Faith The Easy Way
God’s way’s are easy and his burdens are light and living
by faith is much easier than taken upon yourself the burdens
of the world by trying to conform to its vision of a successful
happy life. It’s not promised without effort, and their will be trials
while serving God but God’s promise is that he will mitigate
(lighten the load and make easier the path) even if you are required
to travel it.” because Jesus will go before you and carry your burdens.
There hath no temptation taken you but such as
is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be
tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make
a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. 1Co_10:13 “.
Lighten My Load Dear Jesus
As your conscience has been quickened by the Holy Spirit, you
have seen something of the evil of sin, of its power, its guilt, its woe;
and you look upon it with abhorrence. You feel that sin has separated
you from God, that you are in bondage to the power of evil. The more
you struggle to escape, the more you realize your helplessness. Your
motives are impure; your heart is unclean. You see that your life has
been filled with selfishness and sin. You long to be forgiven, to be
cleansed, to be set free. Harmony with God, likeness to Him—what
can you do to obtain it?
Heaven’s Peace Within
It is peace that you need—Heaven’s forgiveness and peace and
love in the soul. Money cannot buy it, intellect cannot procure it,
wisdom cannot attain to it; you can never hope, by your own efforts,
to secure it. But God offers it to you as a gift, “without money and
without price.” Isaiah 55:1. It is yours if you will but reach out your
hand and grasp it. The Lord says, “Though your sins be as scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they
shall be as wool.” Isaiah 1:18. “A new heart also will I give you, and
a new spirit will I put within you.” Ezekiel 36:26.
You have confessed your sins, and in heart put them away. You
have resolved to give yourself to God. Now go to Him, and ask that
He will wash away your sins and give you a new heart.
Then believe that He does this because He has promised . This is the lesson
which Jesus taught while He was on earth, that the gift which God
promises us, we must believe we do receive, and it is ours. Jesus
healed the people of their diseases when they had faith in His power;
He helped them in the things which they could see, thus inspiring
them with confidence in Him concerning things which they could
not see—leading them to believe in His power to forgive sins. This
He plainly stated in the healing of the man sick with palsy:
Trust in the Power
“That ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins,
(then saith He to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and
go unto thine house.” Matthew 9:6. So also John the evangelist says,
speaking of the miracles of Christ, “These are written, that ye might
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye
might have life through His name.” John 20:31.
From the simple Bible account of how Jesus healed the sick, we
may learn something about how to believe in Him for the forgiveness
of sins. Let us turn to the story of the paralytic at Bethesda. The poor
sufferer was helpless; he had not used his limbs for thirty-eight years.
Yet Jesus bade him, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.” The sick man
might have said, “Lord, if Thou wilt make me whole, I will obey Thy
word.” But, no, he believed Christ’s word, believed that he was made
whole, and he made the effort at once; he willed to walk, and he did
walk. He acted on the word of Christ, and God gave the power. He
was made whole.
But I’m a Sinner
In like manner you are a sinner. You cannot atone for your past
sins; you cannot change your heart and make yourself holy. But
God promises to do all this for you through Christ. You
believe that promise. You confess your sins and give yourself to God. You
will to serve Him. Just as surely as you do this, God will fulfill His word to
you. If you believe the promise,—believe that you are forgiven and
cleansed,—God supplies the fact; you are made whole, just as Christ
gave the paralytic power to walk when the man believed that he was
healed. It is so if you believe it.
Reject Feelings and live by Faith in God’s Facts
Do not wait to feel that you are made whole, but say, “I believe
it; it is so, not because I feel it, but because God has promised.”
Jesus says, “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe
that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” Mark 11:24. There
is a condition to this promise—that we pray according to the will of
God. But it is the will of God to cleanse us from sin, to make us His
children, and to enable us to live a holy life. So we may ask for these
blessings, and believe that we receive them, and thank God that we
have received them.
It is our privilege to go to Jesus and be cleansed,
and to stand before the law without shame or remorse. “There is
therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Romans 8:1.
Henceforth you are not your own; you are bought with a price.
“Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold;…
but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot.” 1 Peter 1:18, 19. Through this simple act of believing
God, the Holy Spirit has begotten a new life in your heart. You are
as a child born into the family of God, and He loves you as He loves
His Son.
