Christianity Oasis Forum

[Netchaplain]

What makes one a Christian? Primarily it is faith in Christ’s sacrificial atonement! This precedes the manifestation of works because one cannot know the service until it is learned by Scripture.

It’s All Good—For the Christian!

Or rather—it’s all God! That is, there is no partnership with God concerning the effecting of our salvation, as if we must do our part so He can does His! “Through faith” man can only be but the recipient of the redemption which was expiated by the Lord Jesus, hence the “grace” (Eph 2:8:9); and the fuller this is known, the “easier” and “lighter” our way will be (Mat 11:30).

When the path within the redeemed seems to be more than difficult, i.e. “beyond” what you can “bear” (1Co 10:13), the journey is not presently being traversed according to the prescribed pilgrimage, for the commands of God “are not grievous” (1Jhn 5:3) to saints who learn the instruction of Romans 8:28 (a favorite passage for most I strongly suspect). Nothing occurs in the life of those reborn without God first purposing it to result for their “good.”

Though any Biblical instruction may yet be in the learning process, its truth and promise are no less active for each believer because its operation depends solely on God, who will allow nothing to interfere with anything which He has “purposed” (Eph 1:9; 3:11), it is as though it is already done. We can be exhorted to know that we are not required to live by explanations but by faith in what is seen in Scripture. The learning will eventually be established (2Ti 2:7), and we will come to know that the strengthening of faith occurs mostly, not in the learning but in the lesson.

There is much instruction in applicably knowing that God has taken into account all that the believer will ever do, therefore His promises are never contingent upon our period of learning but upon His written Word. The Teacher knows we will learn, and we will know the lesson is well-learned here when each day can be welcomed with a doubtless knowledge that it has already been worked out for our “good.”

For Christians, one of the highly beneficial effects concerning all occurrences is that of strengthening our faith, which causes us to “draw close to God” (Jas 4:8)—with a nearness that is established when drawing close to one another (1Jhn 4:20). It has been well said that “love functions not according to the quality of its object, but according to its nature.”

“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb 10:22).

- NC