a higher place in that kingdom because of what they did, because of their stand.
Sometimes our work of faith is simply being called to do something God has asked us to do.
I have already mentioned Peter going to Cornelius’s house. We might not understand why we are being called to do something. Peter did not understand it.
He was saying, “Wait a minute. I’ve never been not kosher. I’ve never eaten anything that’s—” And the Lord said, “What I have cleansed.”
That is a prophetic word: “What I have cleansed.” God was saying, “I have already cleansed those Gentiles.” That is wonderful.
Sometimes somebody might ask you, “Why don’t you come over for dinner?” You might think, “I really don’t know those folks.”
And the Lord says, “Go. Go with those people,” like He said to Peter when Peter heard these people were coming: “Go with them.”
Peter is going, “Okay, I don’t know why I’m going to go.” Then, when Cornelius is talking, Peter asks, “Why did you send for me?” Cornelius says, “We want to hear everything that God commanded you to say.”
Something might happen where you say something, or you hear something, that changes your life or changes their life for the good that God is doing.
Or like Gideon. Gideon was called to deliver Israel, and he said, “I think You got the wrong guy. I’m the least of my family, of the least tribe. I’m totally inadequate.”
Yet how gracious God was in that situation with Gideon. We have been reading Judges 6 and 7, and his faith is faltering all the time. Yet you see God coming alongside and bolstering what He is doing so Gideon will just trust: “I’ve got it. I’m in this with you.”
Or like the widow at Zarephath. That is in 1 Kings 17. It says God commanded her to feed Elijah.
We do not hear that directly, but God says to Elijah, “I have commanded this widow to feed you.”
Here this widow is, in a time of famine, and Elijah comes and says, “Hey, lady, you got something to eat?”
She says, “Oh, I have this one little bit of flour and some oil. I’m getting water, and we’re going to eat it before we die.”
But she says, “Okay. I’ll give it to you first.” And she never wanted. They ate until the famine was over.
God asks us to do something, and sometimes—well, I should not say sometimes—most times, it costs us something.
Sometimes our work of faith is simply to believe something He has told us or shown us.
A lot is made of this point in The Normal Christian Life: standing on God’s facts.
There have been a few times in my life when the Lord has spoken something to me in a time of great need, when I felt I was beyond help.
We can say words such as, “He will never leave or forsake you,” and all these things. They are great things to stand on. But when they are spoken to you, it is heaven. It is heaven opened.
I remember one time I was so down. I thought, “There is no way I can get back to God.” And this is a Christian.
I was waiting in a traffic jam because it was Christmas time, around a mall, just backed up. I was looking around, feeling sorry for myself and my condition.
I looked at a license plate that said, “REV 308.” The Lord quickened that to me and said, “Look it up. Revelation 3:8.”
And Revelation 3:8 says:
Behold, I have set before thee an open door, which none can shut.
That was life to me. That brought me right back into the presence of God, as if I had never left—just like that prodigal: “Bring out the robe. Give the ring. Give the sandals.”
Sometimes we just have to stand on those things. We come in, and we feel like we have blown it, or we feel like we do not have the feeling that God is there. We have to stand on the thing He has told us.
“I have redeemed you. You are Mine. You are My son. You are not just a person. You are My son. I know your name. I know who you are.”
There are things we just have to stand on. And when we stand on them, God is pleased, because He says, “This is the place I have given you. Take it.”
“Stand in it, because I have given it to you, and I want you to be here.”
It is faith initiated by a word God has given you. Restorative.
We read those two verses at the beginning from Habakkuk and Romans—Old and New Testament—almost the same thing, right? It shows you that God does not change.
In the Old Testament, He was the same way: the just man shall live by faith. The New Testament has not changed at all. Our sins are forgiven, that is great, but the just man shall live by faith.
That is the whole thing. Faith is pleasing to God. It pleases Him when we walk by faith because in faith we take Him for Who He is.
He is God. He is the Almighty. He is righteous and holy.
And yet He is our Father.
He is our heavenly Father Who loves us, provides for us, protects us, trains us up, and walks with us.
Faith’s roots are made to run deep in God. They are made to run deep in Him. They find that He is not rocky soil. He is that soft soil that bears fruit even to a hundredfold.
Our response is not an unfeeling obedience to a system-created law. It is obedience to a living God Who speaks to us—Who speaks His will, His way, and His provision into our lives in real time.
So our obedience is an obedience of faith: stepping into all that He has spoken to us in and for that moment.
What I learned in preparing for the Friday night Bible study in Judges 7 about Gideon’s victory is that to live by faith is to be stripped down to one thing: reliance on God.
Just total reliance on God. That is what God is after. That is what God wanted in the garden. He wanted Adam to be totally reliant on Him forever. That is what He wants for us.
For us to live by faith brings glory to God. By our work of faith, we are transformed into sons of God.
By our life of faith, we will come to the point where we can say in truth and in spirit, “I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded to follow Him.”
I will come into the sharing of His glory.
This is what God has for us in a life of faith: glory. That is the end.
It is not like, “Oh, I have a position,” or anything. Yes, I do have a position. I have a position in the kingdom of God and of His Christ, and I share in His glory.
How wonderful it is that God calls us to this, and that He initiates every step of the way: a life of faith. We can never be without that.
Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank You that You have willed so much for us to have.
And, Lord, we can truly say that we are lacking.
But, Lord, I thank You that the one thing You are aiming at is that You will not let us lack the faith to go into the kingdom of God, because You initiate it.
Oh Lord, may we be sensitive to what You are speaking to our hearts.
May we be moved by Your promises to us: “Go this way, and you will find My will. You will find My glory. You will find My satisfaction.”
Oh Lord, thank You that this is our lot. This is the lot You have chosen for us.
And we would take it, and we would live in it.
Help us, Lord, we pray, in Jesus’ name. Amen.