Now that you have given yourself to Jesus, do not draw back, do
not take yourself away from Him, but day by day say, “I am Christ’s;
I have given myself to Him;” and ask Him to give you His Spirit
and keep you by His grace. As it is by giving yourself to God, and
believing Him, that you become His child, so you are to live in Him.
The apostle says, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the
Lord, so walk ye in Him.” Colossians 2:6.
Come To Christ in your weakness
Some seem to feel that they must be on probation, and must
prove to the Lord that they are reformed, before they can claim His
blessing. But they may claim the blessing of God even now. They
must have His grace, the Spirit of Christ, to help their infirmities,
or they cannot resist evil. Jesus loves to have us come to Him just
as we are, sinful, helpless, dependent. We may come with all our
weakness, our folly, our sinfulness, and fall at His feet in penitence.
It is His glory to encircle us in the arms of His love and to bind up
our wounds, to cleanse us from all impurity.
Here is where thousands fail; they do not believe that Jesus
pardons them personally, individually. They do not take God at His
word. It is the privilege of all who comply with the conditions to
know for themselves that pardon is freely extended for every sin. Put
away the suspicion that God’s promises are not meant for you. They
are for every repentant transgressor.
Receive Strength
Strength and grace have been provided through Christ to be brought
by ministering angels to every believing soul.
None are so sinful that they cannot find strength, purity,
and righteousness in Jesus, who died for them. He is waiting to strip
them of their garments stained and polluted with sin, and to put upon
them the white robes of righteousness; He bids them live and not die.
God does not deal with us as finite men deal with one another.
His thoughts are thoughts of mercy, love, and tenderest compassion.
He says, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man
his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have
mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” “I
have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud,
thy sins.” Isaiah 55:7; 44:22.
God loves to receive Sinners
“I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord
God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.” Ezekiel 18:32. Satan
is ready to steal away the blessed assurances of God. He desires to
take every glimmer of hope and every ray of light from the soul; but
you must not permit him to do this. Do not give ear to the tempter,
but say, “Jesus has died that I might live. He loves me, and wills
not that I should perish. I have a compassionate heavenly Father;
and although I have abused His love, though the blessings He has
given me have been squandered, I will arise, and go to my Father,
and say, ‘I have sinned against heaven, and before Thee, and am no
more worthy to be called Thy son: make me as one of Thy hired
servants.”’
The parable tells you how the wanderer will be received:
“When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had
compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” Luke 15:18-20.
But even this parable, tender and touching as it is, comes short
of expressing the infinite compassion of the heavenly Father. The
Lord declares by His prophet, “I have loved thee with an everlasting
love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.
” Jeremiah 31:3. While the sinner is yet far from the Father’s house, wasting
his substance in a strange country, the Father’s heart is yearning over
him; and every longing awakened in the soul to return to God is but
the tender pleading of His Spirit, wooing, entreating, drawing the
wanderer to his Father’s heart of love.
Wealth of Promises For You
With the rich promises of the Bible before you, can you give
place to doubt? Can you believe that when the poor sinner longs to
return, longs to forsake his sins, the Lord sternly withholds him from
coming to His feet in repentance? Away with such thoughts! Nothing
can hurt your own soul more than to entertain such a conception of
our heavenly Father. He hates sin, but He loves the sinner, and He
gave Himself in the person of Christ, that all who would might be
saved and have eternal blessedness in the kingdom of glory. What
stronger or more tender language could have been employed than He
has chosen in which to express His love toward us? He declares,
“Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have
compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I
not forget thee.” Isaiah 49:15.
Look up, you that are doubting and trembling; for Jesus lives to
make intercession for us. Thank God for the gift
of His dear Son and pray that He may not have died for you in vain.
The Spirit invites you today. Come with your whole heart to Jesus,
and you may claim His blessing.
As you read the promises, remember they are the expression of
unutterable love and pity. The great heart of Infinite Love is drawn
toward the sinner with boundless compassion. “We have redemption
through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.” Ephesians 1:7. Yes, only
believe that God is your helper. He wants to restore His moral image
in man. As you draw near to Him with confession and repentance,
He will draw near to you with mercy and forgiveness.
continue to Increase Your Faith to Power Faith!