The Day of New Beginnings
Why Our Salvation is Through Faith
It's very difficult to have faith and trust God when all our natural senses tell us otherwise. That's the depravity of the fallen Adamic nature within us. That's why Christ had to die on the cross to redeem us. Not just from sins committed, but from the nature from which those sins originate.
Last night I was contemplating some disappointments I had experienced and was asking God why it's so hard to perceive Him at times. It would be so much easier if He would just appear in such a way that we could physically see and hold Him. That would quell all the uncertainties and doubts.
But here's the word that came to my heart: Because of the fallen state of our nature, it will always be vulnerable to the deception of Satan. All our feelings, even our natural senses such as sight, hearing, etc. are subject to deception. They cannot be trusted. Seeing is most emphatically not believing. THIS is why all God's provision for us is through faith. Faith is based on the certainty of God's word to us, not on our weakened perception of how things are. All our senses can tell us one thing, but faith is not subject to those things. Faith transcends the fallen nature of Adam in us. People in the world mock when faith is spoken of as a greater reality than what the natural mind and senses (our flawed logic) tell us. It's because they don't understand the nature of deception. It originates in the very nature they trust in so implicitly.
Faith is born out Christ's nature in us. Its roots are in the heavenly realm, not the corrupt earthly realm of man. True faith is not the product of the Adamic nature's attempt to believe God, but rather the result of Christ's life being formed in us. Remember the words of Jesus to Thomas after the resurrection:
John 20:
25 So the other disciples were saying to him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe."
26 ¶ After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus *came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, "Peace be with you."
27 Then He *said to Thomas, "Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing."
28 Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!"
29 Jesus *said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed."
Jesus understood the propensity of the Adamic nature to deception. That's why He told Thomas to put his fingers in the nail holes and his hand in his side, and to do it believing, and not to be unbelieving. Jesus then pronounced those blessed who believe without seeing.
Our salvation is wholly a work of God. EVERYTHING about it originates in Him. Faith does not originate with man. It is imparted to us through Christ. Grace through faith will always be the key to our expanding salvation. It will be the key to the reality of God in our lives.