What do the words "Grace" & "Faith" mean?

 

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'For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works so that no one can boast,' Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8-9.

 

Grace and faith are two fundamental things that we must grasp if we are going to be right with God.

 

Grace means that we have received something we don't deserve. Since God is the creator and giver of all good things, His grace is already being shown to all. The most outstanding example of His grace was sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to be born in Bethlehem and eventually grow up and die on the cross. Through His death, He took our penalty for sin so that we, sinful men and women, can come to God. No wonder the Bible describes God's grace as 'exceeding abundant,' 1st Timothy chapter 1 verse 14.

On what basis are we then to come to God? The answer to that is in the second part of this verse. By faith! We read about faith in another passage in the Bible: 'Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,' Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1.

 

Does that mean that Christian faith is blind? Certainly not! We can understand this point from an example in daily life; we have good reason to trust in a qualified lifeguard if we are in danger in water. We also have good reason to trust in God, who provided His Son for our deliverance from sin and Hell. All that is left for us to do is put our faith in Christ that He will forgive our sins and grant us eternal life in Heaven. After doing this, the Bible calls us saved.

Written by a Guest Blogger

Reasons to trust the Bible!

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If you read my blog regularly, you will know that I write to help people look beyond their present circumstances and think about the big questions about human existence. My advice and thoughts are all from the Bible. You may think that this is narrow-minded and restrictive, but I have discovered that God’s word, the Bible, ‘is truth’, and in reality, it has opened my mind more than it has ever closed it.

But please, don’t just take my word for it. See for yourself whether it makes sense. I believe that the Bible is not a book of theory but that it changes lives through faith in the author, God. The sacred writings, the Bible, state that they 'are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus,’ 2 Tim. 3. 15. Sadly, many people are afraid to read it because they don’t know what it is about or are anxious about the demands it might make on their lifestyle.

Faith & Creation

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In his letter to the Christians in Rome, the apostle Paul interspersed his writing with several doxologies. These are short, spontaneous outbursts of praise to God, arising from some statement made about Him. In one of these doxologies, Paul used a simple but sublime description of God, ‘from whom, through whom and to whom are all things.’ This formula sums up so much of what Christians believe about God and His relationship to His creation.  

We’ll concentrate on the first phrase; all things being ‘from Him’. He is the origin of all things animate and inanimate, seen and unseen. The actual mechanics of creation might be controversial, but there can be no argument among theists about the universe’s origins as having a creator. So rather than getting bogged down in the ‘when and how’ of creation, we could make useful progress by thinking rather about the ‘who and why’? Seeing God as creator – that is, in simple terms, One who made something out of nothing - puts us at odds with the famous cosmologist Prof. Stephen Hawkin of Cambridge University, whose latest M-theory outlined in his recent book ‘The Grand Design’, sees the origin of the universe as simply the solution of a set of mathematical equations. This solution postulates that the universe has up to 11 dimensions, plus time, and says we may be part of a ‘multiverse’ rather than one universe. 

Faith & Children

 

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Many young people plan careers to do with children as teachers or similar. Well, to Jesus, children were important, first in what they were and secondly in what they represented.

 

Talking about children, let me give you my favourite illustration of what faith is. I often stand a few steps down the stairs at home, and my youngest granddaughter stands at the top of the stairs. I open my arms, and she jumps into my arms. She knows nothing about the laws of gravity or about the dynamics of bone breakage, but she still jumps. Faith is like that; it doesn’t know everything that can be known, but, as a child, it trusts in its object of trust. In this case, that’s me! In the same way, to be a person of faith in Christ, one has to be childlike but, of course, not childish. 

 

The most mature people were urged by Jesus, the Son of God, to be childlike. There are two particular child-related reported incidents in His life when His disciples did not end up looking good. Each of these incidents is recorded by the gospel writers Matthew, Mark and Luke, but each from his own particular perspective. 

 

In the first reported incident, the disciples came to Jesus, and asked, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’  Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said to his disciples, truly except you be converted [turn right around – do a U-turn], and become as little children, you shall not even enter into the kingdom of heaven. Then He went on to say that whoever is prepared to humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. The picture presented by this necessary conversion is that of turning round in a road and facing the other way. 

 

In the second incident, some little children were brought to Jesus in order that he should put his hands on them, and pray, seeking a blessing for them; however, the disciples scolded the children and tried to send them away. But Jesus told them to allow the little children to come to Him, and not to stop them coming to me because He said ‘of such is the kingdom of heaven’, and as requested, He laid his hands on them. 

 

In the parallels given in the gospels, we have some interesting personal touches in telling us what Jesus did and how He felt:

 

·      ‘Jesus was much displeased’

·      ‘Jesus called the children to him' and 

·      ‘Jesus took them up in his arms’ 

 

The sort of people who make up God’s kingdom are childlike and trusting. Child-like faith in Christ as your Saviour gets you into the kingdom of heaven, and child-like behaviour thereafter, i.e., humility and selfless service, gives you true spiritual importance. 

 

Never underestimate the importance of children; Jesus didn’t.  

Written for FTMP by a Guest Blogger

Debating in Athens

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The apostle Paul, who wrote nearly half of the New Testament, had sensibly travelled far south to Athens following hostility to his preaching in northern Greece. While waiting for his friends Silas and Timothy to catch up, Paul, like any other tourist today, looked around the city and viewed the Acropolis. Athens was then the cultural centre of the Roman Empire. It had been the cradle of democracy and was the centre of learning in just about every field of human interest: philosophy, music, theatre, religion, mathematics and science.  Indeed, the Bible says, the whole city seemed to be given over to the full-time pursuit of novelty; ‘hearing and telling some new thing’.

Facing death - a personal testimony

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Some months are particularly difficult months in terms of memories. They see anniversaries of deep loss come and go. Somebody once said 'how strange it is, to think that we pass the anniversary of our death every year not knowing which day it will be'. The day our soul will slip invisibly from this tangible, material, everyday world, into the timeless existence of the never-ending hereafter. Do you believe in an ever after? I guess it's much easier not to - but does that belief change what will be?

Are you thinking about cleaning up your life?

 

Around the House

It's funny but true that most of us like to get things cleaned up regularly. Maybe some of us leave it a little longer than others but eventually, we feel the need to get into action. It might be washing the car, tidying the garden or cleaning the house.

Looking forward to flying again!

 

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One of the benefits of travelling is that I get to fly from time to time. I enjoy flying and am not too bothered if the plane is large or small. It's been a long time since I have flown, so I am looking forward to the opportunity when it comes again.

Once when I was visiting Vancouver, I had the opportunity to fly in a three-seater small plane. It seemed tiny to me. We took off and climbed high above Vancouver, had a quick look over the edge of the Rockies, dipped over downtown Vancouver and returned to the airfield. I enjoyed it, but I was trusting the pilot, the technicians who maintained the plane, air traffic control, and many other people. Events in life are often only safe because people care, prepare and plan things in advance.