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Positive Faith

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 10:23 NIV)

Faith is going to determine which of two things is going to characterize us. This is the real point. It is either going to be that we are living under a terrible paralysis, as altogether petrified through confusion, perplexity, inability to understand, being unable to disentangle, to sort things out, to see straight and see clearly, to know what is meant by happenings. That means utter paralysis, simply standing with our hands on our hips, helpless and hopeless. That is the effect of the absence of a positive faith. The only way of Life and deliverance from such a paralysis is a deliberate faith in God which causes us to take the attitude that we are going on with God, understanding or not understanding, explaining or not explaining, having light or having no light; we are going right on with God on the basis of what God has done in us, made real in us, of what God Himself is to us by what He has effected in us. We are going on!

We, beloved, shall come there and may come there more than once in the course of our life; we shall come to the place where we realise we are going right out into outer darkness and despair and paralysis, to be ruled completely out of any effectiveness, fruitfulness, or value whatever, unless we pull ourselves together and say to ourselves, "The whole thing is an inexplicable, bewildering confusion, a tangle from our standpoint or the standpoint of man; but God is, God is faithful. That is what He Himself says He is." Thus without questioning God we go on believing God. We have even to believe God to the point of putting over on to Him the responsibility for failures, for mistakes, in so far as we have really and honestly put our lives at His disposal and have become utter for God and are free from personal interests and worldly interests and are here only for God. We have to make over to the Lord's account things which may have been mistakes or failures, and trust Him with these and go on.

The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.

Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! § The blood of the Lamb. § The precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. § Without shedding of blood there is no remission. § The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

With His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. § Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, … let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.

You were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

Lev. 17:11;  John 1:29;  Rev. 7:14;  1 Peter 1:19;  Heb. 9:22;  1 John 1:7;  Heb. 9:12;   Heb. 10:19,20;  Heb. 10:22;  1 Cor. 6:20

Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.

It happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he grew faint. Then he wished death for himself, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

Job spoke, and said:.. “Why is light given to him who is in misery, and life to the bitter of soul, who long for death, but it does not come, and search for it more than hidden treasures?” § Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.

Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? “Father, save Me from this hour”? § In all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.

Ps. 55:6;  Jonah 4:8;  Job 3:2,  Job 20:21;  Ps. 34:19;  John 12:27;  Heb. 2:17,18

Christo-centric

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 2:5).

Just whose side are we on? The enemy who would occupy us with ourselves, or the Comforter who would occupy us with the risen Lord Jesus? The spirit of death, or the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus? "Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?" (Rom. 6:16).

"If we have only learned the Lord at our own side, the tendency is to be occupied with ourselves, or to seek to be an object of consideration; whereas if we have been led by the Spirit to His side, His interests and concerns will singularly occupy us."

"The natural inclination is to make oneself the center of everything passing, how it pains or cheers oneself, even musing on oneself as if one were the one solitary object for the sunshine or the cloud to rest on. If I am a hero, or a martyr to myself, I look at and regard divine things as they suit my thinking about myself, and not as answering to what He is thinking of me. I am confining the Lord to myself instead of rising up and seeing myself lost in Him, and then following Him in all the greatness and blessedness of His work and ways down here." -J.B.S.

"We may love as Jonathan, and follow as Ruth, but until we know that we are united to the Lord Jesus Christ in glory, we will not be free enough from our own interests, to take up His."

"[Who] made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant" (Phil. 2:7).

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The Superlative Person