Faith I ...

Monday, July 21, 2014. Let us talk about faith! Faith is in the center of Christianity. It is in the center of our relationship to God. Faith is what we are called to. Faith is what we live in. Faith is what saves us. Faith is what gives us hope. The Apostle Paul writes:

Justified by Faith …

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Ro 5, 1-5)

Paul starts with the basics of faith here. Faith gives peace with God, since we are justified through faith in Christ. When you believe in Jesus, you are fully pure before God. There are different ways in the Old and New Testament, to express this. You are accepted into his family. Your are a new creation. You are dead to your old sins. You are his kid. You are washed. You wear new cloth. You have left your old life, and started a new one.

You are in peace with God, when you have gone this step of faith. It is a little step - you do not need to bring much. But it is a monumental step at the same time, since it renews your whole existence. Come to faith in Jesus, and your life will never be the same again.

Grace and Joy …

Paul then talks about grace - the grace which we have access to by faith. The image describes again what we have just given plenty of images about. We enter his kingdom by faith. And there, we have access to his grace. It is like moving into a big warehouse. By faith in Jesus you enter, and suddenly it is all yours! You can spend hours in getting to know what is there, the manifolds of things, the manifolds of experiences. God's grace is fantastic, and he wants us to find full life.

Of course, God's “warehouse” does not mainly contain all the things which we usually have in our warehouses. But it contains a mixture of spiritual treasures as well as many different other things.

Pauls talks about Joy here first of all. We will discover a deep joy in us, when we start to believe. When we realize how wunderful God is, that will lead to joy. When we get to know his truth, his truthfulness, his love, his solidarity, his deep reliability, his humility. It leads to joy without measure, when we get to know the eternal God!

Paul talks about more … let us go into further details tomorrow. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts